TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry 4

FFC #4 - The nature of Horizon in Sight

Last year (yep, that joke still lives), I wrote my FFC #3, revealing who would and wouldn't be appearing in Horizon in Sight.

Unfortunately, shortly afterwards, I realized that I had made an error. I had developed the subcharacters, intending to follow by creating and developing the subplots. The problem was... the subplots created their own subcharacters, and completely removed the need for others. I quickly realized that I should have worked with subplots first, and subcharacters second.

So that's what I'm doing. Once I'm done with the subplots for HiS, I'll go back to the subcharacters and pick up the pieces. Until then... there's a good chance everything I said in FFC #3 is wrong. There's also a good chance everything I said will still apply too. Just... be forewarned.

On the topic of being forewarned, a few things are becoming clear about HiS; a few things which I think you should know going in.

The series. First off, I've been saying for a while that HiS will contain several books. That's true. What I've neglected to mention is just how long those books will be.

While it is important to take this with a grain of salt (because there is a lot of content not in the outline yet), there is a very real possibility that those books will be pretty short, compared to my other works. They could be as short as 40-50 pages each (A Chance was ~73 pages by contrast).

If the books are that short, there will likely be three or four of them. Maybe five. The other option is of course for me to just combine everything into a massive book. If I do that, I'll still break it up into proper chunks. It just means I'll write the whole thing before posting it (whereas otherwise I would just write the first book before I begin to post - most likely).

Variation. This is something else which has become increasingly clear as I develop. Currently, it is virtually a certainty that the first book will not take place on Valhalla.

Dan is going to Valhalla, but there is a good chunk of the plot that needs to happen before that.

That chunk of plot contains only two characters, with a third appearing in perhaps two chapters, and covers exactly sixty-two square feet. If you've read The Quest, you can probably figure out what that means. And there's a lot of it.

This means Dan isn't going to Valhalla right away, and you won't see Ana, Vervalsing, or Gormal, until the second book. In case any of your were expecting a quick transition from Isadora to Valhalla... well, now you know.

I'm not saying the first part is boring, mind you.

All that being said - Horizon in Sight is looking to be pretty good. For having never dealt with subplots before, I think they're coming along great. I think they're filling up the tale with everything I was weakest on, as well as fixing all the other problems I knew about.

As always, watch my sig to keep an eye on my progress.

~TGRF.