Yes, it has been another long hiatus for me. Turns out wedding planning and house buying is time consuming. Who knew?
While I have a brief respite, I thought I’d start a new series on Constructing Stories. Some of you may know that I write (with the help of Nathan Scheck and my soon-to-be wife, Jessica) TimeSlingers.com, a free, online serial story. It’s science fiction adventure—fast-paced and action-oriented.
We released half the storyline (which is currently posted) before realizing that writing for the Web meant altering things even more so than we had initially anticipated. The story needed to be brief, hard-hitting, and compelling. We want people to keep coming back every time a new episode is released.
My next few blog posts are all about how to effectively re-write and re-concept TimeSlingers.com. First up: cutting the fat. Story segments have ranged from 450 – 800 words. That’s way too long for the Web. Each post will be 350 words, max. Here’s an example of a comparison:
Old Version:
Silence, then a faint buzz followed by static. Marcus Kline cursed, shaking the communicator. With all the technology infused into the operation such glitches were uncommon, hazardous, and incredibly frustrating. The side effects of molecular teleportation were as varied as they were dangerous. A poor connection through the communicator was last on his list of things to worry about.
New Version:
Silence, then a faint buzz followed by static. Marcus Kline cursed. The side effects of molecular teleportation were as varied as they were dangerous. Communications failure could mean disaster.
I would love to hear your thoughts. To get the discussion started, let me raise several questions:
- Do you miss anything that the first version had that the second version doesn’t?
- Which version do you feel would be easier to read online?
- Which version do you prefer?
