The Dreaded Domino Effect

otterman · Dec 25, 2007

I bet it's happened to you...
Made a single plot change to my WIP and realized the change was going to spread like a virus through a number of chapters. There's nothing I hate more than having to go through everything again looking for inconsistencies that now spring from it. I know it was the right thing to do, but it's driving me crazy!

Any similar experiences out there? Was it a good or bad final outcome?

Linda Adams · Dec 25, 2007

Oh, yeah. That happened multiple times with my co-written project. Every little change in the beginning seemed to ripple through the entire book. Most of that, though, was because we hadn't paid enough attention to how to the story was set up. I'm trying to avoid the same problem on my current WIP, since I don't want to spend forever fixing the story.

Lance-Might · Dec 25, 2007

Yeap I had it happened quite a few times while I was writing the subsequent drafts. I have to go through the entire story again just to be sure I didn't miss out anything.

Fortunately, the outcomes have been quite fruitful so far. I believe that the changes and the effort put in made my story nothing but better.

Rolling Thunder · Dec 25, 2007

I try to tame this situation by having an initial outline followed by a post chapter synopsis after editing. The smaller post-synopsis is easier to re-read and catch inconsistencies as each chapter is finished and briefly recapped.

If I discover I want to make changes I can use the synopsis to find where I need to rework, chapter by chapter.

jst5150 · Dec 25, 2007

Take a breath and start working. Line by line. Page by page. Chapter by chapter. Give yourself time. Discipline. Have fun with it. You'll find new ideas along the way. Tackle it bit by bit.

Stijn Hommes · Dec 26, 2007

If you tend to make this kind of changes, I think outlining isn't a bad thing at all. Have you given it a try?

arainsb123 · Dec 26, 2007

I try my best to take all those cool ideas requiring drastic changes which pop up during the writing of a story, and reserve them for the /next/ story. And often they end up not having been that great; simply a function of my work-averse mind trying to derail the current story.

Elodie-Caroline · Dec 26, 2007

I've done this myself, but I found that it made the whole story a lot better.

Elodie

arainsb123 · Dec 26, 2007

Sometimes these kinds of changes will improve a story, but I think that in a lot of cases they will simply make it different, and tempt only because of their novelty.

johnzakour · Dec 26, 2007

otterman said:
I bet it's happened to you...
Made a single plot change to my WIP and realized the change was going to spread like a virus through a number of chapters. There's nothing I hate more than having to go through everything again looking for inconsistencies that now spring from it. I know it was the right thing to do, but it's driving me crazy!

Any similar experiences out there? Was it a good or bad final outcome?

I call it the cascade effect and I don't like it. It gives me heart burn worrying that I might have missed one or two of the consequences caused by the ripples.

This is part of the reason why I became an outliner. Less surprises at the wrong moments.

PeeDee · Dec 26, 2007

It is infrequent with me. I find that the big change I make, like the one you're talking about, usually just brings the later material into better clarity and use. On the rare occasion that it altered the whole story, usually it means the demise of the whole story, and I either start over or put the story away for future use.

otterman · Dec 26, 2007

I outline as well. Don't get me wrong, it won't be tragic or anything, just a pain. I made the change to make the story better and I'm confident the change is worth it. My WIP is a fairly complex fantasy and altering one character's actions - especially a key one -causes a lot of ripples. After working the last couple days, I'm happy with the outcome. It's getting there. Now to write the last two chapters...

BarbaraKE · Dec 26, 2007

I recently made a teeny-tiny change to 'up the tension' near the beginning of my book. I was pleased with the effect until I realized how profoundly it changed everything later on. Now I have to take it out and come up with something else.

I generally outline pretty thoroughly. Serves me right for not following my outline.

DeleyanLee · Dec 26, 2007

Oh, I love it when this happens. Truly adore it. Throw a stone back into Chapter 3 and watch how everything ripples and adds layers throughout the rest of the book. Makes rewrites totally worth going back and doing.

Sure, it's work, but the whole process is work. At least I get pretty much immediate gratification in seeing the improvements in the story when the ripples spread out.

I actually am very happy when my books start rippling. :Sun:

ACEnders · Dec 26, 2007

DeleyanLee said:
Oh, I love it when this happens. Truly adore it. Throw a stone back into Chapter 3 and watch how everything ripples and adds layers throughout the rest of the book. Makes rewrites totally worth going back and doing.

Sure, it's work, but the whole process is work. At least I get pretty much immediate gratification in seeing the improvements in the story when the ripples spread out.

I actually am very happy when my books start rippling.

I've only finished one book, and I'm in the middle of my second, but I agree! I love it too! Because I know that the changes are going to be better and better clarify events in my story. I know that the changes are going to make my characters stronger and tie the story together better. My revisions are so much better than my rough draft, even after I go back and make all the many, many changes (and it feels sometimes like I'm never going to catch them all.)

Maybe I just like writing and the whole writing process! :hooray:

DeadlyAccurate · Dec 26, 2007

I was told that someone who dies at the end of my book needs to be better integrated into the story. So I weaved her in to almost every single scene. I'm still not done, and when I finish going through the book (and rewriting chapter one entirely for different reasons) I'll go through it again with a printed copy.

JoNightshade · Dec 26, 2007

I'm not sure it was just one single change, but I did do some major reordering and rewriting in the last third of my book, and it took a lot of time to hunt down the little inconsistencies. I think I came out with a much better product.

However, there's one thing that's driving me crazy. The reordering ended up necessitating cutting several scenes. They needed to go. ALL EXCEPT ONE. There is one scene that I really like and that really adds some depth to a scene earlier in the book and also the end. And I CAN'T figure out how to work it back in. I keep trying to think how but... grrr! I want it!

DeleyanLee · Dec 26, 2007

JoNightshade said:
However, there's one thing that's driving me crazy. The reordering ended up necessitating cutting several scenes. They needed to go. ALL EXCEPT ONE. There is one scene that I really like and that really adds some depth to a scene earlier in the book and also the end. And I CAN'T figure out how to work it back in. I keep trying to think how but... grrr! I want it!

And now you know what "killing your darlings" really means. :Hug2:

JoNightshade · Dec 26, 2007

DeleyanLee said:
And now you know what "killing your darlings" really means.

Haha, yeah. Well, but... to me, killing your darlings means to cut stuff that you really love but that isn't doing the story any good. I did a lot of that kind of cutting. In this case, I really feel like this scene would add a lot of depth, and I want it to be there-- but chronologically it just doesn't work.

wayndom · Dec 26, 2007

Stijn Hommes said:
If you tend to make this kind of changes, I think outlining isn't a bad thing at all. Have you given it a try?

Henry Kissinger has an older brother who came to America at the same time as Henry, but speaks unaccented American English, while Henry still has the heavy German accent he had when he arrived.

Different people's brains are different. Outlining works for some people, not others. When I try to outline, nothing happens. No story or character develops. For me, the world of my story does not exist until I write it, and it never exists in outlines.

It can be frustrating at times, but "winging it" works for me, and outlining doesn't.

When I have to deal with this kind of domino effect, I read through the work looking for areas that need changing, then leave a comment to that effect. My word processor, WordPerfect, can easily be set to jump from comment to comment, so it's easy to get them all when I'm ready to do the actual changes.

I specifically don't make the changes while I'm reading, because if I did, the task would seem overwhelming. By marking all the places where changes are needed first, I'm seeing the limitations of the needed changes. Then I devote one rewrite to those changes only. It seems much easier that way.

KTC · Dec 27, 2007

This has never happened to me. It sounds like it would be a nightmare. I wing it...and I think that's what saves me. I've never really made changes...only edits for clarity and to clean up the prose.

cethklein · Dec 27, 2007

It's happened to me for sure. One instance in particular was when I reallized I had inadvertently changed the spelling of a character's last name. I then reallized I had to go through the entire manuscript to make sure all instances of the name were consistent.

jannawrites · Dec 27, 2007

Ugh, yeah. I moved a scene of conflict from chapter 3 to chapter 1, to give it more of a hook like readers need. So, it was crucial for me (my betas were in agreement). But I haven't gone back to the ms in over a month now - I was past ready for a break - to filter in the changes in the subsequent chapters. Planning to get to it as the new year begins.

thethinker42 · Dec 27, 2007

Ohhhh yeah, I've definitely had that happen. I was 3/4 of the way through my first draft, then decided that my two main characters should know each other in the beginning but NOT have an established romantic relationship until about halfway through the story. I'm sure you can imagine the amount of work it took to remove that.

thethinker42 · Dec 27, 2007

johnzakour said:
This is part of the reason why I became an outliner. Less surprises at the wrong moments.

I definitely agree with this. I'm an outliner myself.

I do find that it still happens, though...sometimes a particular thing sounds really good in the outline, but once the story is actually written, it doesn't sound so great. Then I go back and change it...and of course, have to change anything that was affected by it. But I agree, outlining definitely minimizes this problem.

The Dreaded Domino Effect

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