On continuing Sythyry's Journal

[sythyry]

I haven't managed to do anything with Sythyry's Journal for months now. I've mostly been working on Mating Flight, which I consider to be a Good Thing too, but is a different sort of project. I do want to get back to writing a World Tree serial of some form or other, when I'm done with the first draft of Mating Flight. I want to be able to get more readers, too.

Sythyry's Journal has gotten rather unwieldy, to put it nicely. I have trouble keeping track of half a dozen years' random ideas, interesting characters, odd restaurants, and whatnots. I can't imagine many new readers getting into it: there's about 400,000 words to read, assisted only by some rather outdated glossaries and summaries. And indeed, I've lost a number of readers in the last three years or so, I think, and gained very few.

So one idea, of several, is starting Sythyry's Journal Part II. Same lizard writing, same general style. A sufficiently different situation that makes it a whole new story. Yes, prior readers will have some clues about what's going on that new ones will have to learn. But Part II will be mostly self-contained: new readers will be able to start at the beginning of Part II and not have to catch up with the mountain of words and characters and backstory and stuff. I'd also try to have more of an organized plot, though I daresay the small blue cave lizard will surprise me now and then. (Well, constantly like usual.)

And of course there are various other ideas floating around too.

I promise to read the results of the following poll and do whatever seems best to me.

[Poll #1327492]

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I voted, but the answers don't exactly add up to my full opinion. This combines aspects of my experience as a writer, reader, editor, and reviewer.

1) Simply abandoning a storyline in full swing is frustrating to readers. People read to find out what happens. When a writer doesn't deliver that, some readers will bail because they don't want to get dumped off a cliff again. Also, abandoning a storyline is a bad habit for a writer to get into. So if the decision is to stop "Sythyry's Journal" in current form, some kind of conclusion is needed. A well-crafted conclusion played out over multiple episodes, tying up major loose ends, would be best.

2) If there is to be a "Sythyry's Journal II," I am most interested in a large time break of 100 or 1000 years, because that would be unique. It's something other stories generally can't do. You have a rare opportunity to describe what it's like for a long-lived character to interact with short-lived characters. That would create whole new opportunities for fresh challenges.

Furthermore, it would allow you to bring back the previous batch of characters as Sythyry reminesces about personal memories that are, for everyone else, ancient history. Since zir friends have mentioned that as an advantage of being friends with a Zi Ri -- their little bit of immortality -- this would work especially well. You could even have one of them show up, reincarnated, with a fragment or two of memory to recognize Sythyry: "Do I know you? You smell familiar..."

3) You are on the list of authors whose work has sufficiently impressed me that I will happily grab whatever you write to see if it appeals to me, because you tend to write things that are consistently engrossing. So look for an intersection between your audience's interests and your own inspiration. Trust your instincts; you have good ones.

Re: Thoughts

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

What are the big loose ends? The only ones I can think of are Sythyry's relationships with Vae and with the Veshrame government, both of which could easily stay unresolved into part II, even if it was 100 years later...

Re: Thoughts

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

That's what I'm thinking. Sythyry sort of seems to be drifting into a new relationship, but that's the extent of the overarching plot that I can recall, which makes it a little less interesting. The traff-shock stuff is just annoying, I gloss over all the 'who's in bed with who' stuff, looking for the character development and plot advancement.

It'd be nice to 'fast forward' to when Sythyry has something more important to worry about. Such as, graduating and choosing a career, making a relationship work, dealing with Vae becoming adult and no longer as amiable/childlike as she is now.

Re: Thoughts

[otter3.livejournal.com]

Actually, 2) reminds me of a particular long series of books that I've enjoyed over the years by Katherine Kerr, starting with Daggerspell and spilling over into who-knows-how-many after that. Had a long-lived character like that named Nevyn...

Re: Thoughts

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Ooh, it is like the Deverry books. I need to catch up on those; Kerr took a break to write Snare but I think she's back to Deverry.

Re: Thoughts

[otter3.livejournal.com]

Yes, I just received the last Deverry cycle as a Birthdaymas Present: The Gold Falcon, The Spirit Stone, the Silver Isle. It'd be an odd but interesting position for Sythyry to be in. Some odd interaction with Kaimiri...

Re: Thoughts

[rowyn]

After reading through the comments, and especially yours, I have to change my vote -- now I'd rather see it set in the far future, as you say.

I particularly like Shatterstripes's suggestion of "have Sythyry lose the journal and then get it back again much later". That solves the "tying up loose ends" problem without requiring Bard to tie them up before switching to the future narrative. Bard could switch to the new narrative now, and have Sythyry go back back at zir (and Bard's) leisure to write about how this or that thread eventually resolved. Maybe zie could even use Mentador (if zie has grown less hyper-adverse to it now) to sharpen the old memories so zie could write them down as if they were still fresh, and in detail (which is generally more interesting than a 'and this is what happened to Vae').