News:

"At the teaparties they only dunked bags into cups of water...because they didn't want to break the law. And that just about sums up America's revolutionary spirit."

Main Menu

The Appendix of a Novel: Why?

Started by hooplala, May 01, 2008, 07:40:25 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

hooplala

Quote from: Dido on May 02, 2008, 02:46:27 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on May 02, 2008, 02:08:31 PM
Quote from: TheStripèdOne on May 02, 2008, 01:21:00 AMWhat's the book about and what are its potential appendices?

It's about five people who have 're-written' their lives in varying ways, and to varying degrees of success... the central character is rather eccentric and often spouts off about bizarre circumstances as proof of her ideas - the circumstances are real occurances but sound fictional (Emperor Norton, Cyrus Teed, some strange cases of spontaneous human combustion, etc) also just a few strange throwaway comments from other characters are linked to real life events (like a case of a waitress encountering a strange customer who didn't know how to eat a steak at Max's Kansas City in John Keel's "Mothman Prophesies" to an unnamed waitress, which I claim happened to a character in my book, but will reference Keel).

Also that central character is a Discordian, but only vague references are made throughout... I would go into some more detail about Discordianism.

Also, there is a LOT of backstory that, while technically relevant, doesn't necessarily HAVE to be told to tell the story, so I thought I could add some of it in there.

Plus, the outcomes of the lives of strictly minor characters, but not major ones - which I just find funny.


What do you think?  Appendix worthy?

It sounds like the perfect disguise for the actual point which is, in fact, the appendix.



You may have a point.
"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

LMNO

Quote from: triple zero on May 02, 2008, 02:43:19 PM
Quote from: hunter s.durden on May 02, 2008, 02:26:30 PM
In summation: The best part of your book would be where I kill myself.

Quote from: Hoopla on May 02, 2008, 02:27:32 PM
That's the best part of any book.

demonstration:

John Stalvern waited. The lights above him blinked and sparked out of the air. There were demons in the base. He didn't see them, but had expected them now for years. His warnings to Cernel Joson were not listenend to and now it was too late. Far too late for now, anyway.
John was a space marine for fourteen years. When he was young he watched the spaceships and he said to dad "I want to be on the ships daddy."
Dad said "No! You will BE KILL BY DEMONS"
There was a time when he believed him. Then as he got oldered he stopped. But now in the space station base of the UAC he knew there were demons.
"This is Joson" the radio crackered. "You must fight the demons!"
So John gotted his palsma rifle and blew up the wall.
"HE GOING TO KILL US" said the demons
"I will shoot at him" said the cyberdemon and he fired the rocket missiles. John plasmaed at him and tried to blew him up. But then the ceiling fell and they were trapped and not able to kill.
"No! I must kill the demons" he shouted
The radio said "No, John. You are the demons"
And then John was a zombie.
And then Hunter killed himself.


Zippletits wins an internet.

hooplala

Quote from: Dido on May 02, 2008, 02:46:27 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on May 02, 2008, 02:08:31 PM
Quote from: TheStripèdOne on May 02, 2008, 01:21:00 AMWhat's the book about and what are its potential appendices?

It's about five people who have 're-written' their lives in varying ways, and to varying degrees of success... the central character is rather eccentric and often spouts off about bizarre circumstances as proof of her ideas - the circumstances are real occurances but sound fictional (Emperor Norton, Cyrus Teed, some strange cases of spontaneous human combustion, etc) also just a few strange throwaway comments from other characters are linked to real life events (like a case of a waitress encountering a strange customer who didn't know how to eat a steak at Max's Kansas City in John Keel's "Mothman Prophesies" to an unnamed waitress, which I claim happened to a character in my book, but will reference Keel).

Also that central character is a Discordian, but only vague references are made throughout... I would go into some more detail about Discordianism.

Also, there is a LOT of backstory that, while technically relevant, doesn't necessarily HAVE to be told to tell the story, so I thought I could add some of it in there.

Plus, the outcomes of the lives of strictly minor characters, but not major ones - which I just find funny.


What do you think?  Appendix worthy?

It sounds like the perfect disguise for the actual point which is, in fact, the appendix.



To be honest, though, no.  I've been working on this novel for ten years, off and on (I know.) and only thought about adding appendices sometime last summer.

But, I won't deny that the appendices are somewhat more interesting to me now than the rest of the book... but I suppose thats to be expected.
"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

e

Quote from: triple zero on May 02, 2008, 02:43:19 PM
Quote from: hunter s.durden on May 02, 2008, 02:26:30 PM
In summation: The best part of your book would be where I kill myself.

Quote from: Hoopla on May 02, 2008, 02:27:32 PM
That's the best part of any book.

demonstration:

John Stalvern waited. The lights above him blinked and sparked out of the air. There were demons in the base. He didn't see them, but had expected them now for years. His warnings to Cernel Joson were not listenend to and now it was too late. Far too late for now, anyway.
John was a space marine for fourteen years. When he was young he watched the spaceships and he said to dad "I want to be on the ships daddy."
Dad said "No! You will BE KILL BY DEMONS"
There was a time when he believed him. Then as he got oldered he stopped. But now in the space station base of the UAC he knew there were demons.
"This is Joson" the radio crackered. "You must fight the demons!"
So John gotted his palsma rifle and blew up the wall.
"HE GOING TO KILL US" said the demons
"I will shoot at him" said the cyberdemon and he fired the rocket missiles. John plasmaed at him and tried to blew him up. But then the ceiling fell and they were trapped and not able to kill.
"No! I must kill the demons" he shouted
The radio said "No, John. You are the demons"
And then John was a zombie.
And then Hunter killed himself.

You know, I always wondered what the Warhammer 40k novels were like...

e

Quote from: Hoopla on May 02, 2008, 02:08:31 PM
Quote from: TheStripèdOne on May 02, 2008, 01:21:00 AMWhat's the book about and what are its potential appendices?

It's about five people who have 're-written' their lives in varying ways, and to varying degrees of success... the central character is rather eccentric and often spouts off about bizarre circumstances as proof of her ideas - the circumstances are real occurances but sound fictional (Emperor Norton, Cyrus Teed, some strange cases of spontaneous human combustion, etc) also just a few strange throwaway comments from other characters are linked to real life events (like a case of a waitress encountering a strange customer who didn't know how to eat a steak at Max's Kansas City in John Keel's "Mothman Prophesies" to an unnamed waitress, which I claim happened to a character in my book, but will reference Keel).

Also that central character is a Discordian, but only vague references are made throughout... I would go into some more detail about Discordianism.

Also, there is a LOT of backstory that, while technically relevant, doesn't necessarily HAVE to be told to tell the story, so I thought I could add some of it in there.

Plus, the outcomes of the lives of strictly minor characters, but not major ones - which I just find funny.


What do you think?  Appendix worthy?

Another option for fiction is to release short stories based on characters in it!  The idea here being, I'm lead to understand, that you can then publish a collection of said stories and not have to worry about writing another novel.  Money in the bank!

hooplala

Would you like to be my agent?

I like the way you think.
"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

e

If I wasn't so lazy I'd write a book myself.  Alas, laziness underwhelms and I have to live vicariously through others instead.

I'd probably make a terrible agent.

hooplala

Why do you think its taken me 10 years to write the damn thing?
"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

e

Quote from: Hoopla on May 02, 2008, 07:40:34 PM
Why do you think its taken me 10 years to write the damn thing?
:lulz:

I saw an ad for some "novel writing software" the other day.  It claimed to let you do things like "plot your novel" and "start writing from the end of the novel and work backwards!"  I'm amazed people think you can't do things like that normally, without special software.  Albeit when I looked at the actual specs it seemed more like an organizer than anything else and might have been useful.  But they need to word their "benefits" section better.

hooplala

"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Cainad (dec.)

Quote from: Nigel on May 03, 2008, 04:00:09 AM
I am appendix-positive.

I'm not. They took mine out :(

It was a really good one too; I was told that it was like 6 inches long.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."