I expect that how this all works will be fairly intuitive and that no one should truly need to read this post in order to be able to get the most out of this blog and more importantly the novel which is at the core of it.
But in the off chance that someone needs some light shed upon some detail of my process, or should the whole thing become more complex than I could imagine, I am going to begin now and get some of the "rules" (so to speak) down.
Most of this is pretty self-evident I think, but...
Installments of the novel - all the most up to date versions - are labelled sequentially with the rather unimaginative, but easily organized title format of Book Number, Part Number, Chapter Number and Installment Number - Eg. "Book: The First - Part: Two - Chapter: 3 - Installment: iv." (Note, I have no idea how long the third chapter of part two of the first book will be.)
Each installment will have a link at the end to the next installment in sequence... assuming I don't get lazy about it, but that would be really counter-productive. Even so, the intallments will be posted in order and thus will appear in reverse-chronological order on the blog with the latest installment first.
On occassion I will have other things I want or need to talk about. Most of these will appear as Author's Notes like this one. I already have a total of four in mind and will be parcelling them out by the end of the year. Usually these will be practical things pertaining to the book/blog and in my mind will be things that most readers will want to at least peek at, if not read in full. They won't be required reading by any measure and some of them will arguably fit into different categories, but you can assume that if I have labelled it as an Author's Note that I think it is of above normal interest to the reader and beyond the narrative of the novel.
I also see a space to be filled for something I intend to label "insight." This will be a bit more of a peek behind the curtain. Indeed I already know what the first one will be. There is an element of chapter four which has had to change in my head since I first conceived the character that it revolves around. I think it's a potentially interesting look into how I've had to rethink a core element of the set-up. In the case of most novels the reader doesn't get the behind the scenes sort of thinking that goes into a book as it is being written. Perhaps this will be of interest to some of you, hence I'm including it, but I heartily endorse skipping these bits if you just want the story.
I suppose someday there might be a reason to label a post or posts as "news," but I suspect that if that ever happens it'll be a long way down the road.
As mentioned in my last author's note, I will also need a place to identify changes to past posts. I think this will probably occur on one separate consolidated page, but I have yet to commit to that and it's also likely that changes will appear in posts, or at least that I'll have posts that call attention to the consolidated page. I'll update on that matter as it becomes pertinent.
Related to that, I also suspect that there might be some interest in portions of the novel that have either been excised or radically changed - kind of the novel/blog version of "deleted and extended scenes." For now I'm planning to label those as "Past Versions." They won't link into the narrative like proper chapters, but they will appear in the blog timeline in immediate proximity (presumably after) the chapters they relate to.
Like everything in this project this is all bound to change and I shall update this page accordingly at that time.
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