I'm looking forward to Tuesday. Gray and I will be going over Episode 001. I've already detailed here my concerns with the story, so there's no point going over that again. Basically, I plan on revising the first seven episodes to have a tighter focus and to portray Sharp as we originally intended: a super talented jerk. With all the edits I did to appease my editing group, I began to write timidly, self-censoring as I went along. I'm a l'il irritated about it, but it's nobody's fault but my own.
Starting in Episode 004, I tried to write a crazy network setup that was sure to drive Sharp mad, and I succeeded, but it also drove two people in the editing group mad. They were fixated on those networking wonders, patch panels, and assumed I was writing the scene wrong—even though they never mentioned the phrase "patch panels".
So I would write more and more details, trying to help them understand better, describing all the gory concrete realities of doing network IT the stupid way. The scenes got longer; I began to lose my will to live; and they were still confused! I didn't realize they were fixated on patch panels.
When one of the editors finally mentioned "patch panels" in a conversation, a light went on inside my weary head. I suddenly understood why these two editors were so confused. They assumed that I was writing the scene as it would exist in a real life corporate environment with a professional installation and patch panels. Except, that's not what was going on in the WMD lab. Also, this was supposed to be a comedy.
Comedy FAIL
We had a major communication failure. In the end, I told Gray that I had described Sharp's work environment with such dreadful realism, I wanted to give my two week's notice right alongside him.
So, we won't be writing that way anymore. When somebody becomes confused over something I write, I will ask questions until we clarify what the problem is. I'll need to be more proactive about it, even if I'm not the one who is confused.
Also, I won't be submitting the individual episodes for editorial review anymore. That simply didn't work out the way I had imagined.
I believe the added network details added to the realism prior to Bethsi's arrival, but editorial input during the creation process had a crushing effect on my creativity. At the very least, I couldn't maintain spontaneity and my narrative voice while fielding edits. That's why I ultimately blame myself.
To undo the damage, Gray and I will go over each episode on Tuesday, one by one, cutting out all the dull "realism" and adding back more cheek, although there may remain a reference or two to patch panels. (I plan on taking my revenge on them as therapy.) Once we revise the first seven episodes, I'll have a firmer grasp on the tone that we want for the series—likely closer to Episode 001 in feel. Only then will I begin episode 008.
I'm fairly certain that we'll be moving from Kindle Vella to another service. It seems that sites like Honeyfeed have more of the readers that we're looking for. Although KV pays and Honeyfeed doesn't, KV only gives out three chapters for free. I don't feel that's enough to entice people to become readers. I'd rather build up a larger audience with a free release, then bundle the story up into an ebook and make money that way. We'll see.
–Mr. Patch Panels