Beyond the Endless Sky

Structural Edit

My current notes.

As it turns out, editing isn't a firmly set process. Lots of people do it lots of different ways. Some people only tweak things after their first draft. Others write the entire story multiple times. Patrick Rothfuss (writer of the Kingkiller Chronicle) is famous for doing hundreds of different edits (including one where he deleted three pages worth of material just by getting rid of superfluous uses of 'that')

So choosing how to edit Beyond the Endless Sky was as much a decision as it was a discovery. And after a bit of reference research, I settled on working from big to small, worrying about larger issues and then getting down to the nitty-gritty.

All of which I broke into three sections.

1- A Structure Edit
2-A Style Edit
3-A Presentation Edit

A structure edit is the big picture of the story, the broad strokes. I'm not worrying about spelling, grammar, style, or even how good each scene is yet. Right now, it's making sure the most important things work well. I've decided to start with Theme, and work my way down.

1-Theme

You probably know what a theme is. Coming of age, love conquers all, good conquers evil, war is hell, lustful obsession definitely leads to healthy relationships, that sort of thing. But the importance of theme, as far as I've been able to tell, comes in explaining why a story's characters suffer. Because they all do, to some degree. In any story.

Take a man walking in the desert. The reason he's there is absolutely critical to the story. Is he hunting the man in black, like Roland in the Black Tower? Or did he walking away from a plane wreck? Did he make the desert he's walking in?

Now, a single scene doesn't make a theme. But taken together; one act after another, one scene after another, one chapter after another, and that is where a story's theme ought to come from. The reason people go through the story. That's your theme.

And the theme in Beyond the Endless Sky is fairly bluntly presented. It's in the ship's name, and it ended up being spelled out in the chapter titles for Beneath the Endless sky.

Don't despair as you follow
After what tomorrow brings,
A child of ravens is born of sorrow
But you were also given wings

Given the theme is quite literally the name of the ship, the idea of being able to fly and live a life you want to, despite the pain in your life, is the unifying theme of the story. The theme is as much for the characters as it is for the broken world they inhabit.

2-World

Well, sort of a world. It's a broken one. And not just the surface-level broken where meteors make a mess of things. No, remember that part where I mentioned I was a bit conceited? Well, run of the mill calamities like societal collapse or the ruin of civilization are pansy events. My apocalypse is less superficial and more metaphysical. I broke a world into small moon-sized chunks and told them to fend for themselves.

But especially in a fantasy or science fiction setting, your world is a character. An important one. And your thematic choices can be expressed by this character just as much as anyone else in the cast.

But asides from theme, having a world fairly well developed is hugely important for being able to write a story. It's hard to write about a cast of people going from one place to another if their destination doesn't exist yet. (Not impossible, mind you. And having people journey into a reality still in development would be a lot of fun) So if you need to know how long the journey is, what kind of obstacles are in the way, or where they could be ambushed by bandits, it's best to do some worldbuilding.

Just be careful. Worldbuilding trap is a real thing. It would be the easiest thing in the world to never even start a story because you're too busy crafting a setting.

3-Characters

This is probably the most important part to get right. Crap themes and dull settings can be saved by interesting characters. Just like a bad date or a terrible dance can be saved by a good partner. Heck, the juxtaposition of lame setting and awesome hero works well together. But nothing can save a story from characters no one is interested in.

And that in some was is where I goofed this story up. When I wrote it during NaNoWriMo, it was a concept piece for a series idea. The book was originally as much an introduction to the crew of the Ravens Child as anything else, more so than it was Clarissa's story. And to a degree, I'm going to keep that.

But it also has to change. She deserves to be more than the eyes we use to witness the crew of the Ravens' Child. But the trick will be to have her be more, without her doing all that much more. Because the idea that she could be more useful than she was, would contradict the central theme of the story. Because as Clarissa learns though the story, she hasn't learned how to fly yet. And it wouldn't be a lesson she could learn if she worked as a peer alongside Mercy, Vincent, and the others.

4-Plot/Stakes

Now here is where I need to tread carefully. Because Carissa's a somewhat reluctant passenger on this voyage, one she didn't really choose for herself. She can't choose her heading, can't change course, and has no say in how things turn out.

Except that she does. That's the core part of being able to fly, is you can decide where to go and what to do. So long as you can endure the consequences. Realizing this is what Vincent chose, in particular, needs to be a stronger point in the story. And it ties in thematically, too.

As things stand, I like the course of events. And Clarissa doesn't really have a hand in them. But that doesn't mean that she can't drive the plot, even if she doesn't drive events in the story. Because the plot isn't really about what's happening, but what your characters are choosing to do. It's not quite the same thing, and recognizing the difference is key when writing a story where the main character isn't the one driving events.

5-Pace/Flow

I'm not sweating this one too much. Honestly, I think if a scene is interesting people will read it. If it's not interesting, it shouldn't be in the book. And events can be boring as you like, as long as you can make it interesting enough.

A conversation about ontology and existentialism in philosophy can be made extremely interesting, if the conflicting ideas began to shape the world around the characters.

I'll think on this one more after I get the other issues looked at.

Anyway, that's the plan so far. Next update will be about the glaring problem I think I've found with this story. One that I think a couple of people mentioned already, in one form or another.