The Week in Words - 4/28/25 - 5/4/25

From Fallen Giants to Open Roads

Output - Data

Stats Compendium

Total: 4,345 words (6 pages [1,224] + 3,121 typed)

Days of Writing: 4/7 days (.571 WrPCT)

AWD: 1,086/day

Words Added to Avalanche: 1,229

Ratio: 28

Longest Day: 4/28/25 - 2,130 words typed

Shortest Day: 5/3/25 - 408 words (2 pages)

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Output - Synthesis

Last Week’s Update / April, 2025

The past week I edited, polished and completed the “Fallen Giants, Uplifted” sequence¹—one I’d started in February, didn’t work on in March, then found my footing in April.

Given the length of time this one took, I was anxious to push forward with what we had planned: an ending steeped in sadness and inaction.

Except things didn’t sit right.

Except it felt like the cycles I’d written were setting up a different story, one a tad more hopeful—or at least more resolute.

The idea had subconsciously pushed me in a more active direction this entire time, and it wasn’t until I sat down and thought through the next few months in the storyline that I realized the idea had changed out from under me: I didn’t want to write about passive sadness, I wanted to write about positive action.

Maybe it’s because I’ve grown as a writer since I planned this storyline, and this growth finally allows me to see different choices and options, to not get so committed to one idea, to be humble enough to follow the story’s most interesting direction.

And Levi being active is way more interesting than him being alone, brooding while he builds the Leviticus Institute. This will allow him to roar like a lion during Town Halls, bringing conservation of the forest and a certain amount of morality into law.

So instead of him retreating, he will join the table at the New Judah council meetings. We will resolve the tension between Coleman² and Levi this way, showing that he wasn’t being sarcastic when he said Levi had a place among them. We will set up that everything is fairly resolved, as it should be in a third act.

Until the flood.

Until the ceaseless rain causes everything to go sideways in the span of a few days.

I’ve been toying with the idea of a four act structure, because this makes the third act fairly long. But I also think that’s what we want—to lure the reader into thinking this is how it’ll end, and then at the last moment pull the rug out once again.

An analogue that I think of is that movie “Something’s Gotta Give.” Y’know, the one with Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson—the one where at first you think she’s gonna wind up with Keanu Reeves at the end? but then the movie keeps going and at the last second she winds up with Jack? (Spoilers, sorry).

From a storytelling standpoint, this is easily one of my favorite endings, even if I am in no way the target market for this film. The way that writer/director Nancy Myers lures us into a false ending like that is something that I adore as a mature and inspiring way to handle 3rd acts.

And I’ll also admit that, when it comes to third acts, I used to be, well, turrible.

I had a penchant for avoiding them entirely. A lot of the time, I would end my works nearly everything right at the midpoint, thinking that it held more power if we left everything unfinished, if we rolled the credits right after the climax.

I was really only justifying my flaws as a writer. And this flaw did manifest in my reading too because I always burned out during the third acts of novels—countless are the books where I reached a point with 30 pages to go where I’d say, “Okay, I think I get it,” and put it down—and I was doing the exact same thing with my screenplays at the time. I would always get so itchy to move on to the next book, to the next idea, that it subconsciously manifested itself in my writing, like, I had no idea how to end a story because I never finished anything.

So, in the spirit of a growth mindset, I recognized this flaw a couple years ago now—I named it so that I could conquer it. And now I stick through a novel to the bitter end (unless it sucks—lookin’ at you, Creation Lake) so that I can learn as much as I can about how things resolve in a way that leaves resonant shrapnel in my mind.

The third act of this storyline is a reflection of this learning and synthesis. If I can make all of Avalanche’s storylines echo and reflect and give the reader the feels independently, then their impact together will be held in triplicate. As always, I am thankful for the suggestion to work on this chronologically, because I never woulda otherwise found each storyline’s power if I had continued trying to write them all at once.

I need to research four act structures, or invent my own. I need to throw out some notecards and restart. I need to settle in and fix the beat sheet. I need to lock in exactly how we’re gonna pull this off.

But this is the final sprint for Levi and Maribel, now isn’t it. And once we flood the city, we’ll get to set it on fire. Onward!

Input - Synthesis

To help figure out Levi’s approach to politics, I read through (most of) Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience.” Right from the jump, I realized that I’d stumbled upon the basis for libertarian thought.

To wit, it starts with, “I heartily accept the motto,—“That government is best which governs least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.”

So, yeah, it wasn’t quite what I remembered from when I read it in high school—especially since back then there was no such thing as a Sovereign Citizen.

Levi is far more of a Socialist—protect the people, protect the land—and Thoreau did raise a few questions that I think Levi latched on to:

“Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?—in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable?” 

Input - Data

Book: The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Starting Page: 246

Ending Page: 268

Days Read: 3

Pages Read: 22

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Book: “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau

Starting Page: 222

Ending Page: 234

Days Read: 1

Pages Read: 12

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3/7 days (.428 rPCT)

Combined Pages Read: 34

Combined Pages Per Day: 11

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-30-

1. Wherein Levi sees the first tree fall, and seeks out Maribel for solace.

2. Ralph Coleman is a 35 year old man which Williams brings in to establish and run New Judah, and Levi’s foil. He has blond hair combed and greased into a harsh part, skin red-ruddy from the pollen, mustache trimmed, tailored gray suit blending into the clouds around, wingtipped shoes equipped for a bank. He is short, diminutive in stature. A hyper-rational opportunist who Williams met long ago when they both worked for Devereaux—they split from him when he decided to move his operations to Graceport. He wears pince-nez which his eyes are scrunched around. Refined—too refined—for frontier living. Can cut down a man with the simplest of words.