I find short stories more difficult. I think I have only published three, with one more coming. Kudos to you for sticking it out and getting your anthology finished!
I find them more difficult, as well, usually. There were two stories in the new book that I wanted to limit to 10 pages and they still ended up somewhere around 25.
As someone who is ostensibly writing a serialized anthology (sounds counterintuitive, but there you have it lol), the planning process is integral. I tend towards mere plot summaries than overt outlines because I enjoy the stream-of-consciousness approach to writing I have taken, but that doesn't discount the sheer amount of backdoor planning. Making sure character trajectories line up so, when all come together for the "finale," no I is left undotted nor a T uncrossed. Maintaining character personalities over the course of a tale and their saga, the amount of in-world continuity to be double checked (especially considering how 365 is being told across multiple points in time). Anthologies set within a single world are behemoths to wrangle, and I'm glad to hear you've wrangled yours fine. Looking forward to reading!
On the back end of things, I'm about to undertake an arduous process, as I essentially make a wiki type of database for myself to track everything - characters, chronology, places, bestiary, etc. I'll probably eventually get it fine tuned enough to put online in some form. But it's probably going to be the best way for me to reference everything and keep continuity tight. I'm just trying to figure out the best way to do that. In the meantime, I'll be doing it manually in a separate notebook.
Good plan, compendiums like that are the way my friend. Beats the living hell out of having to shuffle through all the loose docs I have to. A timeline here, character profiles there, storylines off somewhere else lol.
I find short stories more difficult. I think I have only published three, with one more coming. Kudos to you for sticking it out and getting your anthology finished!
I find them more difficult, as well, usually. There were two stories in the new book that I wanted to limit to 10 pages and they still ended up somewhere around 25.
As someone who is ostensibly writing a serialized anthology (sounds counterintuitive, but there you have it lol), the planning process is integral. I tend towards mere plot summaries than overt outlines because I enjoy the stream-of-consciousness approach to writing I have taken, but that doesn't discount the sheer amount of backdoor planning. Making sure character trajectories line up so, when all come together for the "finale," no I is left undotted nor a T uncrossed. Maintaining character personalities over the course of a tale and their saga, the amount of in-world continuity to be double checked (especially considering how 365 is being told across multiple points in time). Anthologies set within a single world are behemoths to wrangle, and I'm glad to hear you've wrangled yours fine. Looking forward to reading!
On the back end of things, I'm about to undertake an arduous process, as I essentially make a wiki type of database for myself to track everything - characters, chronology, places, bestiary, etc. I'll probably eventually get it fine tuned enough to put online in some form. But it's probably going to be the best way for me to reference everything and keep continuity tight. I'm just trying to figure out the best way to do that. In the meantime, I'll be doing it manually in a separate notebook.
Good plan, compendiums like that are the way my friend. Beats the living hell out of having to shuffle through all the loose docs I have to. A timeline here, character profiles there, storylines off somewhere else lol.