Mobius Update: Jan 2025

Hello readers, it’s time for a Mobius update. Turning the page on 2024, I am halfway done with draft 2 at 21/43 chapters and 50,000 words. Wow, this book is growing!

For most of my life, my writing has been too sparse. While other writers bemoaned the need to cut down their bloated beasts, my scrawny stories sat at 20,000-40,000 words, hardly enough to call a novel. It is heartwarming to see my thousands of hours of practice paying off.

Few things in life are more satisfying than feeling yourself improving at something you are passionate about. I’m thankful to my critique group for motivating me to keep writing 8+ hours every week and submit new chapters for review.

Additionally, I’ve found two very good online influences. Story Grid focuses on treating your story like a fractal, repeating the structure of inciting incident, rising action, climax, and resolution at every scale, from the whole book to each act, each chapter, each scene, each beat. They emphasize showing the character’s motivation with a clear Object of Desire, driving the action of each scene.

My second influence is a podcast called Releasing Your Inner Dragon. The hosts are indie fantasy novelists who run a workshop for bright-eyed, self-studying writers. They discuss narrative theory and the craft of writing, as well as publicly critiquing chapters submitted by members of their group. They emphasize attaching the reader to the main character’s emotions right away and crafting your story around a moral theme for your protagonist to wrestle with.

Of course, no single influence knows all the answers, especially in an artistic pursuit like novel writing. There is a lot of bad advice out there, courtesy of the content creation economy. I’ve seen videos like, “17 Minutes of Writing Advice from Stephen King” or “6 Keys to Storytelling from Quentin Tarantino,” which are nothing more than clips of the nominal giants delivering blunt, unhelpful lines for live applause. I’m half convinced these aggrandized writers have no idea why they rose to the top. The compilers of the videos certainly don’t. All this to say it is important to manage your influences. Seek sources who teach you how to improve your craft and create great art, and be wary of those who are set up on pedestals to admire from below.

Speaking of influences, Brandon Sanderson has just released Wind and Truth, the fifth book in his Stormlight Archive epic fantasy series. I’ve been following his work since he finished The Wheel of Time during my formative teenage years. Although I’ve fallen off the Sanderson train lately, I decided to reread the first 4 Stormlight Archive books in preparation for this mid-series “season finale” so to speak. I’ve just caught up and started reading Wind and Truth. It’s taking its time getting off the ground, but I’m eager to see where this world-spanning, multi-realm epic fantasy story goes.

It’s been long enough that I’d mostly forgotten the story so far. In particular, I forgot just how powerful a story the first book, The Way of Kings is. Honestly, if you’ve never read a Brandon Sanderson book and you’d like to see what he’s about, read The Way of Kings. It’s big, but easily his best, and it’s satisfying even if you choose not to continue the series.

So those are my closing comments for 2024. What’s the plan next year? First and foremost, I want to finish this draft and run it through my critique group. I’ll need to revisit the first 10 chapters, removing fluff and strengthening the vibes and themes. In this age of bite-sized entertainment, a slow start is a recipe for failure. After that, the whole book will need an editing pass, then proofreading. Then, it will be querying time. I still tremble at the thought of putting my baby out there for the professional industry, but that’s a battle for another time.

Happy 2025!