Warning – Spoilers Ahead

Posted by Shaun Hutchinson on January 18, 2012
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This is a spot for writers to chat about writing. In addition to reading the story, I’ll be posting rough pages with edits I’ve made and why I made changes, snippets of outlines, character sketches, and anything I think might be interesting.  It’ll give me a chance to seek input from fellow writers and allow you all to grill me about choices I made or things I did.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS HERE.  I can’t stress this enough.  If you just want to enjoy the story or if you have no interest in the nuts and bolts of writing, turn away now.  I’ll do my best not to spoil future plot points, but in a frank and honest discussion of writing, it’s going to happen.

I’ll also be posting stats about this site from time to time so that anyone who is interested in doing something similar will have a good idea what it takes to do something like this in terms of time and cost.

Last chance to turn around!

Carpe Mortediem, people!

Regrouping

Posted by Shaun Hutchinson on May 17, 2012
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First off, I need to apologize for missing my May 15th post.  I was trying to get Chapter 10 ready, but it wasn’t coming together the way I wanted it to.  In the end, I decided I’d rather miss my deadline than post something that sucked.

Following that same thought process, I’ve decided to take a few weeks to step back and regroup so that I can complete this story the way it needs to be completed.

There are people who outline and people who don’t.  I fall squarely into the second category.  My first drafts are my outline.  It was ambitious  and quite stupid of me to attempt this without first having a rough draft.  As I tried to write Chapter 10, I realized I was a little lost.

And that’s part of the process.  Stories go through drafts.  They evolve and change.  My task is to make sure that I put out the best story I can. And if I don’t take the time to plot out the ending, I won’t be holding up my end of the bargain.

So I’m going to take the time to finish the story. I’m going to write the rest of it out so that when I return in a few weeks, I’ll have a clearer idea of where Charlie Hudson and Theo Jackson are going.

Just think of this as a a split season of television.  The show isn’t going off the air, it’s just taking a break.

Thank you all for your support and patience.

Chapter 7 – The Walking Dead – WRITER’S EDITION

Posted by Shaun Hutchinson on April 1, 2012
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Well, here we are at Chapter 7.  It’s hard to believe I’ve only been writing this for two months.  The hardest part about this thing so far has been moderating the pace.  If this were a book, the chapters would likely be WAY shorter and the pace would be brutal.  But because this story is slated to run until the end of 2012, I have to be careful.  I don’t want to drag things out, but because there are 2 weeks  between chapters, I want each installment to be meaty enough to be satisfying.  Pacing is always an issue for me, but I’m definitely learning a lot from this project.

As you’ll see in this chapter, the cracks in Charlie’s life are starting to appear, and it’s only the beginning.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions, comments.  Fire away.

Chapter 6 – A Prayer For Theodore Jackson – WRITER’S EDITION

Posted by Shaun Hutchinson on March 15, 2012
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To say that this was an easy chapter to write would be simplifying things a bit.  The truth is that this chapter took me about 3 hours to draft from beginning to end.  Theo’s YESTERDAY sections are much easier to write than Charlie’s TODAY sections because they’re happier.  We know that Theo is dead.  We know what his fate is, and that adds a certain grimness to the chapters set in the past, but he’s still so alive in them, and that makes it easier for me to write.  It’s not that I don’t like Charlie’s chapters, it’s just that I hate the world where Theo is dead.

The one thing I’m afraid of, and I think a writer trying to pull this off should be, is that readers won’t feel invested in Charlie and Theo’s relationship because they already know he’s dead.  And, honestly, I was tempted in the planning to withhold his death for a long time to keep the reader invested, but I decided that doing so would come across as a dirty trick.  Instead, I decided that I needed to get people invested in their relationship by having them get invested in Charlie’s future.  We have to want to care about Theo and Charlie because the power of their relationship is the engine that powers the story in the present.

Also, I may have one other trick up my sleeve in regards to Theo, but I’m keeping that one close to my chest for now.

Because Theo is dead and Charlie is essentially recalling him from death with his guitar, I want to play with the language of spirituality, the words of religion.  And not just Christian religion, but all of them.  So, if you read with a sharp eye, you’ll see a lot of religious stuff going on.  Also, there is a lot of underlying water and choking/drowning stuff going on.

Chapter 5 – Today – A Short History of Charlie and Theo WRITER’S EDITION

Posted by Shaun Hutchinson on March 1, 2012
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I apologize that this post is so short.  I’m heading out for a quick getaway to NYC and I’ve been scrambling to get the chapter done.  I didn’t get as much time to focus on the notes.  But here they are.  This chapter moved the story forward by answering some of the question so that I could raise new ones.  I’m not a fan of dragging things out.

At the same time, Charlie is still unsure of his goal.  He wants to bring back Charlie, but doesn’t know how.  Introducing Audrey and outing him to the school is the first big step toward empowering my protagonist to kick his efforts into overdrive.

We also met Charlie’s enemy…one of them, anyway.