Aug 29 2006
Falcon and a Subscription
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Falcon, my latest work of fiction, is finished. Thanks to all who read it. If you were waiting because you don’t like to read stories in small chunks (Hazel Hazel), then have a ball over at the table of contents. The story is about 30,000 words, which makes 94 pages in Microsoft Word, single-spaced with default margins.
By my rudimentary counting method of picking up a book from my shelf, that works out to about a 120-page paperback. That doesn’t mean it’s worthy of being so. It is, however, a long work for me. The work seems very heavy on dialogue and light on descriptions (giving the reader a mental picture of the setting). Now I enter the long, hard phase — revision. Assuming most of what’s already there stays, that will make it longer.
At least I’m getting that far with my stories now. The online, serial method of publishing a story has made me finish works that I otherwise barely would have started.
Now, however, I have my life back for a while. I can play with videos and photos again (which, believe it or not, take up more time than writing fiction).
Well, either way it’s a great story Mark. Glad you wrote it! *S*
Do you have any ideas for your next story??
Dave - Thanks. I appreciate that.
No ideas for what I might write next. I may write another Falcon story, but I will probably have him get out of the time travel business because writing time travel stories is hard enough without publishing it online as it’s written. Or, I could write it and then publish the whole thing when finished. I can’t imagine writing in that genre without being able to rework the whole thing before folks read it. Maybe time travel is outlawed — and Falcon helps TCE jump back in time to catch violators? Nah, he would never join TCE. But, he could join Theo for some fun.
My desire is to write something that’s not science fiction, and a little less conversation, a little less action (please). Something with more narrative text. I once prided myself on that, but I’ve started writing in more of a screenplay style.
I hear tell that revision is every author’s least favourite part of writing. Good luck with that. I quite enjoyed the story.
Mark,
Have you ever read Callahan’s Crosstim Saloon?
What a fantastic SF book (series).
It’s a collection of short stories about an SF Bar in the outskirts of NY.
I highly recommend it.