Question: How Long Do Chapters Take To Write

So someone asked me a really good question. "What N:Era chapter took you the longest to write", but alas I couldn't really give a straight answer. 

Writing tends to be a somewhat amorphous process. Chapters aren't usually decided until rather later in the process for most writers, and instead there's a major focus on scenes. This is because scenes are you basic units of action through how the story is represented. 

Personally, I lump up scenes based on how related they are and form the chapter. I might even have to assemble what scenes I want to group together, because I might look, and go "okay, well this scene is very calm and introspective about how to achieve alignment with the nine planets while in this scene people are setting off firecrackers in their heinies, so there's a mood shift." You obviously don't want a mood clash. 

So with that being said, chapters usually don't even have a fully formed identity until way later. 

That being said, a lot of times, some groups of scenes remain together and are less touched, and are more coherently linked. Not every revision completely re-arranges a scene. In these events, however, there's still no clear answer.

So going to how many revisions I go through, I usually do at least seven or so revisions before I get to the editing state. The editing state is a lot easier as all I do is comb through the wrong commas. The revision stage can be intensive because that goes to "overall structure" of the entire story, to structure of several scenes, to structure of a scene, and so on and so forth. 

Between each revision, I like to take a small break to cleanse the palate and usually work on other projects. These breaks can last several weeks. And I like to do each revision as fresh as possible, but that usually takes me a couple days to do the rewrites. 

Overall, I know each chapter of Call of the Wild took over a hundred days before being ready. This is possible because I work on many chapters at a time, and usually have a rough draft figured out. 

Oh right, the question is what chapter took the longest. 

I dunno. Call of the Wild's first chapter theoretically took over two years, so that's my best guess.

 

 

 

Fights Should Matter

One of the most asinine things I've read recently was somebody saying they put a fight scene in a chapter to make up for all the "talking" in the previous two.

I genuinely find this annoying. 

If you put a fight in, just to have a fight, you didn't need to have a fight. Even professional WWE wrestling knows you need to have a storyline for people to care about the fight, and people are expecting random fights! 

But in all fairness: I actually kind get this. 

Look, I was a fourteen year old fanfic writer too. We all were. And a lot of times, we wanted to put in scenes just because we liked the idea, even if the scene didn't actually do anything for the plot. I mean, even nowadays, I had to slash at least twenty - thirty percent of the scenes in "Call of the Wolves" just because of wastage. 

I remember I thought I needed a tournament arc because every Yugioh series had tournament arcs. 

So I perfectly understand this. 

That being said I'm not tolerant at all of this tomfoolerishness. 

Speaking specifically: If removing a fight scene wouldn't harm your story, you should remove said fight scene. 

And I mean, the fight scene has to be important, important. 

I understand you want a fight scene "because I gots to showcase what my character can do when he gets his hands on you". But, you ought to wait just a hot moment.

Can you make this fight more important in some way? 

I'm not saying try to artificially inflate the importance of a fight, I'm saying, find an important moment to have a fight. So for instance, your character doesn't need a bar brawl against a generic NPC. 

"But can't I theoretically remove all the fights? What counts as 'necessary'?" 

What's important to your characters' growth and arc, and what's natural for your plot? Having five villains before the final villain is utterly random. Having the characters try to stop the ritual of the panda lord by taking out a scout, stealing a guard's uniform, beating up the gatekeeper, taking out the advisor, and taking out the Panda Lady is natural. 

A lot of times, I see stories where the villain just has four cronies. I'm like "well why? What's the purpose of four? Couldn't you easily cut out two of them and just have a severely shorter story? Wouldn't writing less words and fights be easier on you and your reader? Do you submit to a site with a word limit?"

You don't have to be in a rush to write poorly, but you can wait to write well.

Essentially, who is this character likely to fight on their way to greatness? If they're joining a boxing tournament, yeah they will have to face three dudes and the champion. But fun fact, you can summarize a couple of those fights.

Do we need to see them on-screen? Maybe you can just put down, "The match ended after a couple jabs before he dynamite punched the dude in the face. The crowd popped up but he sure didn't." 

If the fight doesn't need to happen, no fight. If the fight needs to happen, but doesn't need to be dramatized (doesn't develop character and plot), summarize the fight. If the fight needs to happen and is important to the story, dramatize and keep the fight. 

 

 

 

Part 3! Developer's Thoughts

 https://www.deviantart.com/saviorfoxowlis/art/N-Era-W-Call-of-the-Wolves-p3-Count-Von-No-One-969679116

 Spoilers below: 

Creating this chapter is one of my favorite parts of the story insofar. I loved writing this. Admittedly this is kinda a weird chapter to me chronologically because I know certain things the characters don't yet, but I forgot they don't know what they know so like I had to keep reminding myself that no one knows until now that the Ethereal King is part of the Fangs of Liberty/FOL. 

I wanted an almost horror-like sentiment with this chapter. Count Sylva doesn't even start off as that suspicious, but you can already see Cyras being a step ahead. 

(Cyras sniffed a couple of times and glared. She said, "So, Sylva—")

("No, I insist," Count Sylva said, just a bit too quickly.) 

Cyras, at this point, already smells the Wilder on Count Sylva. 

I also liked this build-up:

(The fox scanned the room. Everything smelled okay. In fact, everything was pretty fresh and vibrant and detergented, and even the mirror in the recess of the room was clean and clear and focused on nothing in particular. The nightstands had carved, vine-like legs and were topped with a complementary candy bowl and glasses of pure water. The corners of the ceilings were clean and devoid of cobwebs and security cameras. The window, that pointed away from the courtyard where the portal was, instead focused on the stars glittering around the moon.) 

If you notice, what is going on is that Cyras is slowly scanning each part of the room suspiciously. That's why I added a random "and security cameras" to inch that something's not right and Cyras' alarms are running on high alert. 

Coincidentally, I was listening to Spongebob music and a scare chord hit while I was editing this part. 

Some notes about the structure of the castle: The castle is four walls. The residential rooms are in the western wing, they dined in the southern wing. The garden shed was hanging out about the western wing, and that's where the lawn is. The courtyard is in between the walls while the shed is beyond the walls, outside the main castle. That's typically how castles look. So that's where they have to go through the walls into the courtyard. 

Usually, I'd explain in story, but I figure that was said well enough, or implied well enough. I just wanted to get some castle architecture notes out of the way for those wondering. This isn't for convenience. 

Anyway, let's hope next chapter comes out soon.

 https://www.deviantart.com/saviorfoxowlis/art/N-Era-W-Call-of-the-Wolves-p3-Count-Von-No-One-969679116https://www.deviantart.com/saviorfoxowlis/art/N-Era-W-Call-of-the-Wolves-p3-Count-Von-No-One-969679116

For Better Worldbuilding: Rants About Kingdoms and Cities

Greetings, mutants.

I think Bad Worldbuilding is when there's a kingdom with the best artists, a kingdom with the best scholars, and a kingdom with the best military.

Great worldbuilding is when they're all the same kingdom.

Bluntly put, the richer a country, the more likely they're going to do great with all three. You kinda need money to support the arts. Someone needs to be paying the artists. Someone needs to be paying the scholars. Someone needs to be paying the military. 

This is why the first universities appeared in Africa during the Golden Age of Islam. They had lots of money. Lots of money tends to attract lots of smart people, and smart people tend to bring in lots of money.

Also stop with the "100 people live in this city". All you'd get is farmers and coal miners. Your kingdom is not gonna be 4 square miles. That's not a kingdom, that's a backwater village in the Middle of Nowheresville, Kentucky.

Most major countries have about 100,000 or so square miles. In fact, the top 77 countries on the planet have over 100,000 square miles.

Germany: 137,000 

England: 130,000 

France: 247,000 

Singapore is a bit of a weirdo only having 281 square miles but being really powerful monetarily. 

Your kingdom, at four square miles - unless they're a remote island with no strategic necessity, no natural resources, not in the way of a major trade route - is gonna get eaten immediately.

"Lol, yeah, but I'm working with some medieval-" 

Shang Dynasty China had 30 million people at one point. That's not medieval—that is ancient china, before Rome, and had 600,000 or so square miles. 

Egypt had millions of people, about 600,000 or so square miles.

If we get to Rome, we have millions of people. Around 0—199 CE, we have one million people in Rome city proper! And 60 million people overall in the empire. At an area of over 5 million square miles.

Also Empires are coalitions of kingdoms and emperors rule over said empires. The only reason China called their leaders emperors is because China is less one country, and more a bunch of different countries and kingdoms. 

 

Question: Who's My Favorite Character(s) to Write?

No one asked the question, but for archive purposes, I'll label this as a question - who is my favorite character to write? 

Cyras has clearly become my mascot. She's even my representative, my ambassador. If I'm writing with someone, she's the first one I send out. This is partially because of how malleable she and her story are. The main parts really are just: -She was born somewhere else, she's not used to the customs where she's at now, and where she's at now is someplace different. A very universal theme, and with her curiosity, she can always move forward. 

She can be a lot more nurturing or a lot more antagonistic and violent. This isn't to say she has no set personality, just that there's plenty of parts to tap into. She's not rebellious; she's just not trusting of the law, and does, in fact, work for the Empress. 

Anyway, so I use her the most in roleplays. But that being said, is she my favorite to write? 

In the sense of in general, yes. But for emotional scenes, to be honest, I find myself more in tune with Lilu a lot of times. She's either the awkward person in the background or the one making everything awkward. I find her very understandable. I also tend to enjoy having her bully Ahmond or making sarcastic remarks, where she doesn't really seem to mean anything to the same extent that Rosod might with her viciousness.

I find Owlis probably the most difficult to write for, then Rosod. For Rosod, a lot of the case is that I can't really showcase most of her trauma that's clearly happening off-screen. In Owlis' case, she's just a wild card. 

But then again, Cyras is easiest and funnest to write, but I feel like a good Owlis is worth her weight in saffron. 

Alright, well that's my thoughts.

Question: N:Era and Revisions

"So I'm curious, what chapter had the most rewrites? If I had to guess it'd be COTW because it's the first one."

This was a part of a series of questions about revisions so I'm going to talk briefly about the revision process.

Each N:Era story usually starts as inklings of ideas that I eventually put together. This is what creates the chaotic and disjointed feel of each story that ends up wrapping together in the end despite the disparate elements. In what way does Owlis wanting Ahmond to pay back a loan, Cyras' birthday party, and someone selling Lie Detectors, logically link? In the same way that ghostly disturbances, some depressed otter girls mismanaged anger, and theft on a train link. Just because some pieces are flower pieces, and some are building pieces, doesn't matter when together they create an image of a beautiful cottage by a river stream. 

So usually, I come up with the bigger idea and do lots of pre-writing beforehand, and then I get down to littler details, until eventually I end up writing the actual chapters. I usually don't assign scenes to chapters until later down the line. At some point I realize what scenes go to what chapters. These aren't like episodes of MLP where I can go, "Okay, so this happens here, and this happens there". These are chapters. I have more leniency with how I define what or where as a section of time.

I have to then fix logical holes in the plots, or character issues, or other macroissues, and at that point, then I might start defining chapters. If necessary. 

One thing that does help define a chapter, however, is my structure follows a mix of Kishotenketsu and ten point structure. 

Chapter 1 is always my inciting incidences. The characters aren't actively in the plot yet. 

Chapter 2 usually has the characters entering the plot, and this is the First plot point. 

Chapter 3 is where I introduce a pinch point. An antagonistic force makes their first aggressive attack. Something that makes us go, "Wow." 

Chapter 4 is around the halfway point where I let out a big development until chapter 5. 

Chapter 5 is where I usually have a chapter of "now for something COMPLETELY different". An aspect that seems irrelevant, but later redefines the entirety of before. For example, again, the Purple Lady has Owlis appear for the first time ever and we later find out Cyras is both royalty and divinty. 

Chapter 6 is another pinch point. The antagonist makes a move and now things are heated up. Cyras and co. are going to fight back. 

Chapter 7 is the counterattack. Everything leads up to finale. 

Chapter 8 is the finale. Cyras does whatever shenanigans win her the day, but then there's usually a more emotional resolution to the plots with an odd solution. 

A lot of sections of story can be cut or others remolded long before I get a chance to start defining the chapters as chapters rather than impressions.

So when revising the chapters, we're already pretty far into the process. However, there's plenty of elements to look at for revision. I may, for instance, realize certain scenes need to be clipped, or the chapter may not be resolving or adding anything. 

I have to ask each scene what the goal of this scene is? Ideally, a scene needs to achieve at least three of the following: Develops characters, develops world, develops history, develops world, adds a new element, solves a mystery, brings a mystery, or foreshadows. 

I have to ask if the characters act right? Is this in-character for Cyras? Would she speak like this? Would she have taken another option? I especially like to put my characters in situations that I have no idea how to resolve. I firmly believe that creativity expands with limits. Cyras escapes a wood prison easily with magic, but if the prison cannot be escaped that way, that's a limit that makes me think. Okay, well can she unlock the lock with her claws? Well let's say her claws are clipped. And so on and so forth. 

I have to ask if the prose makes sense? Is this too effusive or is this not effusive enough? Do the words and cadence fit the feeling of the story? 

I also detest open and straightforward story-telling and dialogue. Who could ever listen to someone who says their emotions directly and their thoughts and goals clearly? Spongebob is more passive-aggressive and indirect than these blunt people. 

Then of course, where's the flow? Does this really need to be explained, or would this explanation do better somewhere else? 

Seven revisions are usually the minimum of revisions I make. 

Afterwards comes editing. Editing is usually done by me shifting the font and sizing things up. I look for out-of-place words, wrong POVs, awful metaphors, misplaced commas. Then at some point I shove that into Google Docs and see what Grammarly says, and they go, "Don't type: Cyras was the best of the girls at playing Towers the card game." Instead, "Cyras played Towers TCG best of Team N:Era". 

Personally, I'm beginning to suspect after doing the Grammarly, I should go and take a look myself. They're really great because I can't figure out what a compound or compound-complex sentence is to save the life of me, nor can I understand when to put commas in one or not. 

 

 

 

Oh right, the actual question. 

Ahem, I dunno. 

 

N:Era Call of the Wolves part 2 is out! Development thoughts . . .

https://www.deviantart.com/saviorfoxowlis/art/N-Era-Worlds-CotW-P2-The-Rising-Flood-967478167

This is part two of Call of the Wolves. I don't usually editorialize on my own stories for obvious reasons, but this one was severely cut. 

Spoilers:

Originally, they went to the bar, went out damming, went back to the bar to get Bellafauna, and went out damming again. 

I wasn't quite pleased with how placid this chapter felt, however, I wasn't about to add unnecessary battle scenes or any obstacles that wouldn't naturally occur. Outside of restructuring the entire chapter to add in situation, there wasn't much to do. Besides, building up later situations is more important to me anyway, such as Cyras being recognized more often. I also made sure there is a new development or new bit of information each page, so we're finding out more about this very dull and lifeless land. 

On the other end, I was glad to add in some more of the German vibes to this place. Before posting, there was at least one or two hours of me wrassling with Grammarly. And of course, before that is the hours and hours of revising. Between writing and published, 2/3rds of my time on a story will be spent on rewriting. 

Unfortunately, I lost some resources so I am having to rebuild my own writer's checklist so I can make sure I maintain a quality that I deem acceptable for my stories and for my readers. 

My favorite part was making some of the jokes at the bar, such as Cyras slapping and whapping Ahmond and poking her in the eye. 

Hopefully you have some joy in reading this. Thank you.

https://www.deviantart.com/saviorfoxowlis/art/N-Era-Worlds-CotW-P2-The-Rising-Flood-967478167 https://www.deviantart.com/saviorfoxowlis/art/N-Era-Worlds-CotW-P2-The-Rising-Flood-967478167