User:Botanicaxu/WOB OB 5

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“

All right, folks! Time for the fifth update. This should be the last one that I post before some redditor inevitably beats me to the "It's Done!" post by watching my twitter feed very closely.

I do hope to post another update or two during the next year, discussing how the editing and publication process is proceeding.

Part Four is done as of half an hour ago. The part is around 80k words long, and brings the book total so far to 420k words. Final book is still projected at 450k, though I do plan to try to trim it back in revision. (Tor's book binding company can't do a book longer than Words of Radiance, so if I go longer, we have to shrink the font or change binders. I won't cut important parts of the book just to meet this length requirement, but I also generally need to trim significantly in revisions to tighten language.)

Part Four turned out very well, and I'm very pleased with the book so far. I consider it as strong, or stronger than, book two. I also don't see any major structural or characterization problems that will slow editing. (So far, my editor's comments on Parts One and Two have been minor, save for the slow-down in Part Two that I was aware of--and probably don't mind existing, since Parts Three and Four are much faster, and the characterization in Part Two is strong.)

If you're following the Visual Outline from the second update, there structure of the book has undergone some revisions as I've worked through it. It now looks something more like this

Unlisted is that I nudged one flashback into Part Five. Shown is that Secondary Main character #2 had their viewpoint stretched through all five parts, but has a slightly smaller number of viewpoints in all of them. I juggled tertiary characters, making Parts Two and Four the expansive ones (with many viewpoints) and Parts One and Three the narrow ones (with a focus only on the main characters.) Yes, this is complicated, and you don't need to pay any attention to it. I posted this for those who like to dig into these things.

I'm going to power forward into Part Five starting tonight, then do a second draft of Parts Four and Five together. (I'm not sure why I'm treating those like proper nous.) After I turn that in, I will still need to write the prologue, some of the interludes, and the epigraphs. (Those little bits of text at the starts of chapters.)

And then, revisions. My favorite part. Yay.

As with previous threads, I'll try to post answers to questions where I can--but I have to balance that with the actual writing, so some questions will go unanswered or get a quick RAFO. I apologize in advance for that. Despite jokes to the contrary, I really am just one person, and I can't do ALL THE THINGS, as much as I would like to.

Also, thank you to the community for your kind words. I know that people joke about my writing speed, but this book has taken over a year of dedicated writing--and that's not counting the year before of outlining and writing out some of Kaladin's chapters. It's been two full years of work, and then some, to finish this book. With another six months of revision ahead. Together with other projects, that will make three and a half years between books two and three. So I do beg your patience with this series. The books take a lot out of me, and while I'm very proud of the result--and consider this series to be my opus--the novels aren't going to be terribly fast in their release schedule.”

—Reddit

“

大家，第五篇进度报告来了！这应该是目前的最后一篇了，不过明年我也想发一两篇，具体谈谈编辑出版事宜。

第四部分一小时前刚写完，字数约有八万，这样全书字数已达四十二万。最终目标仍是四十五万，但我打算在修订中进行压缩。Tor出版社的印厂无法承受比《光辉真言》还要厚的书，所以假如超过限制，就得减小字号，或是改变装订方式。我不会为了限制篇幅而砍去书中的重要部分，但我还是需要在修订中进行大幅调整，以精简语言。

第四部分效果很不错，我对这本书也很满意。相比前两卷，卷三可谓有过之而无不及，同时不见得有任何会拖慢编辑流程的文本结构和角色塑造上的硬伤。目前，编辑对第一部分和第二部分仅是小有微词，都在说后者的节奏比较慢。这我当然知道，可能也不怎么在意，毕竟第三部分和第四部分的节奏要快得多，而第二部分的角色塑造本身就很抢眼。

在第二篇进度报告中，我曾发过一个显示POV配额的大纲，不过这张图的结构已经发生了改变，现在是这样的：

上面没列出来的是，我把一个回忆章节挪到了第五部分。大家可以看到的是，二线主角二的POV贯穿五个部分，但POV数会稍微少一点。三线主角的POV分布发生了变动：第二部分和第四部分POV数较多，剧情开得较大，而第一部分和第三部分的剧情较单一，只关注一二线主角。这么说确实很复杂，没必要多注意。我发上来只是给那些想研究的人看的。

今晚我就开足马力，开始写第五部分，之后把这一部分和第四部分一起改成第二稿。交稿后，我还得写序幕、几个插曲和每个章节开头的题记。

之后便是修改环节。我的最爱。耶。

感谢各位粉丝的鼓励。我知道大家都在吐槽我的写作速度，但我已经为这本书倾注了一年多的心血，这还不算前一年的构思和卡拉丁POV的撰写。已经整整两年了，接着还要用六个月的时间做后期，才能完成这本书。考虑到我还有其他作品，卷二和卷三的出版时间，中间隔了三年半。恳请大家耐心等待。飓光是我的重头戏，每一卷都会花费我大量精力，虽说我对成品很自豪，但这些书肯定不会出得特别快。”

—布兰登·桑德森写于2016年11月19日（Translated by Botanica）