Time Crystal

28 April 2007 and over the past day or two I’ve continued to make major structural changes to TC. I’ve re-organised the first four chapters so that each one is devoted to one scenario. Previously I was chopping around intermixing scenes from different scenarios but I’ve decided that doesn’t work at the beginning. It’s distracting and serves no dramatic purpose. The reader’s need at the beginning is to get to know the characters and their situations and to achieve this they need a more extensive familiarity, more time to think about each scenario.

I now think that the inter-cutting of short scenes is really only appropriate when you have two dramatic scenarios happening at the same time and you want to drive the reader wild with anticipation about each one.

Also listening to these early chapters I decided Danny’s character and motivations were wrong, so set about changing those. Can’t give too much detail as it might spoil the story.

I managed to figure out how to change the TC code, but I had a few moments panic as I looked at all this PHP code I’d written. It was like going into a dusty library and trying to decypher Greek.

Just got back into blogging for lots of reasons. Like Alex Karolyi, there are always lots of reasons for things I do.

1. I put a bulletin board on the TC web site but it’s never used. I then changed it into an email link but I never get any emails. In fact the the whole TC web site should be the subject of another blog entry here.
2. I’m working with Jonathan Powers on a blog for the DerbySciBAr.
3. I also created a blog on the Tribune de Geneve. I must say that made me feel almost like a Genevan.
4. I’ve been writing to keri recently but she’s too busy to listen at present so I’ve got a lot of energy I need to send somewhere.
5. While chatting with keri I created a Google account and that fits in well with this blog.

So I’m going to revive this blog (at least for one day) and try to explain what’s been happening over the past four months as far as TC is concerned. In fact I’m a bit constrained over what I can say since it’s hard to separate TC from my life. Writers have to live in the fantasy of their creations and to use their every life experience as material, but some of my life involves others and it’s not fair to share it all.

So I’ll now add some catchup material.

The graphic version of the novel (www.timecrystal.co.uk) has been unmaintained since late January. Since then I’ve been making changes to the story so fast that I haven’t time to maintain it. The biggest change came from keri and other kind folk at www.chronicles-network.com/forum/ The opening scene of travelling down the time tunnel was removed and replaced by the drive down the Route de Meyrin. Since then this has been moved to scene 2 and the opener is now in the ATLAS control room.

I joined that forum on 25th February. During March I was making the changes explained above and others with the scenario. Previously there was a confrontation between Michael and Danny from the very beginning. Now this has been removed so they start off amicably.

In early April I visited Geneva so I could be there on Crystal Day (Wed 4 April before Easter) and stayed for a week, soaking up the atmosphere and getting sunburnt on the Saleve. A short account is given in www.ilovekeri.org.uk.

Now it’s late April and I’m just about to start going through TC adding a tension map. In truth this came from reading bits of Michael Crichton and I remembered how important it is for the author to control the tension level. It’s something I’ve totally neglected to do. I’m hoping that the labels PowerWriter offers for scenes will help me create the map.

Now all I need to do is add a link to this blog from the TC web site.