My first message is an order of business: In a previous post, I mentioned that I would update chapters 6-13 with all the new changers I made in preparation for Issue 2. I updated the pages on this website to reflect those changes. I hope that section of the reading is more enjoyable.
Now I'd like to point out an interesting concept which has a strong influence in my current system of writing. The concept I will speak of led me to making drastic changes to an older project of mine, transforming it into the Meeki & Braya story as you see it now.
Although I do not use the Snowflake method in its original form these days, I have to attribute much of my current situation to the discovery of Randy Ingermanson's idea. Before I encountered it, my approach to writing was much more chaotic. At the time I was publishing a web serial named Meeki on my main website. Sound familiar? That old story featured many similar elements to Meeki & Braya. I released twenty two 4000-word chapters before I retired the project. For some odd reason, I actually can't clearly remember how I went about planning that story, but that's not very important.
I eventually discovered the snowflake method. The idea wasn't entirely new to me, but what I saw captivated me. I knew from that moment that I had to tear down Meeki and transform it into something better by using the snowflake method. The rest is history, I think I might have made a post about this already, but I can't remember.
In addition to the snowflake, Ingermanson introduced me to a number of good books regarding editing and story telling. These are books I probably should refer to more often than I do. I'll go ahead and say it here: Every writer (fiction or otherwise) should have at least these two books: Techniques of the Selling Writer and Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. These two are the ones that really showed me how much of a newbie I was during my earlier writing years. I can't guarantee that my stories have drastically improved since then, but I do take everything much more seriously than before.
First things first, you may now read Chapter 14.
Secondly, but still as important to some, I finished my preliminary work on the print issue 2. I ordered my preview copy and will go over it one last time before putting it up for sale some time next week. It will probably be sold slightly cheaper than the first issue, mostly for your benefit. Stay tuned for more news about that.
One thing I will say is that I made a whole bunch of improvements to the chapters involved in issue 2. I believe the range of chapters is 6-13. I haven't updated the texts on this actual web page yet, but I will try to do this soon. I don't mean to keep things from you fine sirs, it's just that it takes some time to update the pages, and it's 2 AM right now, definitely not a good time to be doing productive things. Though I guess some kinds of production benefit from tiredness.
My adventures into using the intermediate features of word processors actually started a few years ago. I used to take my laptop into classes and would type up my notes there. I'd also play Nethack when class sessions became a little too boring. At the time I used the Abiword word processor to type documents. Through random acts of fate, I discovered that you could have the program mark changes you make to a document. I suspect that this feature has probably been around forever, but I'm a little slow on the discovery of such features that aren't widely discussed.
Yesterday I was thinking about the kind of thing I wanted to do after Away From Home, or after Chapter 20 to be precise. I won't spoil the story too much for now, but the ending of Away From Home as I originally planned it left the characters in a very troubling position, but not necessarily an urgent one. It allows for a number of possibilities.
In the process of revising chapter 9, my attention returned to a very interesting free software that I found many months ago. This one has helped me quite a bit in ways I will describe with as much detail as I can manage at 12:37 am.
One of the things that can drag down writing quality is excessive unintended repetition of phrases. As an example, your natural unrevised writing style may involve "of the" way too often. What I'm talking about here is when multiple instances of "of the" appear too closely together for comfort. This sort of dangerous repitition happens more often than you might think, and the antconc program is an excellent tool for tracking this down.
I will now provide a screenshot of one useful function it serves. In this example, I am analyzing David Gonterman's Blood and Metal Alpha chapter 1, because he is a marvel in the field of authoring.
What you see above is a collection of two word phrases that occur in the text more than four times. It's no surprise that Davey Crockett appears in second place. The lesson is clear: David Gonterman is so obsessed with his talentless mary sue self-insert character that it takes precedence over most of the English language.
Gonterhate aside, the "N-Grams" listing as well as the "Concordance Plot" provide an excellent analysis of what phrases you might be writing too frequently. The program can do some other related things as well, so I definitely recommend it to writers and those who are simply curious.
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