The Truancy

Day 01 –

Well, here I am. This is really a major project for me – with Truancy I proved (mainly to myself) that I could write a book, and with Truancy Origins I proved that the first time wasn’t a fluke. With Truancy City, I hope to both establish consistency as a writer, as well as bring an end to what has been an amazing undertaking and life-changing journey. This is both the end of the Truancy trilogy, and, I feel, a new beginning for myself as a writer.

Now with that out of the way, on to the writing update. Since I’m just settling down here, I have a mostly easy task for now. I need to get my notes and materials in order, clean up the Prologue and Chapter 1 (both of which have, more or less, been written) and start preparing for what comes next.

As with all of my projects, I will be using an outline. With Truancy my outline was half-complete and constantly changing (for the better, I hope). With Truancy Origins it was much more precise and detailed, as I had less wriggle room with a prequel. This time I’ve decided to take the former approach – my outline is detailed all the way through Part 2, but after that things get murky. I’m counting on my muse to light the way as I proceed.

There are a few problems that I’ve run into already that I never dealt with before. First of all, since this is a sequel, I will be hitting the ground running as far as action is concerned. The war is already raging, leaving little opportunity for “school scenes”. However I really want to include some backstory, and this naturally calls for flashbacks. I’m still undecided about how to deal with those, but since they’re needed fairly early on, I will have to make a decision soon.

That’s all for today.

Day 02 –

Funnily enough, the entry above was actually written yesterday, as I only got internet access here today. Since then, the Prologue and Chapter 1 have been completed to my satisfaction. However, I’ve yet to reach the writing mindset where I can write a chapter a day. It usually takes a couple days to get there, but I’m not discounting the possibility that I’m a bit burnt out.

There’s no shortage of ideas, but right now I’m just not writing at a fast enough rate. We’ll have to see how things go as I move forward.

On a technical side, I’ve come to a pivotal question here in Chapter 2 – what to do about Umasi’s name? Pretty much everyone by now realizes that his name was derived from mine, except backwards. And pretty much everyone draws the wrong conclusion from that. It’s not a self insertion character, and he does not resemble me much in appearance or in personality (Zyid fits that bill much better, actually). I guess it’s just human nature to judge by superficialities.

At any rate, the misunderstandings were getting so annoying that I was seriously considering having Umasi change his name and take up the identity of Zyid, which was recently vacated by his late brother. This is actually in line with some other changes to the character (which I can’t discuss without significant spoilers). However, now that I’m actually trying it out, the switch just doesn’t feel right, and it would conflict with other plot elements later on. I’ve decided to scrap the name swap idea, because otherwise I would be compromising the integrity of the story due to a little teasing, which doesn’t sit right with me.

That’s all for today. I hope to finish Chapter 2 tonight and start to hit that essential pace. We’ll see what happens.

Day 03 –

Chapter 2 is nearly but not totally complete. I will almost certainly finish it tomorrow and begin work on the next chapter as well. In order to do that, I had to come to a decision about the backstory, and I decided that it would be told through three special “Flashback” chapters spread throughout the story. They will not be referred to as Chapters, but rather Flashback 1, 2, and 3.

As for Chapter 2, I’m fairly satisfied with how it’s coming along. I originally imagined it as being more action-packed than it ended up being, but I scrapped most of the action because it didn’t move the story along, and exposition is more important at this point. Pacing is also something to keep in mind – soon enough the story is going to turn into a wild ride, so it’s wise to start off relatively slow.

I also had a helpful revelation about the backstory of one of the new characters that will be introduced in this book. I started off with little to no depth to any of them, but, like the readers, I’m discovering their motivations and their personalities as I go along. I must say I’m already getting attached.

It’s really going to be a shame when not every character gets to survive.

Anyway, looking forward, I’m not looking forward to writing Flashback 1. I think I’m going to have trouble suddenly plunging myself into the past, but at least Chapter 3 comes after it. That’s when the action really picks up, and it also sees the return of a character that I’ve missed. I wish I could tell you who it is, but that would be a rather large spoiler at this point. Maybe some other time!

Day 04 –

Actual writing remains slow for now (though as predicted I have managed to finish off Chapter 2) but I’ve been making a lot of interesting progress concerning the structure of the novel and techniques to be used therein. For example, there’s an awful lot of backstory that needs to be told in a conversation between two characters – however, these characters only have the opportunity to meet once, and there was no way I could fit everything into that one scene.

So instead I’ve decided to spread it out as a divider between each of the four (possibly five) parts of the book. In Truancy Origins I also used a divider, but a much simpler one. I’m really liking these new dividers, though. They introduce each section perfectly, they convey necessary information, and there’s also chronological sophistication because some parts of it will be presented before the conversation has taken place, and others afterwards.

It’s one of those things that an author probably cares about far more than his audience.

At any rate, after a record breaking short Chapter 1, Chapter 2 turned out a bit longer than I had planned, and I’m still not quite happy with it. Going forward, it looks like a lot of these chapters are going to be lengthy. The printing department of my publisher scolded me for writing such a long book with Truancy Origins, and with Truancy City I’ve been trying to keep things as concise as possible.

Unfortunately, there’s just so much going on with the plot that keeping length under control can have inconsistent results. Oh well, nothing I can do about that – I’m not compromising the integrity of the story for length’s sake.

Day 05 –

This third chapter is going better than I expected it to. As I explained yesterday, I’m not precisely calling this Chapter 3 because it consists purely of flashbacks. However, I’ve also decided that calling them Flashbacks would be too blunt. Therefore I’ve come to a compromise and will be calling these Chapter -1, Chapter -2, and Chapter -3.

I’m liking Chapter -1 because I get to revisit a couple scenes from Truancy Origins, except from a new perspective. This means that I don’t have to create new events, per se, since the events have already established. However I do get to reinterpret them, which is fun for me and hopefully interesting for the reader.

I was presented with something of a problem concerning the last scene in the chapter, one of the two scenes that appeared in Truancy Origins. In Origins, this scene is told from the current protagonist's point of view already, so I couldn’t do a perspective shift. So instead I decided to extend the scene and trim it down to pretty much the dialogue only. This creates a significantly different effect, and also cuts the scene such that someone already familiar with Origins won’t be bored. Meanwhile, a total newcomer still gets the essential information he or she needs.

But it’s not all reused material – there are also three completely new scenes that further expand the backstory. Though I have less time to introduce the new protagonist, I’m determined to make him as fleshed out as the others.

Oh right, and if I haven’t mentioned it before, I think it’s safe to do so now – each book in the Truancy series will follow a different protagonist. I like to mix things up, you see.

Lol. It's funny how you're talking about Truancy Origins when it hasn't even come out yet. But that's cool, makes me excited for it! Can't wait for the 2nd and 3rd book! Should be awesome!

Day 06 –

I’m definitely writing at a much faster rate now. Yesterday I finished Chapter -1 in one day, and today I’ve completed nearly all of the fairly lengthy Chapter 3. This chapter contains the first major battle scene in the book, and so far I like how it turned out. The ongoing conflict between the Truancy and the Student Militia is fun to portray.

From here on out I think the writing will become easier, because I’m actively looking forward to doing these chapters. The beginning is always the hardest part, but once the foundation is set I really get to have fun just going with the flow.

Already some changes are being made to the outline. My original plans called for 11 chapters (including Chapter -1 and Chapter -2) in Part 1, but I’ve merged two and cut that number down to a round 10. I’m still not yet certain if the final book will have 4 parts, or 5. It could still go either way, but I’m currently leaning towards 4. That would make for some nice symmetry, since Truancy had 3 parts and Truancy Origins had 5.

At any rate, there’s not much more to report except that things are still going smoothly. My only regret at this point is that I don’t have so much free time. There’s a nice pool here that I would like to be able to use more often.

Day 07 –

Today I took a break, more or less. Instead of intensive writing I decided to go swimming and watch TV. As far as writing is concerned, I mostly smoothed over Chapter 3 and made preparations (formatting, assembly of pre-written material, modifications to the outline) for Chapter 4. So far I’ve written 56 pages (Times New Roman, 12 Font, Double Spaced) of completed material spread across 4 Chapters plus the Prologue.

The upcoming Chapter 4 is an important one with a lot of potential, and I want to be sure that I get it right. If my predictions are correct it’ll turn out to be fairly long (longer than Chapter 3, which was nearly all action). I’ve finally settled down into the proper writing “rhythm”, and I’m fairly confident that I will be able to finish most, if not all of this book this summer.

Chapter 3 was action-packed, but I just now realized why I didn’t have much fun writing it and why it turned out relatively short. Whenever I have what seems to me to be an inspired concept for a battle scene, I can’t wait to commit it to paper and my enthusiasm usually bleeds into the scene. In this case, however, I didn’t have a grand innovation or new concept. Despite a clean execution, there wasn’t a brilliant and fresh idea behind it.

Fortunately, at the end of Part 1 I will have the opportunity to do an action scene that I’ve wanted to portray for a very long time. I’ll just have to wait until then, I suppose.

Day 08 –

Progress remains adequate. Chapter 4 is nearly finished up, and I’m now also starting to prepare for Chapter -2, which comes next. As I predicted, Chapter 4 turned out to be pretty long thanks to a large amount of dialogue and exposition. This is a sort of transitional chapter. It helps wind down from the battle in the last chapter, and also takes the opportunity to advance the plot while developing the characters. Funnily enough, I enjoyed writing this more than I enjoyed writing the battle scenes thus far.

Chapter 4 also reintroduces another old character, one that’s changed a bit since Truancy. This means that all most of the main players have at least been shown already. The foundations have been laid - I won’t have to waste much time on introductions later.

Currently, looking forward, I’m considering merging another two chapters, which would bring the total for Part 1 down to 9. Sometimes a concept appears greater in my head than it does on paper, and I need to compensate accordingly. This is why I consider my outlines to be reminders more than guidelines. They help me organize my thoughts and tweak the story before it’s written. Really, an invaluable tool. I wouldn’t be able to write without it.

Day 09 –

Today, due to various distractions, I did not accomplish as much as I would have liked. I polished Chapter 4 and began work on Chapter -2, but the latter is proving to be a bit difficult, and I’m still hoping to be able to cut down on the length of Chapter 4. I’m currently looking at 18 pages of conversation and exposition, and while I believe the dialogue is good, I’m worried about this being a case of too much of a good thing.

It’s at times like these that I wish I had a beta reader.

The problem that I’m faced with right now is that this is the only logical place I can think of to place Chapter -2. However, it follows the unexpectedly lengthy Chapter 4, which was mostly exposition and largely devoid of action. Following up the exposition-based Chapter 4 with a series of flashbacks might risk tempting the reader to skip ahead, despite the fact that some of these flashbacks do contain action in and of themselves.

Chapter -1 had flashbacks mostly taken from the time of Truancy Origins or before. Chapter -2 will mostly cover the time period of Truancy. When readers acquaint themselves with the new protagonist this will make sense, but for now suffice it to say that in these chapters you will be able to see events you thought you were familiar with from a totally new angle.