Jump to content

Boarders Writing a Novel, Draft 7


Myrddin

Recommended Posts

Awesome Possum (it sounds wrong saying this.) Usually the solution for that is simply revising. Just finish the book and don't worry about it, then read it all over again and revise it. Stephen King once said something along the lines of: "If the second draft of your book is not shorter, you've done a horrible job revising."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just wordy in that I end up using too many words to describe something simple; I just use far too many words to get across a point. Like this paragraph. I could have gotten the gist across in probably 25-50 words but here am I going on almost 100.

Read/write/study poetry?

ETA: As in, get exposure to saying more with less. (also, added "study")

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Heh, this seemed like an encouraging [note] to y'all:

"And why don’t you write? Write! Writing is for you, you are for you; your body is yours, take it. I know why you haven’t written. (And why I didn’t write before the age of twenty-seven.) Because writing is at once too high, too great for you, it’s reserved for the great —that is for ‘great men’; and it’s ‘silly’. Besides, you’ve written a little, but in secret. And it wasn’t good, because it was in secret, and because you punished yourself for writing, because you didn’t go all the way, or because you wrote, irresistibly, as when we would masturbate in secret, not to go further, but to attenuate the tension a bit, just enough to take the edge off. And then as soon as we come, we go and make ourselves feel guilty —so as to be forgiven; or to forget, to bury it until the next time…."

-Helen Cixous

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like that analogy, possum, although I doubt anyone would like to be considered the McDonald's of novel writing. ;) In this round of edits, I've been tackling the exact same problem. Why did I say something in 20 words when I could have done it better with 15? I'm glad I kept a copy of my rough draft because it's almost comical to see the differences between the two copies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Projecting much? ;)

I love any analogy that touches on the erotic, but I do recommend Helene Cixous's Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing. It might not teach you anything about being a writer, but as art I find it rather beautiful. It's more of an inspiration for artists, I'm finding.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So with all this recent porn romance/erotica discussion, (thanks, Sciborg) I naturally found it impossible to not kind of think...come on, I could do better than this, but also...this? This is it? Pandering to the dark recesses of the (female) psyche, and this is the best we can do? This is actively un-arousing. The literary equivelant of a cold shower.

So, naturally, I sat down to write an erotic romance. As one does. And, rather to my dismay, I am totally having a blast. (Ok, it's more of a steamy historical at this point, because I got bored with the sex scenes. But it's definitely capital-R-Romance.) The thing is, I usually have a really hard time writing. It's like pulling teeth. I'm happy if I manage a streak of a week, writing 500 words a day. In this instance, i've finished 12,000 words in five days.

I guess, part of it is obviously that i'm kind of letting go and just writing whatever, but I can't manage that for Nanowrimo! (aka, masochism month) And it's rather playing to my strengths - ie, overwritten descriptions, melodramatic character arcs, and the Ottoman Empire. But still. Some part of my brain has clearly been yearning to write this stuff. What is this is what i'm actually good at and theres no hope for all that serious SF I keep starting? OMG my subconcious is a terrible feminist. Headdesk.

Off to write more angsty sex in an Italian nunnery. When i'm done with that, I get to the pirates who tie people up!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Datepalm, seeing how lucrative good romance is, go with the words!

Back when I was in school, there was a Lit professor in University of Georgia who wrote romance novels on the side under a female pen name. He was making more doing that than as a full tenured prof.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not to double post, but here is an interesting blog article about striving for perfection and when a manuscript is ready.

Skimmed it, but essentially I agree. Especially about this part:

1. I liked what I read.

2. I quit on page [insert number here].

3. I liked what I read and I would have bought this.

From what I've seen, people obsess too much about "as few words as possible" "show don't tell" etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Im 1 week into a 2 week holiday at my parents where i planned to spend the 2 weeks running, walking in the country- and working on the 2nd draft of my novel.

Until ilnesss tore my plan into confetti. I barely have the energy to walk to the shops. My low energy and concentration means its taken all week just to finish chapter 39, leaving chapter 40 and the epilogue- still of the first draft.

Sigh

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I submitted a short-story to this contest yesterday:

http://fantasywritingcontest.com/

I had been working on something since February, and I absolutely hated it. No matter how much I fucked with it, nothing worked, and it was literally an extreme effort just to write the damn thing (which doesn't usually happen to me). So last Tuesday I started a whole new one. I pretty much immediately knew that it was like a thousand times better than the previous crap, but I was still cramming like a nutjob. I basically wrote for over twenty-four hours straight through Friday and Saturday (actually called out of work yesterday for it), taking breaks only for food, bathroom, cigarettes, and a laughable two-hour attempt at a nap (I just though about writing the whole time).

I submitted it exactly twenty-six minutes before the deadline. Although I'm very pleased with the story and concept, which is probably the best that I've ever actually put down on paper, the writing itself definitely could have been better. Certain little parts are pretty damn good I think, mainly the beginning and the end, but a lot of the stuff in the middle felt rather mediocre. I'm not actually expecting to win anything at this point, but I'm at least proud that I finished another story, particularly one under 8,000 words (which was the limit for the contest), as I don't usually work with shorter stuff. I'll probably edit it some more and then try submitting to some magazines/websites/etc.

I must say though, it felt really good to write something else today without being guilty about not working on a piece for the contest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've finished the first part of, something, it came in around 8000 words. I feel it's a good setup for the rest of the novel (?), still, I worry about reaching a proper length and of course whether anyone would care about the story.

It's fun but slow going though, vacation and small children don't really make for much writing time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've finished the first part of, something, it came in around 8000 words. I feel it's a good setup for the rest of the novel (?), still, I worry about reaching a proper length and of course whether anyone would care about the story.

It's fun but slow going though, vacation and small children don't really make for much writing time.

You'd think vacation would be the perfect time, but I know that feeling! :lol: Well, I don't have kids, but still.

After being quite unproductive in writing for the past month, I've been going back to really flesh out my plot, refine my characters, and create a more detailed outline. I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with the results, and I can't quite wait to get into the actual writing again. I've also signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo. Maybe that'll motivate me to hammer out half a novel.

EDIT: So I've been throwing around an idea, and without giving anything away, I want to see if it seems plausible and not too confusing to other readers.

Essentially, I want to fix the magnetic north pole (NOT the geographic pole) of my world away from its axis. This pole would be situated near the center of the primary kingdom in my story. So I've got two questions: 1) would this make navigation significantly more difficult? and 2) would the four cardinal directions (north, east, south, west) remain a valid and acceptable method of location-finding if they were fixed to the sunrise and sunset rather than magnetic north? I feel like the answers to these questions are obvious, but I've still got the remnants of several hours of brainstorming running through my head, and I can't quite tell myself :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...