Scott Pilgrim vs The World is all about being awesome. The mix of rocking music, video game mentality and an unbridled love for both those cultures gives the graphic series and the upcoming film a lot of appeal. Since it’s visual media in both cases, the writing isn’t just concerned with being awesome, it’s got to be awesome in as few words as possible.

“Brevity is the soul of wit.” “Pity the reader.” “Don’t waste my time.” Especially when it comes to things like comics and movies, the more story you can tell in fewer words, the more awesome the story will be overall.

This applies to novels, as well, though. You need to grab a hold of your reader and tell them they’re in for an awesome time. Chuck goes into detail about this, and it’s been driven home for me as I’ve examined the opening of Citizen in the Wilds in preparation for what I hope will be a rapid but thorough revision. There’s things about it I can already think of that need to be changed, and moments that I will try to preserve. But all of that’s for naught if I can’t hook the reader right away.

The problem with my opening paragraph is that it’s too wordy. Like the aforementioned visual media, in the case this opening, the writing needs to be succinct and punchy. I got some feedback on the first sentence in the aforementioned Terrible Minds post, and I’m taking it to heart as I re-examine that opening paragraph.

A novel is a long form of fiction. There’s lots of room in there for character development, world building, and the building of tension and complication ramping up to the climax. You’re not limited by word count. However, if you don’t hook your reader in the first 100 words, the rest of the 100,000 might as well be “watermelon” over and over again. It doesn’t matter if the later chapters in a book are awesome. When a reader picks up the book and opens up to Chapter 1, it needs to be awesome now.

If nothing else, watching LOST from the beginning has been a help. Good openings, good character development, etc. My wife is watching them for the first time. I’m studying them for clues on how to make my opening hook one that grabs a reader by the soft tissue of the cheek and doesn’t let go for the twenty chapters that follow.

If I can do that, the rest of this revision will be a snap. And it will be awesome.

You remember Return of the King, don’t you? How Frodo and Sam are laying there on Mount Doom when (SPOILER ALERT) the eagles, Tolkien’s favorite deus ex machina, sweep down from the sky and carry them away to safety, and after Frodo wakes up to have Merry and Pippin jump into bed with him, the screen fades to black only to fade in again? Remember how that happened a couple of times, leaving you feeling like the movie had three or four endings?

Those are epilogues. They’re portions of the story at the end that, to some, may seem vestigial. Could the aforementioned film have ended without these additional bits of story? Probably. Would it have been improved? Absolutely not. Lord of the Rings, in prose or motion, is focused on its characters, and these epilogues expand even further on those characters, showing what becomes of some of them in the aftermath of this epic confrontation.

While a good ending doesn’t always include an epilogue, an epilogue should always be part of a good ending. Chuck gives great advice on endings which I won’t repeat since he said it first & better, but a good epilogue that’s part of a good ending should fit a lot of his criteria: it should be unexpected, satisfying, and leave the audience hungry for more.

Basically when you hit the last line of the last numbered chapter, the feeling the reader should have is to want to keep turning pages, to see what happens next, how people respond to that line of dialog, etc. Turning the page to find it full of more delicious words instead of just mocking you by being blank is a great feeling for a reader, even if the epilogue begins with a little exposition of what happened after. An epilogue is, by and large, a wrap-up. It’s an opportunity for the author to tie up a loose end or two, get the characters where they need to go after the action concludes, and capitalizes on the reader wanting more. “If there were more,” one might say, “it’d go in this direction.”

You don’t want to leave too many things dangling. That’s sloppy and unprofessional work. You don’t want to drag it out or leave too many things unresolved. If the reader is asking a couple of questions when they do reach that blank page after the words are done, that’s good. The reader asking so many questions it frustrates the hell out of them isn’t.

That’s my goal tonight and into tomorrow, as I pen the epilogue for Citizen in the Wilds. The plot’s pretty much wrapped up, the world has been established and one of its continents explored. Now, without too much faffing about, I need to resolve the situation facing our heroes and show the conclusion of Asherian’s arc. It will end where it began, but the young man’s very different now than he was almost 100,000 words ago. He’s going to keep growing, as I keep writing, and I hope his growth will be as interesting to read as it is to chronicle.

Citizen in the Wilds is swiftly reaching its conclusion. The word count you see to your right doesn’t reflect the several hand-written pages I’ve yet to transcribe. I have one crucial scene to finish, an epilogue to craft and another scene to pen in order to sew this puppy up. But the bottom line is, I want to get a jump-start on the next step.

That step is giving the manuscript a blindfold and a cigarette, standing it in front of a pock-marked brick wall, and handing you each a rifle.

Yes, you. I need some assistance here, folks, as I don’t trust myself entirely to catch my horrid but insidious misspellings, repair any split infinitives and hunt down my darlings. I want to make sure my narrative makes sense, my characters have depth, my themes carry meaning and the whole thing is about something. Sure, I care about this thing, but I don’t feel it’s right to expect anybody else to care unless they get a chance to look it over. Make sense?

Now, this could just be my paper-thin veneer of confidence slipping to show just how insecure I am, especially when it comes to my writing. So be it. I try to be honest, and I’d be lying if I said I have a masterpiece on my hands. I think some things work smoothly and others may be a bit clunky. In the process of getting chapters ready for posting, I’ll definitely revise a bit myself, checking word choice and possibly making some cuts. But I still might miss something. The possibility is there that something I think as fine or just ignore entirely could be a deal-breaker for an agent. And that frightens me.

So I’d like to get other eyes and fingers on the thing. I’ve been debating the best way to do it without printing out multiple copies and killing the planet. Google Wave is still being super beta and occasionally vomiting horribly. Google Docs is more stable, but not everybody will want to go about it that way. And they might be uncomfortable with other people seeing their comments. Scrivener? Sorry, don’t own a Mac. Rob Oaks is working on a Linux-based software solution quite similar to it, called LyX-Outline, and I plan on trying that out. Seeing if I can get people to collaborate that way. Let some folks have at the manuscript, kick the tires, jam the gearshift, see if the damn thing runs.

Anybody out there want to get in on this? Get a sneak peek at the novel before it hits the streets, maybe play a role in bringing it to life? Also, any suggestions for collaborative revision, from other software I haven’t found to reasons why it’s a bad idea, are more than welcome.