This is number 111 in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
I DIDN’T MEAN TO LIE. Honest. I made the statement in good faith, but things didn’t work out that way. I know. This is, like, the 5,000th time, but I promise, I’ll do better next time. Please forgive me.
Of course, I’m not talking about the words of a famous politician. I’m counting the number of times I’ve told my editors, “One more chapter. Maybe two.” Eight, ten, or twenty chapters later, I’m asking if they think I should divide the story into two volumes and go back to where I originally thought it would end.
I’m really terrible at this!
If I recall correctly, that’s exactly what happened when I started writing aroslav’s Team Manager series. I intended it to be three volumes, covering Dennis’s sophomore, junior, and senior years in high school. It was all going to be about basketball.
Then, I reached the end of basketball season in the crew’s sophomore year (SWISH!) and it was only March! I couldn’t just skip over the next six months until basketball season started again. I continued the story of their sophomore year with SPRINT! This went into track season and through the summer following. I managed to rein in the story line so that COACH! and CHAMP! wrapped up each of the following two years, even though technicalities of what was legal forced the last volume out until September.
The thing is, when I said it was almost finished and wrapped up SWISH!, I really thought I was ready to start COACH!, not another entire book before I got there. I just lied a little.
SPRINT! and the entire Team Manager eBook collection are available on ZBookStore. This was formerly Bookapy, but the previous incarnation has been split so that adult-oriented books are offered only through ZBookStore. At the same time, all my Devon Layne and Nathan Everett books are offered through ZBookStore, even though the Nathan Everett books are not ‘adult’ titles.
What brought the whole discussion of lying to my editors to the forefront was a recent question from my number one editor, Pixel the Cat, regarding how long my current work in progress would be. I’d just sent him a batch of chapters through chapter 32 of Forever Yours.
“Do these complete it?” he asked.
“No,” I responded. “There will be another eight or ten chapters.”
I lied.
I didn’t know I was lying at the time. I had a synopsis and a list of things to be done in those eight or ten chapters, but as I kept writing and plotting out the timeline, I realized I could make it to the end of Part III of the story in eight or ten chapters, but not to the end of the story. I’m now expecting a Part IV of another fourteen or fifteen chapters! If it’s longer than that, it will be more than one book. Am I looking at another SWISH!/SPRINT! split?
I don’t know, but I hope not.
This is actually a symptom of a very real writing problem. I could finish the story in the originally predicted eight or ten chapters. But the last part would feel compressed and rushed. I would get unlimited comments about not tying up all the loose ends, not knowing how to end a story, and general disappointment. Not that I wouldn’t get the same comments if I wrote thirty-two more chapters and tied up everything neatly. I would still get those comments, but perhaps fewer of them.
It’s a two-edged blade. Part of the responsibility is on the author. The other is on the unwillingness of readers to let go of their favorite characters or storyline. When I finished the fourth volume of Team Manager: CHAMP!, I ended the entire storyline that I planned for the main character and his girlfriends. They were in a good place together, ready to face life after high school supporting each other. But I started receiving requests and demands for a continuation of the story. What happened then? How did they continue to make their sextet work? What happened in college?
Those are all interesting questions on the surface, but they aren’t part of the story. For example, Dennis is no longer a team manager. It would be silly to continue a story called Team Manager. Is there another possible story featuring the same characters? Perhaps. Perhaps not. What’s the end-point? Where does the story go? Do I have to keep writing the story until they all die?
The same is true of any lengthy story that captures the interest and hearts of readers. People are still clamoring for a continuation of Harry Potter as an adult after school. Fewer these days since the author proved to be an asshole to a substantial part of her readership. But what would the story be? The characters have proven their worth. They have defeated the primary evil in their world. They have paired up as couples. If there was another story, it would need to be substantially different, more sedate, and frankly boring.
This was supposed to be about lying to my editors.
I have a second work in progress called Drawing on the Bright Side of the Brain. I find it is helpful for me to work on two projects at once because I need to change focus occasionally, so I don’t get bogged down in one or the other.
I haven’t even told my editors about this project. That’s not lying, is it? It’s currently eighteen chapters and nearly 60,000 words. According to my story notes, I’m about halfway through the story. But am I really? Each time I open the file I realize the story is progressing faster than I thought it would. Do I dare tell my editors I have a new story of thirty-six to forty chapters and then wrap it up in thirty? Or twenty-eight? Or fifty?
So, I hold that information close to my chest (except for the world who reads this blog and the Sausage Grinder patrons who read the story as I write it), and find I am only lying to myself when I look at what comes next and how long it will be.
But there are other little lies I tell about my stories—mostly to myself.
Those lies are called my story outline and synopsis. I start with the idea and intend to write it, but then I discover that a different character has become more interesting than I gave her credit for. I don’t want to focus the story on someone else. Or I discover a timeline flaw and don’t want to backtrack. The story changes subtly from its intended direction.
According to my plot outline, Couple A-B will break up and character C will come into A’s life, bonding in ways no one else has. They marry and have a family. Then A gets killed by a jealous former lover.
But in reality, relationship A-B grows much deeper than I intended. I don’t want them to break up. They are a perfect pair. Scratch C from the story altogether and forget about the jealous former lover.
Now I have a very different ending to the story! How much of what I have told that should lead up to the first ending is now a lie? How much of the total story do I need to change? I want to be honest in how I deal with it, but can I be?
I have sometimes used the introductory tagline “I lie for a living.” I mean, if you read my books everything is fiction. None of it is ‘true.’ Except, as Steven King is purported to have said, “Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” I would add that non-fiction is learning through information. Fiction is learning through imagination. Next week: “Lying to My Readers.”