The Serpent and the Crow

Author's Note

What you have read was a first draft. It is my first novel ever. Some people put this section first, but I wanted you immersed in the world of Solemn Pines.

If you have not read my bio then I'll try to explain some of the odd tenses and phrasing within the novel; I am a screenwriter. I have written screenplays since I was 15 years old. I am now 36 years old. I have had a varied experience within the film industry and television here in New Zealand. Hence why some things may seem off; tense wise.

Creating the story.
I used the same story-structure as I would a film; The Three Act structure.

1.Act One (Set up)
Set up the world, characters, and have an opening image, etc. In film, each page of format script is equivalent to one minute screen time. However, I adapted it to 75 pages worth, and this leads into...

2.The Inciting Incident
Something propels the character's story. A question that needs to be answered.

3. Act Two (A) the next 75 pages tries to answer that question setup in the Inciting Incident. The characters end up with dead ends, or unresolved questions. But leads them to their lowest point...

4. The Mid Point. This is when shit hits the fan in a major way and the question setup in the inciting incident remains, but the characters are worse off than when they started. It either restates the same question or it amends it with the extra information that the characters have.

5. Act Two (B) The next 75 pages is about the characters' recuperating, reassessing their approach as they were complete failures in the midpoint. By the end; there's a false victory, but the question posed in the inciting incident remains therefore the story is unresolved, and the characters unfulfilled. Which leads to...

6. The Turning Point
The question is restated, but there is a major break in the case or major leap forward that can only propel the character through...

7. Act Three.
The chapters should be shorter and time is limited. It should feel like the rush towards the finish line. Anything that needs to be resolved needs to happen here. It should propel the reader through these last 75 pages.

8. Climax
This is where the last battle happens and all bets are off. Anything can happen. Even the villain can win. In fact, the odds are so high stacked that there is no way they can overcome it.

9. Resolution
There needs to be a debrief of what happened as a result if the climax. Followed by THE END.

Therefore, structurally I aim for a 300 page count with an average 70,000-80,000 word count. It did not matter if it was over or under, but it is just a good to aim for that much.

75 pages from Act One- Inciting Incident.
75 pages from Act Two (A) to Midpoint.
75pages from Act Two (B) to Turning point.
75 pages from Act Three to the End.

In my annotated bibliography of screenwriting manuals from 2000 to 2020 available at Victoria University of Wellington, I learned that there were four key problems in most stories and all of them stem from character.

1. Character Motivation
2. Character Conflict and Tension.
3. Character Arc
4. Defining the Character.

I worked out how the novel ended and had a fair idea of act three. But I needed to nail down my character's motivations first.

In this novel it included Wade, Douglas, and the Villian.opposing and polarised character personalities that clash bring the best results for conflict.

In order to heighten tension, I introduced external personality traits that would clash but also the world in which the characters live. The place either supports a character's point of view or it opposes it, which adds more layers of conflict and tension.

Defining the character by the way they think, act, and speak. Although in my first draft, I did not have enough time to work on actions that contradict their thinking or what the reader would expect of them.

Also, dealing with subtext in dialogue is important. It is important for characters to say one thing but mean something else that is inferred. Which I will try to increase in subsequent drafts.

Dialogue should accomplish the following:

1. Drive the story forward.
2. Reveal character & relationships with other characters.
3. Exposition.

Dealing with exposition is always annoying. It's the information necessary to understanding the story that happened prior to the first act, or is crucial in orientating the reader. I either showed it, delayed it, or revealed it as a question, but a good way is through subtext in dialogue. It's best to pepper the story with it and pace it out.

I used excel to chart the character arc and how a character transforms from the start of the story to the end. It is important to do this as the reader can feel they have been on a journey with them and that they have changed in some significant way because they went through the trials and tribulations inherent im a story.

So, using the three act structure, I put in how a character changes through each act. Usually a change needs to happen inside the character for them to succeed. It is important to do all of this for the villain too and how they progress. Their views of the world are just as important, and to them they are the hero of their own story. So, a reader can feel the characters are three-dimensional human beings.

Dialogue should entertain, although in scriptwriting it should place the least important aspect on dialogue I like to entertain through spoken word. Again, it should be used and only if it does over two of the things I suggested that the dialogue should do. Most times in this novel it reveals character, exposition, and drives the story.

My goal is to do another draft and add the literaturesque elements to my story that is seldom, or absent in my novel. Especially in description, since film acts against putting too much ink on the page. However, I believe both should have succinct sentences that serve a purpose so I will add and cull unnecessary words for pace.

Talking about pace, the chapters might need to be combined, or culled, or shifted to get rid of extraneous information and to quicken the pace. I also will look at dialogue, subtext, and exposition to see if it's needed or can be written better.

The third draft will be a general polish; typos, grammar, spelling, sentence variation, language, consistency etc. Use Grammarly and Writing Aid Pro. But also perhaps pay a professional manuscript editor, proofreader.

So, that is my process. I take the structure and make sure I at least know the Inciting Incident, Midpoint, and Turning Point, and Climax. We set these four milestones...in...stone. But on the way there it is up to the characters to make the journey to each checkpoint. So, it is a mixture of structure and freehand.

I rush to finish a first draft while it is fresh and exciting for me. Then back and edit, rearrange, add and subtract. I love finding words to delete. The fewer words, the better. In scripts it's an active voice in third person. I switched halfway through this story to third person past tense, so there are still ghosts of scriptwriting throughout.

I love cutting out any words that end in 'ly' and filler words like 'um' and I enjoy starting a scene LATE and finishing EARLY, and with a question to be answered at the end in the next chapter or scene. I try to look at every sentence and see if I can say the same thing with fewer words. Occla's razor is correct; less is better. Better for pace, readability, and the reader.

I started writing the first draft in December and finished it in Late March while working a part-time job.

Things I learned.
I need better speech tags.
Thesaurus is my friend.
Perhaps spend more time on a chapter to make editing easier so there are fewer drafts.
Need more character thoughts.

If you have questions, ask.

Hope it helps. I have learnt a lot from the experience. I hope it may help you in your own endeavours.