June 2020 Dispatch
Kyell Gold
May Recap
It feels strange to be writing about my writing work at a time when much of our attention is rightly focused elsewhere, on the horrific actions taken by those who are supposed to be protecting our citizens, on the ever-more glaring need for competent, compassionate leadership, on the righteous anger of people at discrimination and oppression and violence that had been going on for far too long even before Ferguson, before Trayvon Martin, before George Floyd.
I’ve been heartened to see so many people in my Twitter feed going out to protests if not actively helping communities come together and rebuild. I really hope that change comes from this, and if it doesn’t, or it isn’t enough, I hope we all keep fighting for it. Whatever you can do will help: amplify the voices calling for justice, contribute money if you can, go out and make your voices heard (but keep yourselves safe as best you can). And research your local and state and national politicians and VOTE.
Through all this, I do have books to finish and deadlines and so on, and as hard as it can be to focus on that sometimes, it helps when I’m working on something like The Revolution and the Fox, which at least deals with themes of injustice and intolerance. I’m almost done with the final read-through (expect to finish today) and the art is all done. Pretty soon you should be seeing a cover and hearing our plans for release.
Coming up in June I’ll be working on some editing projects (not my work) and going back over Dude, Where’s My Pack? to get it ready for beta reading. I’m excited about that one and can’t wait for you guys to get it in your paws.
My Zootopia fanfiction writing streams have gone pretty well! I’ve been doing them Tuesdays around noon PDT for 60-90 minutes, and intend to continue them into June (though I’ll be skipping 6/2). Keep an eye on my Twitter or follow me on picarto.tv (https://picarto.tv/KyellGold) to be notified next time I stream, probably 6/9.
I’ll have more streaming recommendations next month, but for now I’ll just note that I finished Counterpart and it comes to a satisfying ending, more or less (I have some problems with the last two episodes but not huge ones). I still wish it had gotten a couple more seasons.
Release dates
Audiobooks: If you don’t have an Audible account yet, check out my new Soundcloud page (https://soundcloud.com/user-710305036-429996600), which has samples and links to all my audiobooks. Those links help me get extra money especially if you use them to sign up for a new account. Savrin is working hard on new audiobooks, and once Love Match 1 is up, we hope to get Titles and Ty Game out shortly following!
The 2020 release schedule has been delayed somewhat: Love Match (2013-2015) is now targeted for the first weekend in July. I’m working with FurPlanet on how to do pre-orders for it and we might be able to offer signed bookplates to go with pre-ordered books, since I won’t be able to sign any in person. The fourth and final Calatians book, The Revolution and the Fox, will come out later in the summer (or early fall), and I hope to get the “Dude” sequel out this year as well.
My FREE book of writing advice called Do You Need Help? is on baddogbooks.com right here: https://baddogbooks.com/product/do-you-need-help/
Appearances in 2020
My full list of upcoming appearances is at http://www.kyellgold.com/contact.html, recently updated (or soon to be updated).
Megaplex has been postponed, but I have been told that they would like to keep the same GOH slate into 2021. I don’t have any other plans to attend furry conventions.
Spotlight: Difursity: Stories by Furries of Color
Published by Thurston Howl Publications in April of this year, this anthology is a collection of stories written and edited by POC from the furry fandom. It’s an important step toward increasing representation by non-white authors in general. Check it out:
https://www.amazon.com/Difursity-Stories-Furries-Color-Weasel/dp/1945247665/
Excerpt: Mostly been editing, so no excerpt this month.
Questions From YOU
If you’ve got a question about my books or my writing—or anything else you want me to talk about—shoot me an email and I’ll answer it here.
This month’s question comes from Al Song: “I wanted to ask if you have any tips for outlining novel chapters. I’ve only ever written short stories, and I’m not sure how chapters are supposed to be structured.”
There are no hard and fast rules to structuring chapters that I’m aware of. Loosely, I believe chapters should be broken at significant points in the plot: where motivations change, where new discoveries are made, where the characters’ situation changes. I have written a novel-length book section (over 50K words) that did not have a chapter break (that was early on in my career and was a mistake that I corrected in the e-book), and I have written a chapter that was two words long (that was intentional and done for effect, in Black Angel).
In general, moving from short stories to novels requires thinking about your story on a larger scale. A short story is (generally) about an important moment in time; a novel is about a journey, including mistakes, side trips, and changes in course. There is so much more flexibility in novels than in screenplays that there isn’t really a “basic novel structure” as there is for screenplays, but it’s instructive to look at a basic screenplay structure to see what your novel outline might look like:
· Establish setting and character
· Inciting incident: something changes to propel the character into the story
· The character makes a decision to move forward
· First obstacle
· Reflection on first obstacle
· Retry first obstacle (if failed) or move to second obstacle
· Midpoint: this is often where a big change happens, something like
o False Victory: the obstacle is overcome but it’s made everything worse
o Goal Changes: the character discovers that what they wanted was wrong
o Hidden Enemy: an ally is revealed to be an enemy
· Third obstacle: trying to cope with the change
· Disaster: things go wrong, allies abandon character, etc.
· “Valley of Death”: Reflection, character must make a change
· Final obstacle/battle: Character change allows them to fight
· Success or failure, reflection
· Final scene: new equilibrium
In a novel, each of these would be a separate chapter, or maybe two depending on the length of the novel (my novels tend to 20-30 chapters).
I generally don’t write TO this formula, though; I write the events of the novel as I imagine them and then I check them against this if the story doesn’t feel right. I would suggest starting that way with your first novel: just write out the events you imagine happening to your characters and then try to group them into elements of plot. A chapter will generally be a part of the story you can summarize in a sentence or two, like “We meet the Dursleys and learn how much they hate magic, and then Professor Dumbledore brings Harry Potter to live with them on a day when he has somehow done something incredible for the wizarding world.”
If you’re still having trouble figuring out how to separate your novel into chapters, try going back to a book you love and summarizing each chapter as I’ve done above. You’ll get the hang of it once you figure out how other people do it. And if it still seems mysterious, just break for a chapter at a good breaking point in the story after a few thousand words. Once you’ve done it a few times, you’ll have a much better idea, and unless you do like I did and write 50,000 words without a chapter break, you likely won’t get anyone complaining.
Stay safe and stay home, y’all.