This sounds like a post-trauma group therapy slogan, but iI assure you, it is not. We’re here to discuss a rather interesting topic, namely, does one improve in whatever they are doing after doing it for a long while? There’s the so called 10,000-hour threshold of excellence and a few other metrics, all of which tell us that you will get better, no matter how bad or good you are, just by doing it. Well, I wanted to see if this was true, so I put myself to a test.

Well, in the last year, I was quite busy finishing Book Two of the series, and then cranking up Book Three in a record time of about three months. The effort gave me a very good opportunity to observe and evaluate my own writing habits and see whether I was improving, so to speak, using my own yard stick as the measurement tape. And I think there might be some truth in old proverbs.

Chapter structure

This is one of them things that got better. I found the right cadence for delivering suspense and a meaningful message laced with a bit of cliffhanger in pretty much any chapter I wrote, making sure it did not run neither too short nor too long. I also figured out there are two ways of telling a story, one where you build suspense all the way up to the end, linearly, and then cutting it abruptly, and the other, where you deliver a sudden punch in the middle and let people relax post-catharsis. Probably natural, but not as obvious when you’re one behind the keyboard.

Character duality

Here’s an interesting one – how do you portray situations? Well, the best way is to present opposing, polar views by two characters partaking, and then add an extra angle by a third party observed, whose judgment is clouded by the fog of war, time and distance. While writing the third book, I figured that some of my protagonists were following this rule, in that they fought and lived for pretty much the same ideals, with their motivations being three worlds apart. But I guess this is what makes it more intriguing, and provoking.

Organization

Here’s another one. I figured out how to streamline my editorial process, too. Normally, I would have separate miscellaneous character, world, history, and notable events files for each book. But then I realized I had to juggle between several revisions to keep up to date. So I merged all of the different files by their categories, which saved me time and confusion trying to track down my culture, customs and the odd 200 extras playing their role in the plot.

Moreover, I improved my chapter summaries, adding critial plot highlights to the end of each one, allowing me to quickly go through all the important events, like character births and deaths, weddings, major conflicts, dates, etc. Previously, I would keep these as a long list of empty text files, which added some confusion after a while.

Lastly, I added new details and layers of information that would help me easily find all I needed to know about my own characters and heroes without having to reread the chapters. Saves time and reduces discrepancies. Dandy. For example, the character template pages now contain even more relevant data, which allows me to maintain consistency and quality while expanding the series. For example:

All in all, I feel that I am getting better at what I’m doing – in regard to myself. I feel that my writing flows more naturally, I am more keenly aware of plots twists, I am able to avoid getting myself into dead ends, or dragging the storyline for too long, unnecessary. In Book Three, I actually removed some 10-12 chapters, because they simply were unneeded. And finally, I’m doing it faster, with better planning, fewer errors, and even less editing and fixes than before. It seems, after all, some old proverbs might be true. Party on.