The process of giving away the book has begun.
Let me clarify what I mean by that. For the last three years or so, I’ve written a world where I described various characters, sites, and sounds. Until just recently, my impressions of those descriptions was the only one (or nearly so). Well, that’s changing.
First, I’ve reached out to my long-term art collaborator (Amanda Banker of Santa Fe) for character sketches for our five POVs. These sketches will be posted on the website, though I intend on producing an animation-lite visual treatment of the Prologue. Anyhow, I received Amanda’s take on Chesa today. Looking at Amanda’s Chesa, it’s not how I saw mine. As I thought on it though, I realized that Amanda’s representation is completely accurate to the letter. But it’s still a very different Chesa than mine. That itches. This won’t be the last time this strangeness happens, so what to do?
Enter the second example… auditions close today for the actresses interested in narrating the series. We had more than fifty quality auditions before the weekend. We likely won’t have a ton more than that by close today, but we’ll see. Anyhow, point is, these actresses are going to bring tones and wield vocal sensibilities that weren’t what I had in mind…
The concern is that my biases toward a particular tone or look could thwart my ability to select and enjoy something even better. When you finish writing your story (or this part of it), you are giving away your models and ownership in favor of bringing crowdsource creativity and critique comes to bear on it. It is becoming less and less yours.
Is that sad? No. If I didn’t want other peoples’ takes I should never have let a draft leave the safety of my own (always dirty) laptop.
But it is frightening. I’m not calling my novel a pristine spring. But as you move even a short distance away from the source of any stream or river, the type of river it becomes is more a property of the surrounding wilderness and developed land than the source water. I predict that books are the same. I’m looking forward to seeing where people take this wordy-Rorschach. I predict it’s going to be a wild ride.