January, 2019 | Tim Frankovich

Most of the time, when a book is adapted into a movie, time is “sped up.” In other words, what takes a long time in the book takes a very short time in the movie, so as to keep things moving for an impatient visual audience. Action scene jumps to action scene as rapidly as possible.

As a storyteller, my mind usually works in the opposite direction. I fill in the gaps, expanding the story in my head. Obviously, this doesn’t happen all at once, but I’ve found that the longer something remains in my mind, the lengthier it gets.

For example, when I was a child in the 1980s, I saw Transformers, the movie (the animated one, AKA the good one). I did not see it again for decades.
Transformers had some truly epic moments – the death of Optimus Prime, Starscream’s final betrayal of Megatron, the coming of Unicron, and of course, “Light our darkest hour!” But when I watched the movie for only the second time, decades after the first… I was shocked to discover that these epic moments came quickly, with almost no downtime between them, connected only by more rapid-fire action scenes.

I was confused. This wasn’t how I remembered it. I remembered a sprawling epic story that contained soaring emotional moments. Had the movie been edited heavily before its release on home video? No. My memories were wrong. Or, rather, my mind had been adding to them over the years.

As best as I can tell, my story-loving and story-telling mind loved the great moments of the movie, and loved even more the greater types of story moments that the animated movie was attempting to replicate. So over the years, my memory of the movie became expanded, as I “remembered” how I wanted the movie to be.

What does this mean? I believe that deep down, we all long for epic stories. We all want to read/see stories that move us, that inspire us, that thrill our hearts. Some of us just take it a step further – by coming up with those stories ourselves. Or, when an existing story isn’t quite good enough… expanding it in our imaginations, making it become the story we wanted all along.

I found it difficult to look back all the way to last January. A lot has happened since then, and yet almost all of it is focused on one specific task.

As the year began, I found myself around 2/3 of the way through the first draft of my epic fantasy novel (my second novel). After some struggles in January, I picked up the pace and finished it off in February.

Then began the massive revision process. I re-wrote and re-wrote, listened to beta readers, and re-wrote some more. By mid-summer, I was finally satisfied with the current draft (third or fourth?). I then set about the tasks of writing a query letter and synopsis.

Then came the dark times. Also known as Form Rejection City. I’m told every writer visits this city on a regular basis, but I do not enjoy its ambiance. I did finally get a partial manuscript request from one agent, but it was followed by a rejection only a few days later.

Looking toward possibly self-publishing, I scraped up enough money to hire an editor for the first quarter of the novel. As documented in the last post, I received some very encouraging feedback and advice. I’m now back to re-writing again. This time, I actually have something to help guide me.

I only wrote twelve blog posts in 2018. That’s pathetic and I need to work on that.

I wrote a very, very rough draft of a short story that ties in to the novel. It’s not really even complete and needs major revision. It’s funny how the short story is taking far longer than huge portions of the novel.

I brainstormed multiple other books. I outlined the rest of the epic fantasy series, and I even wrote some opening pages of a separate novel.

Honestly, this is a disappointing output. I know 2018 had its difficulties in other ways, but I feel like I could have done much, much more.

2019 is here, and while I haven’t made resolutions, per se, I am determined to substantially increase my writing output. The revisions to my novel’s opening chapters are making me reconsider my earlier decision to move toward self-publishing. I’m still leaning that way, but I may send out a few more queries once this revision is done, just to test the waters.

In the meantime, I will continue to educate myself further on all aspects of the publishing business. I will revise, re-write, and revise some more until this novel is as perfect as I can make it. If I can afford it, I will get the rest of it professionally edited, as well. I will finish that short story. And I will start on at least one other novel, either the second in the epic fantasy series, or another standalone. At the latest, I’ll work on that during NaNoWriMo.

2019 holds many possibilities. If I’m up to the challenges, it should be very rewarding.

Writer's Blog & Home of Warpsteel Press

Month: January 2019

When a Story Isn't Enough – Filling in the Gaps

2018 Writing Accomplishments