Hi friends! Hope you’re doing well! I’m not, we got hit by a TORNADO what the hell, but we persevere anyway.
If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice you’re getting a section of Across Worlds with You each month. There will be 7-10 parts in total (not sure exactly where I’m breaking it up yet) so we’re good for the rest of the year, and then, in theory, it’ll get consolidated and released in book form.
This is the fourth serial I’ve done. Hidden Worlds (one of our launch titles, recently received a 5-star review from Readers’ Favorite) started as a serial, many many years ago, and I had a scifi one that I wrote for a prompt community over the course of 10 years. (That one is a mess and will never see the light of day, unless I am very bored one day and feel the need to rip a project to shreds.)
Last year I had Deep and Blue here, if you’d like to read over that, and now we’re onto Across Worlds with You.
I actually outlined Across Worlds with You something like seven years ago. I’ve found that, sometimes, it’s better to outline a story (or at least write down important parts) even when you know you’re not going to write it right then. Brains are stupid; they forget stuff all the time. I don’t know how many stories or parts of stories I’ve lost over the years because I was like “Oh, yes, that’s amazing, no way I’ll forget that!”
And then did. So.
Anyway, what’s different about Across Worlds with You is that I wrote it all before I started posting it. My default with the serials has traditionally been to just write the next section when it’s time to write the next section. Hidden Worlds was written this way, and it’s a miracle that it was coherent enough to be easily edited into the form that it exists in today. My second one was an unmitigated disaster fire. I did take to, in the later sections of the story, outlining at least the next few sections ahead, but it has continuity errors, places where I redid worldbuilding, a complicated and confusing plot, and a main character who is essentially a piece of wood.
Deep and Blue I outlined the whole story beforehand, but I still wrote each section right before it needed to be turned in. And luckily that worked out okay, but I don’t know that it would have for a longer work. (Deep and Blue is about 10K, altogether.)
So, having done serials a number of different ways now, how do I feel?
There are pros to writing each section as you need it. It keeps you writing on a regular basis and it allows you to change things based on feedback you’re getting.
There are also pros to writing the whole thing up front! For example, I’ve already written and edited the whole thing, so I don’t have to worry about contradicting myself anywhere, writing myself into a corner, or breaking my plot in such a way that it’s unfixable. I just need to post the section when it’s time to post it.
Anyway, I hope you guys are enjoying Across Worlds with You!