We changed part of our story, here's why

We made some updates to Part 1 (Chapters 1-10) of The Spectral Agent

I was in the middle of a major restructuring and editing frenzy when my laptop died. So, the last chapter was published nearly two months ago 😭. But I got a new one and continued with the mega-updates. Here they are.

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We made some updates to Part One (Chapters 1-10) of The Spectral Agent. They don't change the overall main story points, but Jan and I felt it would make the story better.

After finishing Part One, I started writing a recap. I wrote this one rather than

Jan Herrington

, who is the author. I had fun doing it.

I imagined Viktor standing in front of a murder board like Charlie, recorder in hand, mapping out the clues he had found so far, except Viktor is much more subdued than Charlie.

This also prompted me to review all the clues and story points to make sure there were no plot holes and that they all lined up and pointed where they needed to go. For the most part, they did. But it also gave us a chance to reflect on the story so far and the feedback we've received.

Why did we make changes?

After I wrote the first draft, I stumbled upon The Idea: The Seven Elements of a Viable Story by Erik Bork. It made me step back. Because The Spectral Agent is written to be an audiobook, and Jan writes fairly fast-paced stories, it felt more like a movie than a novel. So, The Idea, being primarily about story writing for movies and TV, resonated with me.

Some of the key points I took away fit with some of the other feedback we received:

• The audience needs to understand your character's motivations and goals within the first few chapters.

• Your character should be actively pursuing their goal nearly every moment of the story.

• Raise the stakes and punish your character as they strive to reach their goal.

While Viktor is clearly trying to solve some case, and he's actively pursuing solving it, and he's punished quite a bit, some things could be improved.

One of the most brutal pieces of feedback we received was, "Why should I care about Viktor?"

The main character wasn't relatable enough, and it wasn't really clear why he was trying to solve this case.

Clear story explanation

Erik Bork also talks about a logline.

A log line or logline is a brief (usually one-sentence) summary of a television program, film, short film or book, that states the central conflict of the story, often providing both a synopsis of the story's plot, and an emotional "hook" to stimulate interest

Bork says the logline should spotlight a relatable main character facing high-stakes challenges, striving toward a difficult but rootable outcome, while delivering an emotionally engaging and entertaining experience.

The logline isn't to tease the audience; it's a clear explanation for industry professionals.

Although we aren't trying to pitch this as a movie, we thought a bit about what a logline for TSA would be. If we can't think of a clear explanation of the story, then maybe we don't understand it well enough.

This is what we have come up with so far:

When an aspiring detective — who is fed up with the system — hears his best friend's murder next door, he is possessed by a ghost that can help him solve the case, but he must infiltrate the ghost's former gang, and stop a malignant crime lord who is on a murder spree in his quest to become immortal.

I might be failing at this exercise. But anyway, feedback, The Idea, and a logline made us reconsider the main drivers of the story. So we made a few changes.

What kind of story is it, anyway?

There's one more thing that made us reflect on the story. Save the Cat has the Beat Sheets that describe story genres. One that resonated with TSA is "buddy love".

TSA is somewhat of a buddy-cop dark comedy. Viktor is possessed by the ghost of a gang member who is also his reluctant partner.

The three elements of a BUDDY LOVE story are:

1. An incomplete hero who is missing something physical, ethical, or spiritual; (s)he needs another to be whole.

2. A counterpart who makes that completion come about or has qualities the hero needs.

3. A complication, be it a misunderstanding, personal or ethical viewpoint, epic historical event, or the prudish disapproval of society.

In this case, Chai (the ghost) is Viktor's heart. Chai centers Viktor when he’s spiraling and bolsters his confidence. Obviously, Chai, being a former (formerly living, amiright?) gang member, is a complication and ethical difference.

Reorganizing the sock drawer

Before we get into spoiler territory, I’d like to tell you about a few updates to the SubStack organization.

TSA was designed to be an audiobook. So, we published it as a SubStack podcast, one episode a week. As a result, we have more regular listeners on Substack Podcasts, Apple, and Spotify than we have readers here. It’s about 30 listeners an episode. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but for us, it’s huge.

To do that, we split the text version and audio version into separate posts. Originally, the text version was behind a paywall, and the Podcast was free. This was intended to direct people to the Podcast, which it seems to have done.

Unfortunately, that meant no one was really reading and interacting on Substack.

I’ve been reading other authors' work on Substack, and I have fallen in love with the community through comments and Notes. It’s mostly a community of writers, but as an editor/sometimes writer, that’s a community I want to be a part of.

Because of the way we initially published the text, we missed out on that community for our own story. We don’t really get any feedback from the listeners of the podcast since most of them are listening through Apple and Spotify and never see the comments section.

So, now all the text and podcast audio for a chapter are on the same post. The only paywall is for the latest episode, which becomes free the moment we publish the next. This will give us an opportunity to build a community on Substack.

We also added content warnings at the top of each post. While this is somewhat of a comedy, it’s also dark. It deals with suicide, hallucinations, murder, and paranormal activity. So, some warning is warranted.

I still have gripes with the Substack UI, though. On mobile, when you click on a post, it first appears in the podcast player, and you must click “View Post” to view the text. The only way I’ve found to link people directly to the text is to do a restack in Notes. I hope going straight to the podcast doesn’t deter people who want to read and don’t realize they can by clicking “View Post”.

What we changed and why

This part will contain spoilers, but the most significant change appears in Chapter One, so it's not that big of a deal. Other parts are minor story changes that shouldn't spoil the story.

Olivia

(Not that Olivia.)

Olivia was originally just Viktor's neighbor, whom he didn't know too much about. She dies in Chapter One, then Viktor spends the book trying to solve this murder while getting pulled into a larger conspiracy.

This made it a little fuzzy on why Viktor cares about the case so much, or why the audience should care. This became obvious to me in the recap when I had Viktor question why he cared so much about this person he didn't even know.

To fix this, we made Olivia Viktor's best friend. We revised the beginning of the story to focus on their friendship. We wanted the audience to love her and see Viktor through her eyes. Then she dies shortly thereafter, mwuhahah. Authors suck. She died in the original story, so at least we didn't kill her for no new reason.

Now Viktor's mission is clear: find Olivia’s killer and punish them.

The conversation with Olivia also gave a moment to subtly point out that Viktor is gay in chapter one, instead of people getting offended in chapter five. If things like that are going to offend someone, might as well part ways early, as that's not the audience we want.

Viktor

Originally, Viktor was already a detective. We did some math on his age (~27), and it would be unlikely for him to be a detective that young. Not being a detective yet makes it easier to forgive his obvious mistakes (we aren’t detectives, we have no idea what we’re doing) and gives him more freedom to move in the criminal underworld. Additionally, having him worry about becoming a detective raises the stakes, and his concern about exams makes him more relatable.

We also had to make some adjustments to his meds. Originally, Viktor was meant to be a detective who had a history of hallucinations, so the reader wouldn’t be sure if he were hallucinating or seeing ghosts. It was always meant to be hallucinations as a teenager, and meds since. But, after thinking about it, he probably wouldn’t be able to pass a psych-eval to be a police officer or detective if he were on meds. So, he’s no longer on meds, and the timeline of his history of hallucinations is cleared up.

Allie

Allie is the records desk lady in Chapter Four. She wasn't originally named. She plays a bigger part in book two, so we wanted to go ahead and name her and give her a little more time in the scene. Before, she was just a plot device. Now she's a plot device with jokes.

Raise the stakes

TSA seems fast-paced to me. Something happens in each chapter to drive the story forward, but sometimes it seems like Viktor is stumbling from clue to clue. He himself calls that out. Stakes get pretty high fast, but not in a way that keeps up with the story's pace, if that makes sense.

In Chapter Four, Viktor goes to talk to an old gang member Chai knew. Originally, Viktor ducks out before anything bad can happen. This was an opportunity to raise the stakes.

So now, Viktor gets shot—just a little—not enough to kill him, of course.

I took a cue from

Nikki | Nocturnal Narrator

and

Happy Nielsen

and ended the chapter on a cliffhanger. I hated the damn enjoyed cliffhangers from their stories, so I added more to TSA. 50% more cliffhangers! (thank them). Because of the episodic nature of the story, cliffhangers just made sense.

Adding cliffhangers wasn't hard. Mainly, it meant ending the chapter earlier and incorporating the resolution into the beginning of the next.

Chapter Seven now ends on a cliffhanger, too. The vending machine scene was moved to the beginning of the chapter, and the fight scene with Lenny starts, but remains unresolved until the next chapter.

Chapters Nine and Ten already ended on major cliffhangers.

Kira

Kira is introduced in Chapter Five. That chapter dropped a lot of bombs right at the end:

• Viktor's family is Russian, though he was raised in the US

• His father is dying, and Viktor has a strained relationship with him

• Viktor is gay

• Viktor has a sister named Kira, who comes out as non-binary

That was a bit much. As a result, Kira’s introduction risked feeling overshadowed, tokenistic, or even a political commentary, which was never the intent. Viktor is what Viktor is, and Kira is what Kira is. The moment was meant to highlight a warm connection between siblings.

Kira plays a bigger role as the story unfolds, so we wanted to give their story more time to breathe and not be muddled with other dramatic beats. The same conversation will return later in the story, when it can carry the weight it deserves.

Chai

We updated a few moments about Chai.

First, we made it a little clearer the moment he possesses Viktor in Chapter One.

In Chapter Six, Chai now talks about his experience as a ghost before he met Viktor. This one is a critical addition because it introduces the “nowhere place”, which will come up later in the story. It’s also another opportunity for you to fall in love with Chai a little more—that lovable doofus.

Audio

Since we had to edit every chapter, we also had to update the audio for each one. When my laptop died, I realized I didn’t have the Logic Pro file for all the audio backed up. So, I had to recreate it.

All the plugins for compression, EQ, noise reduction, volume normalization, and other effects had to be redone. It won’t sound exactly the same. Hopefully, I improved the quality from our earlier versions.

You can read more about how we produce the audio here.

Closing Time

Yeah, so that's where we're at. The Spectral Agent Part One 2.0. If you find behind-the-scenes Ed-itorials like this, let me know in the comments.

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Continue to Viktor’s Case Review