Hewer on 1/10/2008 at 03:59
I think the print on demand would be best. Of course that doesn't mean that you couldn't still release it digitally also.
And if you haven't already got it lined up, I think holding a contest here on TTLG for doing the cover illustrations would be fun.
Digital Nightfall on 1/10/2008 at 05:00
fett, as much as I think eidos wouldn't give a crap, I am afraid that setting up any kind of "store" would be venturing into the realm of "questionable". I'd simply rather avoid that area. If the demand for the actual printed novels turn out to be greater than just a few people, I'll see about working out some way to offset the time and cost to myself.
I don't have a cover artist lined up, but I have some options in mind.
demagogue on 1/10/2008 at 05:28
My advice:
- Keep a Chicago Manual of Style always by your side and refer to it (even when you want to break a rule).
- The best advice I ever got for powerful writing was, after you've gotten through a big chunk of pages, go back over it: for every page, cut any paragraphs you can, putting info in other paragraphs if you must; for every paragraph try to get rid of or combine every sentence you can; and for every sentence try to get rid of every word you don't need. One or two words here and there might not sound like much, but over 10 pages it makes a difference. (I like to think of it in cost/benefit terms, how many words/reading time for how much info ... You want to give the most info in the least time/fewest words.) Also, in my experience, writing concisely is something that comes after you've already done the writing. The first round, just get it out.
(N.B., this is probably why I edit practically all my posts, and those I don't always end up too long.)
- As for the form, I'm liking .pdf, but if you want to make a hardcopy that looks good ... then you know how to tempt your target audience.
- Admit it, you are just a masochistic sucker for big projects requiring a lot of work, aren't you? You must feed off of it. :joke:
- Good luck. (",)-b
Digital Nightfall on 1/10/2008 at 05:34
Quote Posted by demagogue
- The best advice I ever got for powerful writing was, after you've gotten through a big chunk of pages, go back over it: for every page, cut any paragraphs you can, putting info in other paragraphs if you must; for every paragraph try to get rid of or combine every sentence you can; and for every sentence try to get rid of every word you don't need. One or two words here and there might not sound like much, but over 10 pages it makes a difference. (I like to think of it in cost/benefit terms, how many words/reading time for how much info ... You want to give the most info in the least time/fewest words.) Also, in my experience, writing concisely is something that comes after you've already done the writing. The first round, just get it out.
Or as I've heard it said...
Quote:
After you're done admiring what you've written, pat yourself on the back, and then rewrite it, half as long.
I think the fact that I went into architecture school should have been a big hint that I am a masochistic sucker for big projects requiring a lot of work.
fett on 1/10/2008 at 18:59
Quote Posted by Digital Nightfall
I think the fact that I went into architecture school should have been a big hint that I am a masochistic sucker for big projects requiring a lot of work.
HEY GUYS WHATS THIS COSAS THING I KEEP HEREING ABOUT
theBlackman on 1/10/2008 at 21:20
Quote Posted by fett
HEY GUYS WHATS THIS COSAS THING I KEEP HEREING ABOUT
Did you "here" about it hear?
Dussander on 2/10/2008 at 14:51
Books tend to be around 500 pages long, so perhaps two books could be a logical split, with several chapters in both. Or do two books with 2/3 major sections with several chapters within them (what Stephen King tends to do). Six separate books will mean you'll have to tailor 5 distinct places to cleanly split the story and make the reader want to continue with the books with a suitable cliff-hanger. Plus six books would be quite thin, I'd say no more than 3 books for 1000 pages.
snowcap21 on 2/10/2008 at 15:14
My favourite choice would be to read it as a .pdf or a collection of .pdfs - reading such long texts online is a pain and I prefer to have everything at hand to read it when I like (and when it's really good I like to read all at once of course :D).
Printing a book? Sure, if it's legally possible and not too much trouble.
demagogue on 2/10/2008 at 15:22
With a .pdf you can control the formatting of the text and page, which is a nice thing when you're reading a longer text. It gives it some gravitas too, so it doesn't physically look like it was sneezed out in one night.
Digital Nightfall on 12/10/2008 at 13:29
An update.
I just finished another chapter. This one took about two weeks to write, which meant it was 'tough one' ... Usually when I sit down to write it takes me 4 - 2 days to finish a chapter. I never mentioned it out loud here, I thought it would be assumed, and then I took it for granted, and then I started to wonder if I had been misleading. This is still the rewrite of the original Correspondence of Thieves (COT), which was done as an email role-play between myself and four others in the months in between the release of Thief 1 and dromed. With the blessings of the other four, I set out to turn our email adventure into more of a proper novel (and work out many of the oddities which develop when a story is being made up by five different brains on the spot). Of course, that's how it started. It's now about one fourth COT rewrite, one fourth COT2 (which was also being worked on, but I threw out), and one half completely new story.
I have quite a few people reading the work-in-progress now (I won't name them out loud, in case they don't want to be put on the spot) and inadvertently created a pretty good review committee. There's a canon expert, an obsessive FM player (no more obsessive than the canon expert!), an experienced writer, someone familiar with the original story, an innocent bystander, and someone who has never even heard of Thief but who likes to read well enough. I bet half of those people can be guessed. :) So far I have been getting alot of enthusiasm and encouragement from them... and alot of things to fix! (For example, I should not use the non-word "alot" in any formal writing (except for dialog) and if I have done so, I am sure they will tell me!)
Now, the real reason I am posting is about the poll. I have decided...
* Weekly chapter releases of PDF files in both black on white and standard format. (About 20 +/- 2 chapters in total, so about 5 months of releases.)
* The story will be broken up into 6 volumes, (which will make the proofreading and editing task much more manageable,) each to be bound-paper-published some time after each set of chapters goes online (allowing for continued editing based on feedback from the online releases, and possibly to complete the cover art)
* When the whole thing is done, one final volume with the whole story will be created, probably hardback.
* Distribution will be kept casual and discrete, and will not involve anything that can be misconstrued as a retail distribution.
This part is for people who have read (and still remember) the original COT...
[SPOILER]It is difficult to say at which point in the original the new Chapter 15 falls. Some events resemble those depicted in ch17. Others are much more like ch20. More are directly from my COT2 notes, resembling events nearly two-thirds through that proposed story. A huge portion of it, however, was never imagined in the original nor the sequel.[/SPOILER]
