First a quote from the About Page of The Fantasy Years, a Novel.
The Fantasy Years is a novel about the magical effect a particular strain of popular politics has had on Americans throughout the 1990s. The period foreshadows and paves the way for the ascent of George W. Bush to the White House. The blook is just as much about the forces that helped massage and shape extremist political views among the public as the end result of such views. [emphasis mine, but you knew that. See Blues Machine, last para]
Charles Baker, the author of The Fantasy Years tells us that he'll be posting a new chapter every Thursday. If he's already written the novel, that's no big deal for him. But, if he's actually writing as he goes, then it's a very big deal. Remember what Tammy Lenski said? "Making a public announcement about the writing kept me on task."
I couldn't find where Baker invited feedback. Since this isn't a blog, but a website, you can't comment. There is also no contact information that I could discover. [Pity the poor agent who wants to offer a book deal if you make him/her search for that.] What Baker does say is, "If you’ve posted something on your blog that is referenced in my story, please send me the link and I’ll add it." [if you find the email address, write me. Oops! you'll have to go someplace else to get MY address! Lefthand column at the bottom :-) ]
Baker also gives a link to Void Magazine where "part of the book has been published. Why there would be an outgoing link, I don't know. The link from Void to Fantasy Years, I understand as an attempt to gain readership for the novel.
Navigation
At the end of Chapter One there's a link to take you to Chapter Two as would expected. What surprised me was that at the bottom of Chapter Two, there was no link back to Chapter, only a link forward to Chapter Three.
this is the same thing that I noted with The Hawler by D.F. Lewis. In Lewis's case the was no Table of Contents on the page. There was a link "for ease of navigation" that was inaccessible to me because the author had set the myspace profile to private. [which strikes as more peculiar the second time around]
Baker, on the other hand, does have a Table of Contents posted in the sidebar. Given the nature of the internet, I could land anywhere in the novel. [With The Hawler what would I do then?] It seems important to me that at every opportunity the reader be presented with the option of beginning at the beginning.
One thought about a TOC - and I brought this up when I examined Rad Decision by James Aach. Aach explains his decision about the minimal use of episode titles in a letter to Blooking Central. I realize that chapter titles are not normally used with fiction - something that frustrates me no end. When I was writing my mystery novel, I used chapter titles to keep myself straight. The squib after the number might have added something to the understanding of the chapter or even created some anticipation for what was going to happen.
Baker has a year associated with only six of fifteen chapters. In and of itself the year is meaningless. I would suggest highlighting events from that year that figure in the narrative. Not chapter titles per se, but some indication of where we are in time relative to the story.
How about somebody who feels they have the navigation problem totally licked weighing in on this? Okay, too much to ask. How have you attempted to solve the problem? Links invited so we can check out the solutions!
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