{"id":520,"date":"2008-06-10T09:05:56","date_gmt":"2008-06-10T17:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/10\/revising-hylozoic\/"},"modified":"2008-06-10T10:33:47","modified_gmt":"2008-06-10T18:33:47","slug":"revising-hylozoic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/10\/revising-hylozoic\/","title":{"rendered":"Revising Hylozoic"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is going to be my last blog post for a couple of weeks, as I\u2019m going to be busy with other things.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I got some revision suggestions for Hylozoic <\/em> from my Tor editor, Dave Hartwell. He felt that the first half reads a little slow, and he suggests I put in more chapter breaks to pick up the pace, essentially splitting each of the book\u2019s chapters into 2 or 3 pieces.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a good idea, I think readers find it easier to have a book in manageable chunks. When I was composing the book, I was into a \u201clong breath\u201d\u009d notion, cf. Jack Kerouac\u2019s notion of a saxophonist playing a very long jazz chorus. I was thinking of each chapter as a kind of novella. But they do contain natural breaks, so it\u2019s not hard to make some splits.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll put in some extra wows at the new chapter ends to give them punch, and I\u2019ll even subdivide some chapters with \u201c***\u201d\u009d breaks. At this point I see 19 chapters instead of the 8 I had before. The chapter titles?<\/p>\n

Chapter 1: After Everything Woke Up.
\nChapter 2 : Moving the House.
\n Chapter 3: Jayjay and the Beanstalk.
\nChapter 4: The Missing Gnarl.
\nChapter 5 : Alien Tulpas.
\nChapter 6: The Peng.
\nChapter 7: The Hrull.
\nChapter 8 : Coma Nurse.
\nChapter 9: Lusky.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Chapter 10: Ergot.
\n Chapter 11: Hieronymus Bosch\u2019s Apprentice.
\n Chapter 12: Painting the Thistle.
\nChapter 13: Hrull Gel.
\nChapter 14 Viral Runes.
\nChapter 15: In the Stew.
\nChapter 16: The Magic Harp.
\nChapter 17: To the Gibbet!
\nChapter 18: The Maelstrom.
\nChapter 19: Transfinite.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My editor likes the Chu character, he said he was surprised how well he worked, and that it was refreshing to find an autistic character in an adventure novel where external stuff is happening, something which my reader Sarah Heacox <\/a>blogged about as well.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I worry a little that the main thing I really wanted to write about, that is, hylozoism <\/a><\/em>(everything being alive) doesn\u2019t come through as strongly as I wanted. But, really, it does shine through pretty well. It\u2019s better to take a light touch with this, I think, and not have every single object making a speech…<\/p>\n

The revision work feels painfully clumsy and slow, and, as usual when writing, I\u2019m anxious. I do worry that I made Hylozoic <\/em>too complicated. I\u2019m looking for ways to simplify the science ideas, but it\u2019s hard to just take something out, as the whole thing gets to be like a mathematical proof or a Swiss watch—if you take out one of the gears, the thing doesn\u2019t tick.<\/p>\n

Maybe for some readers a certain background complexity of scientific ideation is a good thing? Said the crazy old man wistfully.<\/p>\n

Yes, I know that I\u2019m worrying too much. If I didn’t worry a lot, I probably wouldn’t write at all. Actually, my editor didn\u2019t think the complexity is a problem at all. People just zip through that, it\u2019s expected in modern SF.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I think part of my difficulty in working out the story is that all along I was seeing Hylozoic <\/em>as the <\/em>middle novel of a trilogy. On the one hand, a lot of complex back-story sloshed over from Postsingular<\/em>, and on the other hand, I\u2019d been trying to foreshadow some story and plot ideas for a third novel in the series that I was calling Transfinite<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I decided yesterday that I don\u2019t actually want to go on and write that Transfinite<\/em> as a third novel. I want to bail from this stress and cut it down to a two-novel series. Often, the sales of a third volume of a trilogy are lower than the sales of the two before\u2014except of course for the exceedingly rare runaway smash. So why do it?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I recall that my 1980s novels Software <\/em>and Wetware <\/em>sold really well as a pair, and then, in the 1990s, when I added on two more to the series, Freeware <\/em>and Realware<\/em>, they didn’t sell so well.<\/p>\n

Okay, so what do you call a pair of linked novels? \u201cDuology\u201d\u009d is okay, but I\u2019d prefer to call it a \u201cdouble feature\u201d\u009d! In any case, it could still be that eventually I revisit the Postsingular <\/em>series world and its characters with a fresh adventure. But this way, I’m free to take on something different for my next novel. Maybe something simpler next time…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

By way of cutting my series down to a double feature instead of a trilogy, I plan to add a chapter describing in detail a scene that I\u2019d set up for the start of Transfinite<\/em>. Taking the time to add this material will probably delay the release of Hylozoic <\/em>until Fall, 2009, instead of Spring, 2009.<\/p>\n

Transfinite <\/em>was going to start with an account of Thuy Nguyen\u2019s trip into the transfinite, or \u201cbeyond infinity\u201d\u009d (which is not <\/em>a joke concept, despite what the movie Toy Story <\/em> seems to suggest), with her husband Jayjay and the painter Hieronymus Bosch, who\u2019s one of the characters now.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

By the way, a preliminary draft of one of my Bosch scenes appeared in Flurb<\/a><\/em>—although I\u2019ve revised that piece a lot in the meantime, and am still working on it, as Bosch needs to be more particularized to work as a character.<\/p>\n

For the new material in the final chapter of Hylozoic <\/em>I\u2019ll essentially fold that start of the projected third volume into a chapter-length \u201cmetanovelistic\u201d\u009d account by Thuy Nguyen of her trip beyond infinity \u2014 she\u2019ll just be telling it to her friends, knowing that it\u2019s going out live on the Internet, abandoning her notion of selling the story, and just telling it now so that she can write an entirely different metanovel for her next work. I am <\/em>Thuy, actually…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all tangled up,\u201d\u009d protested Chu after Thuy told her tale. He\u2019d been brooding about the muddled chain of cause and effect. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make enough sense.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s what it is,\u201d\u009d said Thuy. \u201cAnd now that I\u2019ve told you this end part, I\u2019m not gonna bother writing it up as a separate metanovel. Everyone on the web heard what I said. This story\u2019s done right now, just as it is.\u201d\u009d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Catch ya later, mischief-makers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is going to be my last blog post for a couple of weeks, as I\u2019m going to be busy with other things. I got some revision suggestions for Hylozoic from my Tor editor, Dave Hartwell. He felt that the first half reads a little slow, and he suggests I put in more chapter breaks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}