Postmortem

Fling a Light was one of the first things I ever wrote, and the first to follow anything resembling a plan. It suffered a lot from my inexperience, languishing in a state of perpetual Act 1, Chapter 1, Scene 1. Every new chapter introduced new elements rather than building on what was there, as I spent more and more time trying to set up what was, in retrospect, an unfocused and bloated plot. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it while it lasted, and learned all that could be expected.

And, just in case it could be helpful to someone reading this, I'll repeat those lessons here.

Fling a Light was supposed to be about choosing not to fight, and sacrificing the close and emotional for the distant but ultimately more valuable. The plot would reinforce this at several points, and, each time, Taylor would voluntarily give something up. At the conclusion of Arc 4, for example, she would sacrifice her focus on Brockton Bay in favour of a more globalist attitude, simultaneously moving to Boston. I fell short of this by a mile, and in a lot of different ways, but the one that I feel I understand most clearly is that I failed to deliberately convey a sense of anticipation. I suspect that each event in the plot should give the reader a deliberate impression of what's going to come next, so that subsequent events could either confirm or subvert these expectations - something I didn't realize until far too late. Instead of understanding the story as a series of changes, I thought of it as a series of static scenes that the characters progressed through, which, since it didn't convey a sense of direction or future, left the audience with a dizzyingly wide variety of impressions about what was going to happen next, which contributed to the sense of perpetual Act 1, Chapter 1, Scene 1.

Or maybe I'm completely off-base. I'm still really new to this. I suppose I'll find out when I write my next story.

Finally, much of the story fell victim to a plague of pointlessness. Entire characters and events came and went, never to influence the plot again - I dedicated much of a chapter and a bizarre, confused chase scene to the Trio, who, beyond being disgustingly overexposed, had no bearing on the story I was trying to tell.

I hope this was of some use to someone. I know I'd appreciate it if writers explained their thought processes more often - although, precisely because they don't, I have no idea if I'm alone in that or not. Either way, this story can be considered deceased as of 10/01/2018.