What 'A Lie Within A Lie' is, and what it isn't

I've been a bit hesitant to write this post, but I decided in the end I needed to be honest and open. Here's the TL;DR version:

Don't buy A Lie Within A Lie expecting a retread of Practice to Deceive. It's a different book with a different 'feel', and for some, it might not be exactly what you want. Specifically: it doesn't contain transformation scenes from the protagonist's point of view.

Here's my longer thoughts. I think A Lie Within A Lie is a great story, and sexy as hell. So do my early readers (stick around for some quotes). I hope you trust me, and I hope you love the book. But, I wanted to be clear about this so no-one buys it and then screams at me for not making it obvious. (I tried to do what I could with the description, although that might have passed some by.)

To get more technical for a second: A Lie Within A Lie was always, always going to be the story of a man being seduced by a 'woman' who could potentially be any woman he desired. Ergo, the protagonist of the story - our main character - was going to be the man, in this case, Ethan, the teenager who meets a very special woman while on vacation. Our antagonist (sort of, if we're splitting dramatic hairs here) would be said 'woman', who's introduced as Marla in the story.

While I know many of you enjoy mask fiction for the thrill of imagining that you are the person able to transform themselves, that's not the only attraction for me of the fetish. I've had the fantasy that Ethan has for pretty much my entire life; that's why I wrote the book. (Strictly speaking my fantasy was for a woman beneath the mask, but then again, I cater to the audience! Yes, I know some of you want F2F... I did write 25 'issues' of Spider-Girl fanfic after all.) I am guessing many of you will feel the same way. And I'm also guessing as a result, you'll enjoy the book.

I'll also point out that while part 1 - The Singer - is light on transformation scenes, part 2 - The Spy - is heavier. And kinkier. In all sorts of ways.

Speaking of which, I'd better get back to it. But I'll leave you with this. If, for example, you pre-ordered A Lie Within A Lie and then read the book and were deeply disappointed, please let me know, or get a refund. But please, only do that if you're really, deeply disappointed. And I doubt you will be. Fingers crossed for you.

Oh I almost forgot! Those quotes. Here's a few!

From Sally Bend's review over at Bending the Bookshelf (you can't see, but I'm blushing here):

There is a passion for detail here that you do not often come across in even the most polished, professionally published erotic literature. Ghostly Writer makes the reader see and feel each aspect of the disguise, painting a series of vivid pictures that amaze as they arouse. Readers with a fetish for masking, dollification, female impersonation, or simple crossdressing will find a lot to admire and appreciate here. The sex is equally succulent, vibrant and intense, but never vulgar. Given how many genders are sometimes mixed in a single intimate encounter, it really is a story that crosses orientations as well as genders.

From Victor G, AKA 'the man who wrote The Substitute before I came in and messed it up':

Yet again, Ghostly Writer proves why he is the "Godfather of Online Female Mask Fiction". His detailed, erotic transformation scenes are some of the best-written I've ever read.

Last but not least, from fellow mask fiction author, Circe:

Brilliantly imaginative, deliciously erotic, and full of suspense this story is a masterclass of the genre - read it now!

Hopefully that's enough to tide you over. I would absolutely love to hear what you think of A Lie Within A Lie, and look forward to reading your reviews, too! (Oh and in case you hadn't heard, it's on sale now. Ish.)

Sex scenes are hard

And I don't mean in the nudge-nudge, wink-wink, innuendo laden way either. Although that is part of the point of sex scenes, I guess.

Sex scenes are hard to write. Really hard. There's a reason why a lot of writers just draw a veil over sex scenes and skip to the post-coital bliss; getting a sex scene to feel right is difficult. Getting a sex scene to feel erotic, as in erotic fiction, is even more difficult - you're trying to get a very specific reaction out of the reader.

And those sex scenes get even harder when they're not 'normal' sex, too - when you're trying to encapsulate thoughts and feelings and, well, urges about someone's fetishes. You've got to imagine yourself in a situation that many of us may have never even been in, or indeed, could never be in.

All this leads me here, to a sentence from a plot summary I wrote, probably about four years ago:

"At hotel, they check in and have rampant sex, all that pent-up tension."

Sounds simple, right? Two consenting adults getting it on. But for some reason (and if I'm being honest, it probably has very little to do with the sex) this scene has blocked me for months. Tonight, I finally finished it. And now, I hope, I can get back to writing the rest of the book. Let's hope.

PS: The book in question isn't the sequel to Practice to Deceive. That's on hold for now. In my foolish wisdom, I told myself last year that I could just 'finish off' The Babysitter. So that's what I've been trying to do. For about nine months.

Editing, he thought, is tricky

Editing Housesitting has been an on-off task the last couple of months, but now I'm trying to get serious.

For me, editing involves re-reading what I've written (which is pretty obvious I guess, but it's step one) and then usually seeing if anything jumps out at me as being grammatically shoddy or just clumsy. Bad habits are easy to get into while writing, and it's hard to see this stuff in the heat of the moment.

Housesitting contains a lot of inner thoughts, as it's a very personal story, told almost entirely from one point of view. Because of that, I guess I felt it was necessary to delineate the main character's thoughts a lot. In some novels, writers use stylistic tropes to indicate thoughts. Frank Herbert, for example, famously had all of his characters think in italics. As there were lots of telepathic conversations in the Dune series, it made some sense.

I've done the italics thing myself, but I'm not a fan of it. I'm also not a fan of consistent 'muttering under the breath' or actual sentences being quoted as thoughts. So while writing, I found myself using the words 'he thought' a lot; but over time, and especially while re-reading, I discovered that I'd started to use it as punctuation, almost. Looking over the 'final' draft it's apparent now that frankly, most of the time when I use the phrase 'he thought' it's not needed.

So now, I'm editing the whole thing to try and remove it wherever it doesn't seem to be necessary. Take this random example with 'he thought' included. Billy is fantasizing about being exposed to... well, you'll find out:

He knew this was dangerous too, foolish even, but the idea of being exposed here somehow fitted with his fantasy scenario, where in front of Kate, his deception known, he would reach up and strip away his wig. She would gasp, he thought, her hand raised to her face in shock, but he wouldn’t stop there, he would dig his fingertips into his scalp, and find the edge of his mask... and pull downwards. Kate’s eyes would widen even further, she couldn’t possibly believe what she was seeing - and then the mask would be off, Linda would be gone, Billy would be exposed - 

It's easy to miss, but somehow, subtly, that he thought breaks the flow of the paragraph. It's also completely unneeded; I've already established, through words like 'knew' and 'fantasy scenario' that we're inside his head. So the same para without the 'he thought':

He knew this was dangerous too, foolish even, but the idea of being exposed here somehow fitted with his fantasy scenario, where in front of Kate, his deception known, he would reach up and strip away his wig. She would gasp, her hand raised to her face in shock, but he wouldn’t stop there, he would dig his fingertips into his scalp, and find the edge of his mask... and pull downwards. Kate’s eyes would widen even further, she couldn’t possibly believe what she was seeing - and then the mask would be off, Linda would be gone, Billy would be exposed - 

... works a lot better, no? It's subtle, for sure... but it helps. Of course, this doesn't mean every instance of 'he thought' is being cut from the book. There's plenty of places it's required. But, hopefully, by making sure through good writing that the reader knows we're inside the character's head... I can stop telling them that's the case every few paragraphs.

... so where the hell is it, then?

Over three weeks ago I told you I'd finished the first draft of Housesitting (which, day by day, is less likely to be called that, just FYI...). So where the hell is the book, right?

Well... life got in the way.

If I'd sat down and consulted a calendar I'd have realized that March was always going to be insanelu busy, and lo, it was - and even in the times/places I was hoping to sneak in a bit of editing and rewriting, it didn't happen.

Something else weird happened, too: when I actually started looking at the book, for a while, I kind of hated it. Went through a period of "What the hell have I done" and general guilt and self-loathing.

However, then I managed to get it onto my phone (via Kindle) and got it readable. And now, you know, I'm starting to see where I need to edit and how I need to tighten it up, etc etc. Which is good.

Still a road to go. But I'm about ready to get back on it. Perhaps another date will motivate me.

The end of Housesitting is not nigh...

... but it is, as of this morning, plotted.

Late last night, brain fried and unable to write, I found myself plotting further along towards the end of Housesitting. I had several endings in mind already:

• The 'happy' ending.
• The sexy, possibly (probably) twisted ending.
• The sequel setup.

How to get them all together into one place, naturally, without forcing it too much (although, I use coincidence as much as any other writer) was the tricky part.

Particularly the 'possibly twisted' ending. Reading my plotting notes again and again I just didn't see how the characters I'm writing now would possibly end up there, knowing the things that will happen to them in-between.

I could also see, quite possibly, people throwing the book away in disgust at what I had planned, frankly. You can ask me just what this situation was, post-publication.

So, I had to resolve all these things, pull some plot strings together and not make it seem entirely contrived. And I think I have it. I managed to get an extra subplot in which I'm looking forward to writing (which also, bonus, makes sense), I managed to resolve a big subplot in what looks, in plot form at least, to be pretty elegant... and I managed to even resolve the 'possibly twisted' ending into what I hope will be a good, emotional payoff.

There's a strong temptation when you plot, sometimes, to just stop writing. It's easy to do. You've 'told the story' - it's right there on paper. Of course, you can't show it to anyone and expect them to appreciate it. The fun is in the details.

Now of course, I'm staring at all this plot and my head is spinning over word count. But at least I have a map to get to where I need to go. An ending! Hurrah!

A glance at my writing space today

Here's my writing layout in Scrivener today:

Yes, I deliberately made the image small. No spoilers! If you could see the left hand pane you'd see my entire outline for most of Chapters 4-8 of Housesitting. With important key words like 'unmasks', 'fantasies', 'sex' and 'costume'. To pick them randomly.

The image reference is kind of obvious, though, even at this size. It's just one scene, but I strive for authenticity....

Project target: Housesitting

This is a screenshot of today's project target for Housesitting:

Good day (well, morning) writing wise. I subscribe to the theory that when you sit down to write, it's a 'good session' if you manage to complete 1,000 words or more. That might sound like a lot, but when you're 'in the zone' it's pretty easy to churn them out. Today was one of those days, so that felt good.

You might have noticed something else: my deadline, as well as my projected word count. While it started as a short story, Housesitting has expanded, and about a month ago I decided to make it a full-fledged project - a novel, in the strictest definition of the term. I added a few plot twists and some other fun stuff to my overall plan, and now I feel pretty confident I can get to that word count without it feeling stretched. If I'm lucky, it'll go longer than that.

I share this with you because I've decided enough is enough. I'm fed up of my inner critic preventing me from finishing stuff and I'm fed up of complaining about it. So this is what I'm pledging to myself and also to you, as a potential consumer: Housesitting will be complete (at least in first draft) by March 1st, 2013. It'll be available to buy (yes, buy - it will not be free) sometime shortly after that.

More soon.

Writing means no social life

... and conversely, a social life means no writing.

Monday, admittedly, I was home - but playing Xbox all night. Damn.

Tuesday, a trip to the theatre to see a fantastic version of Strangers on a Train.

Wednesday, a trip to the movies to see No Country for Old Men - not as good as Tuesday, but good.

As such, no writing since... Monday morning, maybe? As a result, a certain part of my brain's starting to get itchy through lack of use.

You see? I knew I wouldn't get that ahead of myself.

Attack of the Killer Bs

I remember reading some 'advice for writers' somewhere which said that if at all possible, you should try and avoid giving characters the same name - which is generally easy enough to do - and preferably, don't even use the same initial. That's because as we read, we tend to skim names after a while, just recognising the 'shape' of the word. Two many characters with the same initial first letter and people get confused.

Heck, I'm writing the damn series and I get confused when I've got Bruce, Betty, Barbara, Batman and Batgirl to deal with. How are you handling it??

Thanks to each and every one of you who's commented about issue 15 - I really, really appreciate it. I didn't actually think that parts of it were my best (and that last scene I practically had to force myself to finish, for some reason) but I'm very glad you folks dug it.

Now back to issue 16 - about 3K in right now, and I just expanded it with a couple of new 'beats' which I think will be fun. Still hoping to bring it in under 10K, but we'll see. I don't want to make 13K sized issues a habit....

Finished, and boy did that hurt.

Another issue done. Well, 'done' in the sense that all the words I wanted to put into it (13,059 of them, as it happens) are in it. That said, I haven't re-read it yet for sense or coherency. So sorry, faithful reader - no release today. But soon. By Tuesday, so I can say I'm on bi-weekly schedule, kind of.

As you might have guessed from the post title, this one took a while to finish. For some reason the last scene, a scene that would normally be gravy (a transformation) just took forever to do. I'm not entirely sure why. It might be because I was trying to give it a sense of importance that it didn't deserve. That's kind of hard to gauge though; after all, the transformation bits are generally why you're reading, so I'd imagine your reaction is probably "How could it not be important?"

Eh, I guess the point is when you feel like you've written this sort of thing every single different way you can think of, some days you just want to write "Then they got changed into a different outfit and went on their way". It's not as if I have actors or actresses in front of me giving me visual stimulation... instead it's all in my head, and I've got to make them do interesting things. Otherwise they just sit around with blank looks.

Anyway, it is done, and in the last few lines I threw a wrench in my own plot because I thought it'd be fun. We'll see... Future Ghostly might end up cursing my present self. (See what I meant about foreshadowing and plotting?)

Right. I feel like rambling on, so I think I'll go shoot some posts into the future to make it look like I never leave the keyboard. Thanks for all the recent comments by the way people; I appreciate it a hell of a lot, especially when I'm forcing myself to try and write one more line.

The problems with plotting

I like to plot, but simultaneously, I hate to plot. Let me try and explain.

Before I embark on any long piece of writing - erm, which will be all of them, I guess - I like to try and get some sort of plot written down. That way I have some sort of idea where things are going. Essentially, it's an insurance policy. If I'm sitting at the keyboard wondering where to go next, I can look at the plot and go "Okay, that's the objective - now I just have to get there".

This is especially important in serialised fiction (ie Spider-Girl), as if you have no idea where things might be going to, you can't throw in clues or foreshadowing - and believe me, I like to do that where I can. I also really, really want internal consistency in any series; the world needs to make sense, even if it's a fantastic one, and there needs to be continuity. (That I can later retcon. Joke for the comics fans.)

Having said this, in the process of writing, I frequently go off-plot. In other words, the plot changes as I write it, usually because I have some sort of brainwave that is just too good to ignore. When that happens I usually end up re-writing my plot notes to accommodate the idea, just so I can basically tell myself the story and make sure it all makes sense. (Believe me, it often doesn't. I've rewritten the plot for the Spider-Girl Crossover arc about five times since the first draft. Looking at those original notes, there are plot holes big enough to drive a truck through.)

So I like to have the roadmap, I like to have the plot written down. It can be nightmarish to actually create that plot though, hence my hating to plot, too. Sometimes I will just not have any idea where the plot needs to go, or worse, I have an idea but it just seems too lame for words. Even worse than that, sometimes I have a plot and it's written down and... it still sucks.

This is the worse situation a still-to-be-written story can find itself in, because honestly, once I have the skeleton of a plot down I find it hard to throw that away. Why? Because the process is so tough. Believe it or not, getting ideas is easy (Especially in this 'genre' where essentially all I'm doing is writing down fantasies...). It's having those ideas make sense, and putting them into a story where the characters act in a (reasonably) believable manner, that's the hard part.

Sometimes, the really damn hard part. This is what leads to having loads of half-finished stories, or stories that are plotted but aren't written. In the former case, I usually haven't plotted to the conclusion in a way I like. The latter, I don't like the plot enough to write it - or I haven't plotted to the end, either.

Like opposable thumbs being what separates man from animal, I think plotting is what separates 'erotic fiction' from just 'porn'. While I often jokingly refer to my writing as porn (Hey there, Mr. High Self-Esteem!) in reality it's just fiction... that happens to be erotic in a very specific way. Whereas your average porn movie has zero plot (unless you call 'will the studly handyman fix the broken appliance' a plot) I like to think that everything I write has a definite plot, hopefully with decent dramatic tension, some character development and yeah, plenty of eroticism.

And that, I hope, is why it's worth reading what I write. That and you getting off, naturally. (Just couldn't exit without a dick joke, could I....)

Ten minutes in a hotel room

Call this a writing exercise if you like; call it stream of consciousness, call it a warm up. Here's ten minutes worth of waffle from a hotel room. I'm away on business, and as often happens in these situations, the siren's song of an empty hotel room, an active internet connection and time on my hands leads me to want to do one thing: write.

I have a weird thing about hotel rooms, and being alone in them far from home. They bring out this guy, the guy I am now, the alternative writing persona who's not that far removed from "randy Pan, the Goat Boy" as Bill Hicks would say. I've written some of my best stuff in hotel rooms, to be honest, although one problem I definitely do have is starting stuff in environments like this and not finishing. Not a good habit.

I don't know what it is, but I'll struggle to define it. It's something about the delicious anonymity of hotels, the idea that anyone could be here, that anything could happen. You could do anything in these situations and the likelihood is no-one would ever find out. I should stress it's never, ever happened to me, at least not since I've been married. I've had a couple of intimate encounters in hotel rooms, and only one of which I can recall being particularly fun... but they were all in my 'wild' and 'carefree' single days.

These days, I tend to confine myself to wild and carefree writing. Here, undistracted by anything else, I get some of my best ideas down, my best work. I think it's partially just because of the inherent romanticism (for me) in the idea of being a writer at work in some hotel room. There are plenty of examples of writers who have holed themselves up in hotels to do their work, so many in fact that there are well known fictional examples too (The Shining, anyone?). We like the idea of being focused. No past, no future, just the present - the keyboard, the screen (or paper) and The Writing.

Three minutes left. So what's it going to be tonight? I don't know. First of all I think I'll get down some of the ideas I have had rattling around my head in the past couple of days. A refinement of an old idea, a sort of riff on Charlie's Angels. Something involving twins, and probably, trains. Something else that just came to me involving a hotel - duh. When those are noted (Never, ever let go of an idea, folks... you never know when you'll need 'em) I'll strive to work on something in progress. Inch towards completion.

Dying seconds. Hope you've enjoyed recent stuff, I really appreciate all the comments; feel free to keep 'em coming. I'll be releasing something else next, something not Spider-Girl; there, I said it. We'll see.

Right. Off to it.

At long bloody last

Just wrote the last few words for issue #12 of BBTSSG, as you might want to call it. FI-NA-LLY.

I tell you, this issue has been an absolute bitch to finish. Even though from the looks of things it 'just' took me a month or so to write, it felt waaaay longer to me. The whole thing seemed to move along in fits and starts, and I mean literally - some nights I'd sit for two hours and write two paragraphs. First I didn't feel like the issue had enough, well, eroticism in it. Then, after I figured that out, I realised I had to go back and rewrite something in issue #11 that changed quite a few things in issue #12. Gaaawwwwwdddd! With all that crap in my head it's a miracle I can come up with new ideas.

Oy. So where does this leave me?

Well first of all, my early plans to keep at least a 'clear arc' between whatever I'm currently writing, and whatever I'm currently releasing, are shot to hell.

That's because right now, there's no bloody way I can dive into issue #13 and beyond - which starts the next big arc, codenamed 'Crossover'. (The way I was previously planning, I'd finish 'Crossover' before I'd even release the arc I just finished, which covers issues #9-12.) I can't do that though. For one thing, I have no idea where 'Crossover' is going, precisely. It's like I can see the target but I need to hit the bullseye. I need to re-plot the whole thing, figure out what the high points are, and hopefully get a handle on how many issues it might end up being. (Because one thing I am going to keep doing is completing arcs before I release them. If - God forbid - I give up on the series entirely, I don't want to do it in the middle of a half-released arc. I'm not that cruel....)

More importantly, right now, I'm just plain tired of writing this series. Issue #12 took a lot out of me - this arc as a whole, in fact. I still love the characters, love where they're going, but it's starting to feel a little same-y. The plot of 'Crossover' should freshen things up a bit, but I need a break, to let me recharge the batteries, get enthused for it again... so that it feels fresh when I write it.

So what about that break. Well, I have a couple of other things on the go. I have an old, half-completed story (called 'Love Hotel') which I dusted off recently and might well try and complete; it's maybe a third, perhaps half-finished, and after some intensive plotting sessions with a fellow author recently I know what I need to do to finish it off. It's a 'straight' (ie, no superheroes!), one-off story too... and pretty damn hardcore. So it'd be a real change of pace for me right now.

Second, I do have that Susan Storm mini-series idea... but I'd need to knuckle down and plot that a bit more carefully. I also now know, having finished issue #12, that I'd probably have to write issue #13 before I can get to it. That's because...

... issue #12 ended up being looooong. For the record, it's the biggest issue to date; over 12,000 words in total. Partially that's because I added all that 'extra sauce' to it (Yeah, 'slight twist', my ass), and partially it's because there was a lot of plot to get in. And there was actually even more to fit into it in the original synopsis. So that stuff, which is an essential bridge to the Susan Storm mini, will now have to go in issue #13. Which as I write this, I'm starting to think might have to be a standalone issue. Followed by the mini. Oh God, I'm rambling like a maniac.

Alright, one more thing and out. The nice coda to all this is my word count. Issue #12 takes me to over 100,000 words written for the series so far; that's the size of a decent novel. Pretty cool.

Now click an ad and get outta here. Issue #9 will be out before the week's over. Promise.

Rewriting ripples

Issues #11 and #12 of Spider-Girl dive into her family history in a big way, so I did some research early on... although that mostly consisted of reading early Amazing Spider-Man issues.

Turns out though, thanks to the industrious Kurt Busiek, I had some more history to read about. See, Busiek wrote a series called Untold Tales of Spider-Man, which basically 'filled in the gaps' in the really early issues of Amazing, adding extra detail. Detail's great, don't get me wrong, but recently I found some details that basically meant something I'd already written... really needed to get re-written.

I put it off for a while but this morning decided I wouldn't be able to keep writing issue #12 until I'd re-written the portion of issue #11 that was affected by this history change. Y'see, this is a fairly crucial part of the plot, and I knew when I made these changes it'd affect a lot of other stuff; like chucking a rock into a pond and watching the ripples. Sure enough, as I rewrote the one scene and started skimming through the rest of the issue, I began tinkering with lines, changing reactions and so on.

That process is going to have to continue with issue #12, which I'm motoring along on now. The good news is that this change gives me a potential plotline which might be interesting - and might lead to Betty doing something constructive with that Peter Parker mask she found....

A peek at my folders

As I may or may not have mentioned before, I'm using Google Docs & Spreadsheets to write with now. I like it a lot, because it lets me write with all the tools I generally need (word count, spell check, etc) and generates simple files when I'm done. It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn good for a free web app. (Biggest limitation is, of course, that it's on the web - but I haven't had much need to do offline writing for a while.)

Today Google updated Docs & Spreadsheets with a new look, which was a pretty big surprise when I logged in, considering I've been looking at the same interface for over six months, I think. So when I saw the new layout I thought I'd give you a peek at what I see every day when I sit down to write - click to make big:


Yeah, I obscured some stuff in there. C'mon, you're not the kind of kid who opened their presents before Christmas morning, are ya? No, of course you're not... just keeping a few things hidden before they're ready to be revealed. Had to rename a few folders too - ain't I a stinker?

Alright, off to bed. I have a feeling I'll be turning over the Brant family tree in my head a few times before I drift off.

Punching it up... and breaking 10k

So yesterday I told you a little bit about a scene I'd written for issue #11 that unexpectedly went to an even higher rating on the ol' "How Turned On Is Ghostly While Writing This" scale. (Said scale starts at 1 - A Slight Quickening Of The Pulse, to 10 - Can't Actually Finish Writing This, Must Take Care Of Business.)

Anyway, overnight and this morning I was pondering over said scene, patting myself on the back a bit, reliving it in the glorious Technicolor, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround environment that is my mind. And I realised there was something missing.

There's a lesson here, fellow writers: never assume because a scene seems great at first pass, that it's as great as it can be. (Or, to repeat myself: writing is rewriting.)

There was indeed something missing... it was a little peek at our protagonist's inner feelings. (I'm not spoiling anything by saying it was Betty.) I needed to know a bit more about what she was feeling, and more importantly, why she was feeling it. Y'see, overnight one tiny line of dialogue - the one that got me so hot and bothered - had also revealed a simply delicious new plotline. Said plotline manages to accomplish several different things that I've wanted to do in the series, and even introduces a whole bunch of new, entirely kinky stuff. In other words, I really want to write it. (And why is it, exactly, that I'm always jonesing to write the arc after the one that's up next? Hmmm. Absence make the GW lust stronger....)

Anyway, I needed that extra detail to lift this scene up, to make it more important in the grand scheme of things. Y'see, even though this scene takes place in issue #11, you'll look back on it from about issue #22 or so and go "Aaah... I can see where this all started." I'm planting seeds.

So today, with that thought in my mind, I went back to edit said scene, and punch it up a little. I wanted to improve it. And I did, I feel. I sweated over every line, every comma, every word... reading, re-reading, gauging my own reaction as it slowly moved along The Scale to an 8, a 9... an oh me oh my. I thought it couldn't get any better.

But get this: suddenly, it did. At the end of the scene, in a throwaway moment which I'd already written in a hurry to wrap the issue up, a tiny little thought occurred to my deviant mind. "What if she does that before she does that... oh yes. Oh, yes." That little moment suddenly became a much larger moment, and lifted the ending of the story another notch. To a 9, no doubt in my mind... although of course, your mileage may (probably will) vary.

A great day for the writing, then. Another little milestone was passed, too, although it's not one I'm boasting about. With the additions I made today (about 500 words or so), Spider-Girl Issue #11 just became the first issue to break the 10,000 word mark. This isn't exactly surprising to me... the issues have been climbing in words ever since issue #1, as I get more comfortable with the characters and want to explore things more thoroughly. On top of that, to be honest, the more scenes like the ones I just described I put in, the more the word count rises. Detail, detail, detail... that's what it's all about.

Anyway, enough self-congratulation. I imagine it must drive a few of you crazy to read this stuff. Sorry! Just rest assured... it's all coming to you sooner or later.

Time for a cold shower

Wow. It's always, always just wonderful when a story takes an unexpected turn and what results is so much better than what you planned.

I just finished Spider-Girl issue #11, and I was working in that whole issue towards a particular scene - yes, a transformation scene. I'd been working out in my head specific 'beats', specific moments that I wanted to do, but honestly with these sorts of things I just tend to let it happen, and let the writing flow. All that bollocks.

However, what I've found to my utter amazement several times now is that right in the middle of those scenes... I'll figure something out that's so, so much better than what I thought. Suffice to say in the scene that I just wrote, an incredibly kinky (Well, to my mind) idea suddenly jumped into the middle of it and made it soooo much sexier. Mmmmm... hmmm.

Sorry it'll be a while before you see it. But hey, look on the bright side; as I like to keep a respectable distance between issues I've released and issues I've finished, putting the 'finished' tag on issue #11 means you're that much closer to issue #7. Which I don't think y'all are gonna see coming....

Oh - happy Memorial Day if you're in the US. And happy, er... wet Bank Holiday if you're here in the UK. A perfect day to stay at home and read some dirty fiction.

B, B and B

What is it, three days since I said this:

'try not to have two characters with the first initial'

.. and here I am this morning writing about three characters, all with the initial letter of 'B'. Dammit.

Worst of it is, they're all characters from Spider-Man history, so I want to keep them all named the same. And one of them has a surname beginning with B so I can't even cheat by calling them by their second name!

Damn you Stan Lee and your easy to remember alliterative names. Damn you all to hell!!!

Oh yeah, 'the reason'

A while back I mentioned my plan to post Spider-Girl #5 and #6 at the same time (well almost) and said that "the reason will become apparent". Well, if it did become apparent to you folks, no-one shouted about it.

The 'reason' I was referring to was my own concern that you folks might be in an uproar about issue #5, because it is the issue I referred to way back in March that doesn't contain any masking. Shock! Horror! And believe me, right up until Saturday morning when I was editing #5 I was asking myself "Should I just put in a small masking scene?". Then I reminded myself of what I'd said back in March... you've got to write for yourself sometimes. So I didn't change it. Look at me, all strong of will!

Well, not that strong of will because I released #6 right after, thinking someone might call foul on #5. But none of you did. Which is cool. Honestly, I now suspect if you were the kind of person who would bitch about that, you wouldn't be reading the series anyway. I mean, there are a lot of words in there....

Anyway. Re-reading (and editing, natch) #5 on Saturday I really did feel proud of it. For me it was the first 'new' issue that I wrote; while issue #4 was all written brand-new this year, it didn't feel new as I was finishing a years-old plotline. Issue #5 (and onwards) felt entirely new to me though, as the plot was newly realised, and for the characters it's really a new start. The Chameleon's gone, Betty thinks her life is back on track... and then it all goes wrong again, heh heh. But that's what comics are about kids....

Right, off to try and put a dent in #11. Great to hear from everyone. Keep those Goblin ID guesses coming!

Editing and being a continuity cop

There's a simple but perfect quote about writing, which is "Writing is rewriting" (originally attributed to EB White, it seems, but it's been stolen ever since). I'm not actually at the point yet where I sweat bullets over my fiction... I just feel happy getting it done. What I do religiously though, is edit.

Editing is something I used to do for a living, so I'm in the habit now, and once you start you can't stop. If I'm presented with a piece of text on a screen or in print, I see spelling mistooks first, often immediately. (Gotcha.) So I can rarely read through anything I've written without wanting to mess with it a little bit.

On a continuing series like Spider-Girl though, what becomes interesting about the editing process is that I have to start looking out for the dreaded continuity. I get nutty about this. I constantly go back through and check things like whether or not a character was holding an item (and in which hand), which door they entered through in the last scene, what they were wearing last time I mentioned it, which piece of clothing they just took off or put on... and so on. But that's internal, inside one issue continuity - it's flowing things from scene to scene, the literary equivalent of avoiding those movie continuity gaffes. It might not mean a heck of a lot to you, but it matters to me, and often I find myself adding stuff or rewriting to get around some tiny point of internal continuity.

Besides that, though, I worry about series continuity, and with 10 issues finished now this is starting to get a little harder. What's even more crazy is trying to deal with Marvel Comics' own continuity, particularly the screwed-up early continuity you find in Amazing Spider-Man.

For example; in issue #5 I introduce Liz Allen, who I originally wrote down as Liz Allan, because I was sure that was the right way to spell her surname. (I know, it's just one letter, and it's still a vowel and it doesn't change the way the word sounds... but this is what being an editor does to you, folks.) Finally I checked the original comics, and guess what? Stan Lee managed to spell it as both 'Allen' and 'Allan' in different issues of ASM. So I made my own choice.

Next, I was sure in my mind that J Jonah Jameson was Editor of the Daily Bugle. I mean, he sure as hell acted like the editor. Then I went and checked, and he's the publisher... always has been, right from his first appearance. That took quite a bit of find-and-replace to fix.

Finally there were the Susan Storm variants. Once I start referring to a character in one way, I try to keep calling them the same thing over and over. In other words, I'll call Peter Parker 'Peter' and not 'Petey' or 'Pete'. (The exception is when I'm dealing with Betty/Spider-Girl; I call her 'Betty' when out of costume and 'Spider-Girl' when in, because in many ways, they're different personalities, almost different people.)

(The reason I do this, by the way, is that I follow a tip I read years ago, which basically said that people stop consciously reading character's names when they're reading a piece of fiction over a long-ish period of time (eg a novel or a series). They just see the 'shape' of the word, and the first letter. So the advice was: try not to have two characters with the first initial, and always call them the same thing, consistently, so they don't get confused who's talking at any given point.)

So back to Susan Storm. Or Sue Storm. Or the Invisible Girl. Or the Invisible Woman... Sue or Susan were both perfectly reasonable alternatives, but I wanted to stick with one, so 'Susan' it was. What got confusing was writing dialogue for the FF, where Ben would call her 'Susie', Reed would call her 'Susan' and Johnny could call her anything! As for the Invisible Girl/Woman thing, I only messed that up once. (She only became the Invisible Woman after John Byrne's excellent 'Malice' storyline. And thanks to Steve Zink, that particularly kinky moment for Susan (clad in black leather playing the evil dominatrix...) is stuck in my ideas file as a future possible plotline.)

Of course, there are occasions when I need to bend or break Marvel's continuity for my own purposes. I mean, we're working in a 'What If' inspired universe anyway, so no biggie, right? Apart from the major breaks that you all know about ("What, Betty Brant isn't heavily into disguise and kinkiness in the real Marvel U?") I had to tweak a few other things. Like, I gave Susan Storm force fields a lot earlier than she was supposed to have them; I also ignored the fact that she eventually managed to use her invisibility powers to make other stuff invisible. Because, you know, that would have made issue #4 kinda boring, wouldn't it?

Also, in the first version of issues #3 and #4, I had Reed and Susan already married (arguably, if we're assuming this series is at the start of Spider-Girl's career, they should have been single). Which was fine at first; it made the stakes higher and the dramatic tension of Susan and Betty getting together was increased. But then I started having so much fun with the two of them as a couple, I decided to revert Susan and Reed to just being girlfriend and boyfriend. With things like that, Susan can feel a little less guilty about seeing Betty (Yep, it happens again) and I also get to do a potential Susan-Reed marriage plot further down the road. Because everyone knows superhero weddings never go off without a hitch. Especially when the bride's been engaged in some hot action with one of the bridal party. F'r instance....

So those are a bunch of examples where editing and continuity either got me out of trouble, or got me into it. It makes writing interesting, that's for sure. But I tell ya, I'm going to have to start a series index pretty soon just to keep all the details straight in my head....