Boarders Writing a Novel Thread 3

[Myrddin]

I'm still dicking around in rewrites...

Chapter 2 is still being rewritten from scratch. I'm still reversing POVs for chapters 12 and 13, and chapter 14 still needs the climax (of part one) retooled. Parts 2 - 4 are still looking much better (less rewrites).

However (and this isn't to elicit a pity party), I got laid off last week and am now seeking contracting work, so I have a lot more time to work on said rewrites.

My insanely optimistic goal? Finish revising the above four chapters by week's end.

/crosses fingers

[Datepalm]

In a sharp shift from the woes of having too many words - is anyone planning on doing Nanowrimo this year?

I'm going to have a go - Probably the most actual writing i've ever done was a couple of Nano's (succesful ones, too) back in highschool, and everything else i'm (not) working on is utterly stuck.

[Alaerien]

Yeah, I have an epic fantasy WIP at 30k I'm hoping to finish off for Nanowrimo. (I'm not a big stickler for the Nanowrimo rule that you have to start a new project - for me, the important thing is that you write 50,000 new words in November.)

Which means that I need to finish editing this stupid, awful mess before November. Somehow. :tantrum:

[Zoë Sumra]

Last year I used NaNo as an excuse/boot up the arse to get a lot of drafting done on an existing project (Rough Diamond), so assuming that my editing of aforementioned RD is done by this November, I'll use NaNo as the impetus to get some serious work done on its sequel. It'd be an existing project in that I've written about 10K of it already - largely its easiest bits, done when I was stuck on other things and just needed to write something.

Editing on RD is coming along reasonably well. 60 pages out of 173 in its current draft are now sitting in my finished-for-now folder, and I've done some of the work on almost all the remaining pages and have spent about an hour this evening working out which bits to tackle next. After all the pages have been transferred from awaiting-completion to finished-for-now, I'll make sure I've done circumstantial things like fitting in all the tiny bits of setup for the sequel, achieving an adequate-but-not-too-ham-handed portrayal of the various cultures, giving an accurate sense of physical scale etc.; then, beta-readers.

At the moment, though, I've not cut the length enough, and am running out of obvious things to cut. Will probably need the betas' input on that, seeing as I need to lop off between 10K and 50K.

[sologdin]

Ever find yourself spending far more time figuring out the backstory than you do actually progressing the plot?

the most liberating thing for me was the realization that no one gives a fuck about the historical backstory of my silly unpublished fictional setting. no need, therefore, to figure out any details at all. just note a few major occurrences in the recent and distant past that are material to the plot, and have at it.

such material moments might be listed as archetypes, such as the Great War, the Great Migration, the Great Atrocity, the Great Heresy, the Great Uprising, the Great Scandal, the Great Crime, the Great Betrayal, the Great Pogrom, the Great Escape, the Great Humiliation, and the Great Achievement.

if we number the list, supra, 1 through 12, i bet we all could roll 3d12, accept the results generated thereby, and incorporate the corresponding entries into our respective novels, and it wouldn't make much difference on the plots. the same might be said of any fantasy novel currently in print.

all'y'all can be your own gibbon, writing the decline and fall of gayelfland before you write any stories in the setting of gayelfland, but i'm gonna handle my book's history with geekdice.

[Ebenstone]

I'm still dicking around in rewrites...

Chapter 2 is still being rewritten from scratch. I'm still reversing POVs for chapters 12 and 13, and chapter 14 still needs the climax (of part one) retooled. Parts 2 - 4 are still looking much better (less rewrites).

However (and this isn't to elicit a pity party), I got laid off last week and am now seeking contracting work, so I have a lot more time to work on said rewrites.

My insanely optimistic goal? Finish revising the above four chapters by week's end.

/crosses fingers

Sorry about your job, bro.

Looking forward to getting my grubby hands on those rewrites!

[TheEvilKing]

This year will be my first ever Nanowrimo. Exciting stuff. :cheers:

[gladius]

What do you think about POVs written in completely different styles? I currently write 2 POVs, one written in third person, while the other is written in first person, and reads like a report or journal, written by someone tasked with observing various important events and recording them. Both will start being more and more unreliable in the second half and I might add a completely mad POV near the end. The ending of the story is somewhat inspired by the alexander senki / reign:the conqueror anime, more specifically the expedition in India. Would you be bothered by something like this?

[red snow]

What do you think about POVs written in completely different styles? I currently write 2 POVs, one written in third person, while the other is written in first person, and reads like a report or journal, written by someone tasked with observing various important events and recording them. Both will start being more and more unreliable in the second half and I might add a completely mad POV near the end. The ending of the story is somewhat inspired by the alexander senki / reign:the conqueror anime, more specifically the expedition in India. Would you be bothered by something like this?

When it's done well, I think different styles for different POVs can be excellent. I thought Dan Simmons did an excellent job of it in "Ilium" and it really distinguished the characters apart. I guess some people may find it jarring though and you always run the risk of being far better at one style than another.

[Alaerien]

What do you think about POVs written in completely different styles? I currently write 2 POVs, one written in third person, while the other is written in first person, and reads like a report or journal, written by someone tasked with observing various important events and recording them.

I don't care what PoV structure people use, as long as everything is fun and exciting to read. (I'm a little worried by "reads like a report or journal".)

[Ebenstone]

This thread needs a defibrillator....STAT!

Does the slow-down have anything to do with the start of school? Or has everyone abandoned the dream?

I'm still in vigorous and gut-wrenching rewrites on Winter's Discord...these feel like the real thing, I'm cutting like a madman and I think I'm making progress.

My biggest holdup has been the crashing of my hard drive. I had everything backed up in good order, but I lost most of my "summer project," but that's not a catastrophic loss. I think that's going to be my NANO project, but I'll talk about that in a little while.

Anyway, I'm getting help on the opening chapter of Winter that is helping me look at the latter chapters with a different eye. I've got some major changes coming to the MS as I move through it. I really think I'm close. Really, really close. I can't explain why I have this feeling...maybe because I am really close and this might be ready to see the world for a second time. That's the general plan for this month: get the rewrite done, put the submission package together and let the world see her in November.

The summer project, The Sisters of Khoda, was based in the same world as my classically horrible trunk novel that I workshopped on the old BwB writer's board. That beast will get a once over at some point, but not now, I've got other things to work on. The difference is that Sisters is more of a young adult thing and I think what I had written was okay, but with the different eyes I have now, the story might have a different "flavor" to it now. I've got the outlined saved and I'm satisfied with it enough that it will still act as the frame work for the story. Feel free to "buddy" me: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/105171

So what about all of you? What is going on with all of your projects?

[kuenjato]

This thread needs a defibrillator....STAT!

Does the slow-down have anything to do with the start of school? Or has everyone abandoned the dream?

I'm still in vigorous and gut-wrenching rewrites on Winter's Discord...these feel like the real thing, I'm cutting like a madman and I think I'm making progress.

My biggest holdup has been the crashing of my hard drive. I had everything backed up in good order, but I lost most of my "summer project," but that's not a catastrophic loss. I think that's going to be my NANO project, but I'll talk about that in a little while.

So what about all of you? What is going on with all of your projects?

I'm back in college now and I can say that, for me, school has definately taken its toll in terms of creative hours (I'm taking 24 credits this semester and midterms are looming :ack: ). But I've made some progress from when I lasted posted on this thread. I'm about half-way done with my current project--the second of a four-novel epic fantasy series--and halfway is 160k. Unfortunately, while there certainly will be words to cut in the edits to come, I can't see it ever going under 300k. Then again (as I tell myself) this project is to improve my skills and serve as a sort of Simarillion--world-building for future books/series--and that alone usually helps me over the hump of the "330k monster" this particular novel has become.

But it's fun to work on, no doubt about it. I managed to type about 700 or 800 this morning. I'd love to get my averages back up to 1500-1800 like it used to be, but six classes and all the required reading involved really demands otherwise.

[Myrddin]

I've been working on rewriting part one of my manuscript. I finished overhauling the climax yesterday (Yay! finallly....) and am working on the first two pages of chapter 15 now. ONce that's done, I can finally send part one to my patient betas. :) Only months behind schedule... My main failure at this point (aside from time) is that even though I'll have finished revising 28% of the book, I've only hit 13% of my goal to cut words. I'll probably go back through part one with another red pen after I finish revising the whole manuscript.

The good news is the rest of the book shouldn't take as long to revise. (crosses fingers, toes, and eyes) I had to rewrite 5 out of 15 chapters from scratch for part one. I only have one to redo as extensively for part 2, and 2 for part 3. The rest just needs to have my hardcopy edits transfered to the Word docs.

I'm also itching to get going on my next book. I've already started immersing myself in Renaissance era history. I want to get grounded in the facts before I start weaving my fiction into it.

[Alaerien]

I'm into the last chapters of my second draft. Then when I finish, I need to redraft again. Then I'll send it to my beta readers. Then I'll probably redraft again. I wanted to kick it out of the door and start querying before Nanowrimo, but who am I kidding.

[Ebenstone]

I've been working on rewriting part one of my manuscript. I finished overhauling the climax yesterday (Yay! finallly....) and am working on the first two pages of chapter 15 now. ONce that's done, I can finally send part one to my patient betas. :) Only months behind schedule... My main failure at this point (aside from time) is that even though I'll have finished revising 28% of the book, I've only hit 13% of my goal to cut words. I'll probably go back through part one with another red pen after I finish revising the whole manuscript.

The good news is the rest of the book shouldn't take as long to revise. (crosses fingers, toes, and eyes) I had to rewrite 5 out of 15 chapters from scratch for part one. I only have one to redo as extensively for part 2, and 2 for part 3. The rest just needs to have my hardcopy edits transfered to the Word docs.

I'm also itching to get going on my next book. I've already started immersing myself in Renaissance era history. I want to get grounded in the facts before I start weaving my fiction into it.

I'm waiting for this to happen!

And your condottieri project has me giddy...you might want to try this book: http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Broker-Seekin...y/dp/006077729X

It's good stuff.

[Jerec]

I haven't written a damn thing. So much time on my hands, due to no job, but there are so many worries on my mind (such as finding a job) that it's hard to get into the right frame of mind to write. Blah.

Well, I'm going for 50K in November. Need to break out of this slump.

[Zoë Sumra]

Mine's been going really well lately in terms of work done. I just have eight pages of first draft out of 176 to turn into second draft - as I've not been doing it in order, these are the eight hardest pages, and five of them need redrafting with pen and paper (I don't do total rewrites well on computer). Of those, I'm fairly happy with what I'm doing with four of the pages: the last one is a major headache (it makes no sense for the protagonist not to tell her father precisely what's going on; the sole reason why she hasn't done so already is that it's pretty embarrassing. Give me anything to write, anything at all, except embarrassed characters. I do giant poisonous spiders better than embarrassed characters).

The unfortunate part is that a lot of the work I've had to do in the second draft has been putting in the visual background descriptions that I invariably did badly or didn't do at all in the first draft. As a result, the second draft is now 3K longer than the first draft. Third draft ahoy.

[henderson]

I have been developing a set of character and beginning to draft a story about how a life of crime can be successful, with clearly identifiable fantasy tropes, and takes place in a renaissance urban setting. I have been intermittently working on this project for nearly two years.

I really enjoy creating characters and their backstories. The part I do not like so much is writing the novel aspect of writing.

[red snow]

I saw a trailer for the new film called "Daybreakers" and promptly threw the story I've been writing in the "Bin". Seriously scooped on that one. Now I'm waiting to watch the film to see if there's anything salvageable without it looking like I've ripped them off or fanfic.

[TheEvilKing]

I've written fuck all lately. I think it's a symptom of being burnt out on epic fantasy in general rather than being lazy. Gonna take a break from the genre after I finish Gene Wolfe's The Knight for a long while.

Gonna try writing a bit now, see if anything happens...