...And Virion of Gathus IV

I was supposed to be working on plotting today but ended up on another re-read.

Once again I'm feeling there is just too much stuff. It is too dense. But I get better. The first chapters of the first book are, well, lousy. And, yes, I've had a cluster of Kindle page reads during my recent advertising campaign and I was checking to see if I could figure out how far they got and when they, seemingly, gave up on me.

(And I'm worried about conversion. Impressions to clicks is running about 400:1, a little better I think with the current custom ad that name-drops Tomb Raider. But click-through to sales is 27:1 and the Kindle Page Reads -- one of the only metrics I have if people are actually finishing the book -- appears to show up to 10 false starts for every full read.)

(So the new covers...I think they are more representational of where I actually ended up going with the series. Penny is the center of things, not the history or archaeology. And for all her quirks, it really is more about her having adventures then her being the typical hero of a Mystery Cozy. It is all arguable, but I think I'll get more clicks and more conversion with the new covers. I just have to find the patience to do them and/or deal with an artist who can work on them. Which, given my lack of skill, is a better idea!)

Anyhow, one of the things I really want to lose is a habit of lists. I just can't help coming up with three examples, like that bit they kept repeating on Star Trek -- only there, always with two real names and one made-up one. "A simple agricultural tool, like the plow, the hoe, and the Markathian grabthar."

So the lists are a bit much. Just too much stuff to keep track of. There's a bit at some point where I just had to name-drop something but I didn't have the time to go into it, so I was trying to shove a whole story into one sentence. And that's another side of the same mistake. A clear counter-example is actually in Chapter 2; where I focus in on one story about Diogenes and take my time to really tell the story (it takes up a full page).

I feel that I did much better with this in the London book. Maybe it was the setting. In the current novel I'm having more trouble, it feels, getting away from glancing looks at the ridiculous amount of detail and more into focused bits or scenes.

For instance, I name-drop a shop just off the Philosopher's Walk, with just a bit about the price of a used kimono. But then I spent over a page visiting a different shop and having something to eat there and that's better. 

Okay, sure, it can be distracting in a different way. But this is where "James Bond Plotting" comes in. You chose some arbitrary place or thing and make a big scene set there. And looked at it from one angle, we're wasting all this time watching a show at the Robot Restaurant in Shinjuku when there's a plot to unfold and a bad guy to catch. But looked at the other way, this is the point of the book; the bad guy and his plot is just the McGuffin to keep us moving through these set-pieces.

And the reader isn't getting all of these lists of things thrown at them.