The good, the bad, and the audio

Published by neil on December 27th, 2008 Leave a comment »

Just over a year ago and with a very rough, hand written first draft, I decided to start writing and producing a regular audio book series of my first novel, Persistent Spirit. Now that I have struggled through a year of working this way, is it something I would repeat?

There are pros and cons to this method as you might imagine. As the Persistent Spirit story begins to enter its final phase and the end of the book is on the horizon, I find myself contemplating whether I might undergo the same process for the second book, A Shot in Time.

The cons

Time: writing and recording an episode consumes 15-20 hours of effort. Maintaining that each week with an increasingly demanding and unpredictable day-job has been, frankly, stressful.

Structure: episodes have a completely different structure to a novel, requiring continuing momentum, restructured scenes, and some point of tension at the end of each one. Unedited, this brings the novel a strange, pulse-like pace which now needs a further re-write.

The pros

Progress: episodes promoted regular writing. I believe I am further along in the story than I would have been without to self imposed demands of a regular episodic production.

Story momentum: despite the structure issue mentioned above, the story has a pace and continues to move along ithout getting bogged down and sluggish. Once the “episodic pulse” is edited out I think the novel will have an enhanced page-turning pace.

Feedback: reaching out with even an unpolished story to potential audience around the globe has generated feedback that has helped both encourage the work and help shape it.

What’s in store for 2009?

Not another audio book, that’s for sure. The pros most certainly outweigh the cons, so the audio book of the second Table Rappers book must correct some of the negatives of this years’ experience. Most importantly is the frustration from being unable to produce regular, weekly episodes. Book two (titled A Shot in Time) will not be released as serialised audio until it has completed the second draft.

That does not mean there will be nothing from the Table Rappers in 2009, however. I’m planning some short story dramatised episodes, including a cast of actors, full sound effects, etc. Doesn’t that mean even more work? Yes, but the work flow can be controlled around the production, and such a project is free from an ongoing, weekly deadline.

2009 is already promising to be a challenging year on both personal and professional fronts, so careful planning will be essential to achievement of my goals. I’m thoroughly looking forward to what might prove to be a formative year for the future!

Tags: audio, pace, planning, process, structure, Table Rappers, writing
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