Boarders Writing a Novel Thread 4

[kuenjato]

...continued from the last thread.

This summer I've had the unique (for me) opportunity to work at a job where I can write, so I'm taking advantage of it by composing as much as possible before the school year picks up again. Given that I tend to edit and re-edit dozens of times, I'm not worried about getting my prose "perfect" on the first go-around; it's all about getting the core ideas down.

My current goal is 2,000 words a day. Some days I write more, somedays less. I'm planning on completing my personal behemoth (which will end up, first draft, at around 320k) this month and then spending the rest of the summer working on three much smaller novels. After the last 3 1/2 years working on three doorstoppers, I'm really looking forward to the mental vacation of 60-70k projects.

How is everyone else doing?

[Myrddin]

...because the editing never ends...

No. Kidding.

Working through my last draft. Yes, it will be my last one. I'm just down to cutting words to make it more attractive to potential agents/editors. When I finish this pass, I'm not doing another until I get notes from an agent or editor, even though that means it'll be sitting in a drawer. I've spent enough time on this one. I have other books to write.

The manuscript as of this hour just dipped into the 180's! Yay!. Still too long, but I'm making progress. Working on chapter 7 (out of 53) now.

Ok, enough browsing. Back to cutting.

[Ipood]

I'm putting the final touches to the first book of my trilogy, while writing the second one into the computer. A long and tedious work, but I hope to have it ready to send sometime before July.

[Rumarumo]

Still hacking away at that short story, believe it or not. I tend to try and inject as much quality/worldbuilding into my writing as I can first go round, but all it seems to do is make me slow down and start second-guessing things. Trying to develop a habit where I just get the bare bones down and carry on, coming back later to touch it up.

[Alaerien]

Not much writing going on right now. I'm stalled about three-quarters of the way through revising my epic fantasy, and I'm still messing around with the opening of my urban fantasy. Been busy with one or two minor things ... taking my final exams, moving cities, graduating, getting a place at University College London to study publishing ... you know how it is. :D

[Gatsby]

As of right now, I'm more than half way in the middle of a short story that's looking like it'll hit around 7000+ words. It'll be the longest thing I've ever done and one of the first real short stories I've ever completed. I'm finally becoming more comfortable with my writing, and from here on out I'm making it a goal of mine to finish 15 more short stories before the year is up.

I think I'm a very long way from being able to write a good novel, though it's always tempting to give it a shot.

[Zoë Sumra]

As of right now, I'm more than half way in the middle of a short story that's looking like it'll hit around 7000+ words. It'll be the longest thing I've ever done and one of the first real short stories I've ever completed. I'm finally becoming more comfortable with my writing, and from here on out I'm making it a goal of mine to finish 15 more short stories before the year is up.

I think I'm a very long way from being able to write a good novel, though it's always tempting to give it a shot.

Writing a good short story is an art in itself; good luck with them. I'm inclined always to say positive things when people want to write novels: but you really have to commit to it, or else it hasn't a chance of going anywhere. But going anywhere isn't always the point.

*

My status; quite positive at the moment. Of course, that might change within days, as it has been doing recently.

The story so far, for those who missed it, and because I couldn’t resist doing a chat-show bare-the-soul moment:

I wrote my first fanfic when I was eight and my first full-length original novels when I was twelve. My enthusiasm for those novels' world petered out a little when I started writing about my second original universe; I’ve been trying to write that second series of books for fifteen years now, since I was fourteen. During that time my conception of the world has matured immensely, the story has (in most respects) matured with it; the core characters have remained who they always were, but growing with the rest.

Version 1 dates from 1995-7; it was the classic teenager’s-second-written epic novel series (lots of energy, plot holes big enough to drive a battleship through); but the characters stuck with me in ways early-novel characters really shouldn’t, because all those plot holes and immaturities in early novels tend to be large enough to cause fundamental damage to the characters and world, to the extent that the flaws can’t be remedied later. Also, leeeetle bit overambitious to start with epics. But, hey; I didn’t want to give up on these books, because I really liked the characters. (Apart from the primary cast and the very basics of the main plot, one or two sentences from version 1 survive in the current version.)

So I wrote version 2 between 1999 and 2000; mostly the same, some “grittier” content (one of my motivations right back with version 1 was to write something that wasn’t as black-and-white as all the epics and space operas I read at the time – my local bookshop and library were packed with Eddings, Jordan, McCaffrey, Rawn and movie tie-in SF; how things have changed), and made some updates to make the plot more realistic. A few more plot elements survive from this version, the subplots and subplot characters are vaguely recognisable, and again I’ve preserved another sentence or two.

In late 2000-mid 2002 I had a(nother) serious bout of depression; I wrote nothing between late 2000 and late 2001, at which point I went on the internet, discovered that Other People Wrote Fanfic Too and, during my only clinically manic phase so far (I’d ripped all the ligaments in my left foot and no one checked if the hospital painkillers would have an... interesting effect when combined with my antidepressants), wrote the first 50,000 words of a 75,000 word fan novella in a fortnight. (It took another two months to write the last 25,000 words. For a fun experiment, try writing two thirds of a story while high on something and then try tying it off, in a logical manner, when stone cold sober.) That kind of kicked me back into writing, and in September 2002 when I was unemployed I started on The Big Project With The Cool Cast all over again. Version 3 was much more structurally complex, and felt, for the first time, like real novels...

... except for its volume 1. I’d always had this mental problem with volume 1, in that most of it was what had to happen to get to volume 2, so the first bit of volume 1 was really more of a collection of events than a coherent story. By end 2007 I had a Version 3 complete draft of volume 3, a tight outline for volume 2 and a “polished final draft” of volume 1, which was pretty crap. A first-reader who loved the way I wrote, loved my characters and loved the world pointed out that volume 1 felt very “bitty” up till three quarters of the way through, and he was entirely right.

So in came Version 4. I expanded the events of the last quarter of volume 1 and shrank those of the first three quarters so that the bit that did work as a coherent story took up more of the book, because the bittiness was a structural issue caused by my taking too long to manoeuvre the characters to that point; rewrote the bits that I needed to keep but weren’t well-written enough, deleted other parts, merged scenes that were thematically similar (or deleted one of a pair), made the antagonists more sympathetic, made the protagonists’ allies less sympathetic, and tightened it up as much as I could.

By the time I’d finished version 4, this March, I was becoming very frustrated. In the time it had taken me to get from start v.3 to end v.4, the average publishable length of a first SF/F novel had dropped considerably, and Version 4 with all the extraneous words and paragraphs taken out was just about sitting on 202,000 words, which had been 25K too long in 2002 and is now between 50K and 75K too long. The real problem from my perspective, I think, was that I was actually quite happy with it; sure, there were some minor issues, but I had a story. Which was too long. And given that what had been the last quarter of Version 3 volume 1 was now the second half of Version 4 volume 1, and what had been the first three quarters was now the first half, the first half of the book was still a little too bitty.

I was on the verge of giving up and writing a shorter, tighter, thriller-style prequel about my protagonist’s parents in the hopes of getting the 202K book published as a second novel. Then I took the prologue and first chapter of version 4 to a writing workshop that had panned version 3 a couple of years earlier, and got some stunningly positive feedback, including from one of Britain’s best-selling SF authors. There was suddenly no way I was junking or even postponing this book; I was going to Do Something About It.

So I decided to cut it in two. The second half was, after all, already a nice coherent piece, and all the characters both in the plot and all the sub-plots happened to have a break in their tales right there. The problem – as I’ve mentioned here before and on Lj – was that the first half sort of petered out, and the protagonist had just had a major setback (due to a very minor incident in overarching plot terms) that simply could not be spun into a positive or even into a negative sufficient on which to end the book. A simple chopping job would not do.

So, version 5 – so far comprising a complete book consisting of the first half of my original book 1 – was born in early April 2010.

In the two months since, I have swung between wildly positive and wildly negative emotions about the whole thing, including fresh impetus to junk it when kicking it into its new shape seemed like too much work; right at the moment, everything is really starting to feel like it’s falling into place – the new structure’s coming together, the book is now far less bitty, and the characters are behaving themselves when I write for them. I have added a new ending plus build-up to that ending throughout the book; I still need to tweak one chapter (keeping the events, switching the setting), and redraft half of three chapters plus two complete chapters (one fresh in every respect, one a rewrite-from-scratch). That will be a complete draft 1, maybe three months after starting it, maybe a little less.

To do afterwards, I have a list of structure-level things that are wrong with each chapter (except for chapter 3, which amazingly has nothing wrong with it above line-level). The structure fix will be draft 2, during which I will also need to decide whether to shift one particular subplot in its entirety to the second book (i.e. the second half of old book 1) in order to tidy up the story and reduce this volume’s number of POVs by one (there are currently twelve, several pairs of whom wander around the story together so could be trimmed out at a cost of losing perspective – imagine AGOT with only one of Sansa and Arya’s POVs); a further down-side is having that subplot (the biggest subplot of what is now book 2 and the main plot of what will now be book 3) come out of nowhere later.

During this Version 5-creating process I’ve had time to think a little more about the process of creating a series and, specifically, the steps I’ve gone through and how it’s changed as I’ve changed. I realised late in Version 4’s creation that there was a massive disconnect in the type of story I kept thinking it was. When I started writing it, it was most definitely space opera in the style of epic fantasy, because when I was fourteen and fifteen those genres were what I was reading. Now my reading patterns have broadened, and the types of subgenres easily published have changed: I’m automatically trying to write a different kind of story with the same plot, and in some respects it doesn’t work. Basically, when you have scary people trying to take over the galaxy for excellent reasons and a protagonist who is essentially Space-Batwoman complete with mystery identity and a Batmobile with the knob turned up so far it’s fallen off, played out against a gargantuan political landscape where an increasingly fundamentalist cult is closer than anyone to being in the right, it’s epic something, and pretty much has to be written as epic something.

The other thing I’m trying to do at the moment is understand my vague remaining dissatisfaction with Version 4, and work out what I can do about it. It basically came down to the protagonist not being... protagonistic enough; or, she was, but the wrong kind for the setting – epic suggests whiny farmgirl is acceptable at the start, which is close on what she was being during chunks of it, but given the way the whole thing plays out she really had to start out, as alluded to above, as more of a young Brucella Wayne, both in order to avoid the book being dull and to avoid character contradictions. I’m therefore trying to cut down on the self-doubt and pity complex she was building up, in the hopes that she’ll become more fun to read about (and also so that I can give it to her later when things go wrong, hee hee).

I do still miss the longer book 1 from Version 4, and not only because I was reasonably happy with it; I miss the precedent that it created – I’d conceived of this as four long books and if it turns into seven or eight shorter ones my plans for “volume 2” (now volumes 3 and 4) will need significant alteration. I’ve also been able to set up very little of the business behind the overarching plot in this one. In that respect it’s turned from epic into epic lite.

However, the “half” of my volume 1 Version 4 that I’m turning into the new volume 1 Version 5 was actually slightly less than half – 91K – and for the first time in forever I have a little room to play with in terms of word count. Sure, I’ve had to devote space to the rewritten ending and all the work I’m doing to build up to that ending, but I suddenly have room to add little worldbuilding snippets at a rate of half a sentence every few paragraphs, and describe things that need describing a little more thoroughly. This, I will like.

Just... this isn’t trying to be a pretentious story, really, just quite a large one. I only hope that non-pretentious and large (and space opera, and SF/F fusion) is sellable, and that I manage to complete it in a good enough condition to sell it.

[Gatsby]

Writing a good short story is an art in itself; good luck with them. I'm inclined always to say positive things when people want to write novels: but you really have to commit to it, or else it hasn't a chance of going anywhere. But going anywhere isn't always the point.

Short stories definitely pose their own challenges. Mostly because you have so few words to tell the story that it really makes you focus on what's important. I've been so tempted to keep expanding a short story until the very span of it easily gets to novella length, and by then it gets way out of my current skill level.

I have no doubt that I could plot a novel right now. It'd probably be a very shaky first attempt, but I could do it. What I couldn't do, is effectively revise something that big. For so much of my writing career I practically ignored revision, and have only rediscovered it recently, so I've practically had to start over when it comes to how I do my writing process. Like I noted though, I think I've finally gotten the hang of it and I'm making work that I can be proud of, so as far as I'm concerned, I'm well on my way. Most novelists that I admire didn't make their debuts until they were in their early 30s. I'm 19 now and in no rush. I know if I keep making steady progress, I'll get to the point where I can make those novel length stories that I dream about.

Your discipline in your writing is pretty admirable though. I remember George R.R Martin equating starting out with writing novels as a mountain climber beginning with Mt.Everest, and you've been climbing Everest for a long ass time. Just by reading your post, I can get an idea of what a torturous process the writing of a novel can be. I lose my mind over my short stories sometime, I can't imagine how mind racking it must be once you start getting into the 50k+ territory.

I wouldn't worry about your novel being pretentious or anything though. Pretentious as a word doesn't really mean much these days anyway. It's just one of those words that people have used as a general derogatory word to disregard a work without giving it legitimate critical analysis.

[kuenjato]

Wow, thanks for sharing Eloisa! That's pretty hard-core, to devote that amount of time and energy to one overarching project.

My first couple of novels, written in the late '90's, feature characters and a world I am half proud of/half embaressed of. I have no regrets, as the roughly 500,000k I wrote in that world (spanning those books, notes, and a novella) really helped me learn how to develop character, setting, theme, foreshadowing etc.

I realized after completing the 2nd book in 2001 that a ) I was no longer all that interested in continuing the story, and b ) I had a lot of other ideas I wanted to work on. So those bastard-children books sat on the shelf for years and years while I took those skills and applied them to other fiction. Earlier this year I returned to book one (after nearly a decade) and edited through it. It was a painful, tedious, sometimes surprising... often agonizing... process :). I cut around 15,000 from the draft (which totalled around 188,000) because I would like something readable when I bind it later this year, to glance over in my old age and remind myself of how far I've come.

I'm currently engaged in completing the second of a five-book epic fantasy series, and each volume will clock over 200k. As I've become increasingly aware, it's difficult for novice authors to sell books that large, so I've been balancing my time between this project and other, smaller works--one sci-fi, one regular fiction, one YA--along with completing two collections of short stories and novellas. At the moment I'm mapping out a stand-alone book, set in the above epic-fantasy setting, that will be much shorter than those monsters--I'm planning around 120k--in order to hedge my bets, when I do eventually decide to dive into the submission process.

[Zoë Sumra]

Short stories definitely pose their own challenges. Mostly because you have so few words to tell the story that it really makes you focus on what's important. I've been so tempted to keep expanding a short story until the very span of it easily gets to novella length, and by then it gets way out of my current skill level.

I have no doubt that I could plot a novel right now. It'd probably be a very shaky first attempt, but I could do it. What I couldn't do, is effectively revise something that big. For so much of my writing career I practically ignored revision, and have only rediscovered it recently, so I've practically had to start over when it comes to how I do my writing process. Like I noted though, I think I've finally gotten the hang of it and I'm making work that I can be proud of, so as far as I'm concerned, I'm well on my way. Most novelists that I admire didn't make their debuts until they were in their early 30s. I'm 19 now and in no rush. I know if I keep making steady progress, I'll get to the point where I can make those novel length stories that I dream about.

Your discipline in your writing is pretty admirable though. I remember George R.R Martin equating starting out with writing novels as a mountain climber beginning with Mt.Everest, and you've been climbing Everest for a long ass time. Just by reading your post, I can get an idea of what a torturous process the writing of a novel can be. I lose my mind over my short stories sometime, I can't imagine how mind racking it must be once you start getting into the 50k+ territory.

One quoted reason most novelists make their debuts in their early 30s is that it takes years to get the hang of the novel form. In that respect doing it for eighteen years without publication is quite slow on my part. :P

I disagree with GRRM at least partially on that particular opinion (unless he meant it's smarter starting with Everest than starting with K2 or Annapurna). I see positives and negatives to starting by writing novels, and I'm not quite sure the one outweighs the other. As you mentioned, starting with short stories teaches a high degree of prose discipline and how to portray a character and a setting quickly and concisely; it doesn't teach how to balance all the elements of plot, subplot, character, setting etc. that kuenjato mentioned across a 100,000 word canvas. Some people who write lovely short stories just find it so difficult to expand their viewpoint of a story to book-length. The down side is finding it hard to censor a viewpoint down to short story length, or even, judging by the size of some trunk novels (including my earlier versions), down to true book length...

In the abstract I hate revisions, and certainly feel that rewriting just half of a book to turn it into sort of a new book (as I did from my v3-v4 and am doing from v4-v5; I'm sure we can think of other examples) is sometimes just asking for trouble, as it's so difficult to make old and new content bed together. Editing a complete draft into a final draft, though, I find quite therapeutic when I'm actually doing it - I like the process of seeing the real coherence emerge.

I'm currently engaged in completing the second of a five-book epic fantasy series, and each volume will clock over 200k. As I've become increasingly aware, it's difficult for novice authors to sell books that large, so I've been balancing my time between this project and other, smaller works--one sci-fi, one regular fiction, one YA--along with completing two collections of short stories and novellas. At the moment I'm mapping out a stand-alone book, set in the above epic-fantasy setting, that will be much shorter than those monsters--I'm planning around 120k--in order to hedge my bets, when I do eventually decide to dive into the submission process.

Best of luck. From what all the publishers and agents are saying, the 120K one will have the best chance without the kind of chance break that you can't rely upon.

[Myrddin]

Some people excel in novel length formats and others in shorter forms. One isn't required to learn the other.

I've written a few shorts, and was happy with them, but I write the types of tales I like to read, which tend to be longer.

It's kind of like my taste in TV. I prefer shows with longer arcs (Lost, BSG, Rome, etc) over stand-alone episodic shows (CSI, ER, etc). I can watch CSI and ER, and enjoy them, but I don't plan time during the week to watch them.

In general, authors who got their starts writing short stories say it's the best way to break into the business. Authors who jump right into novels say otherwise.

I think it depends on the writer. Some people are able to crank out story after story (something I'm envious of), while others (like me) tend to take a single story and mine it longer. Mileage varies.

I've been honing this epic fantasy story for a long time, and when all is said and done it will be a giant story told over 3 books. My next project will be a new series of standalone novels, with a looser arc between books. It will be more like a series of James Bond books than The Lord of the Rings.

Even my "shorter form" is novel length. :)

I do have some ideas for novellas, but they are based in my epic fantasy world. Just side adventures some characters might have that doesn't intersect with the over all trilogy story arc. I'm too lazy to create a new fantasy world for each short or novella. :smoking:

[Ebenstone]

It's end of the school year and I'm up to my ears with portfolios and state tests. Should be fun. As for writing, I'm completely stuck on Sisters of Khoda. I'm stuck on "transition" chapter between the introduction of the MCs and the setup. I just can't decide what I want to do with it. It's very frustrating right now.

I just had another nibble on Winter, putting me at 9 requests for partials/complete MS. I'm almost at double digits...very exciting. Five of those were rejected...four still out there. It means my query is working, which is a good thing.

Anyway, that's where I stand.

I'll have a summer plans post/blog post up soon I hope.

[Zoë Sumra]

Congratulations on the continuing partial requests, Ebenstone! I hope you have a good writing summer when all the end-of-year drama has calmed down. Would Sisters benefit if you cleared your head with something else for a bit?

My Version 5 volume 1 first draft is going very well. I've only got one new half-chapter and two new chapters left to draft, and I'm wondering whether I actually need most of that. The half-chapter would involve adding a section, using an existing POV character, to illustrate what happens to the scene after its main narrator runs away, but it would mean that this particular non-protagonist POV gets mixed up in about eighty percent of the things that go wrong in one plot strand, which might get repetitive (I'm really trying not to repeat myself on any level here). The first new chapter would cover what two subplot characters were doing while they were getting nowhere with solving the problems in their subplot, which is only important if readers turn round and ask what they were doing then. The second new chapter would fill in what's been happening to my nicer antagonists between two points, but I could add most of this information to their existing chapters - the thing I couldn't add to said chapters is the scene-setting, which is not a good reason to write a whole chapter. Question is whether I can (a) give the information and (b ) set the scene in fewer words by adding stuff to existing chapters than by writing a new one.

ETA: stupid accidental emoticon!

[Starkess]

MUST. WRITE.

'grats on the partials, very cool!

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Ugh, my ten year process of editing is just about done. I've got it and I'm moving on. I will send it out once I'm finished making the changed from the hard copy to the computer. And damn it, ten years is a long time to spend with a story, and I've become so obsessed with the characters I've started a sequel. I am halfway through the first draft right now, pounding out anywhere from 2,000 to 4500 words a night. Once I'm done with the first draft I am going to tuck it away and work on other projects. My story about the prison camps in Guantanamo being a priority.

I just sent out a short story to a contest. We'll see how that goes. People I've sampled it to seem to be taken in by it, really like it.

I might try writing something funny once I'm done with my first novel's sequel.

[Durckad]

Motherfucker.

Was writing late last night and I was in a good vibe, had some words coming out that weren't awful, and the power decided, at that moment, to flicker and shut my computer off. :angry:

Thankfully, even though I hadn't saved in a while, Word managed to backup my progress, though the vibe was dead. Never thought I'd ever say this, but thank you Word.

[kuenjato]

Just finished a chapter, which brings me to about 10k this week. I've about 25k left before I can put my current monster to rest (for a while, until the red pen is unleashed). After 2 1/2 years struggling with this particular book, the light glimpsed at the end of the tunnel is most welcome.

The writing has flowed fairly smoothly, despite a lingering and consistant sensation of being slightly burnt-out with the project. I suppose I should feel fortunate--I only experience writer's fatigue at the end of the day. It's then that I consider taking a few weeks off to recharge the batteries. But when I sit down and engage in the process itself, the fire still roars fairly strong, and if that continues, I should have this done (estimate now, roughly 310k) by around the beginning of July. I want it done by July. I've other projects I want to focus on this summer, far far removed from big behemoth fantasy.

It's interesting to watch the chapters tick by. I've had them planned out for months, some for years. After overcoming a personal "Mereenese knot" of a sort at the end of last month, the long-preplanned end-game has progressed with an ease I didn't suspect. Now it's all about wrapping up dangling threads, seeding for the next book, and making sure those climatic notes ring loud and sharp (or, in some cases, subtle).

just... 25k... left... :fencing:

[Starkess]

Got in about 10 minutes of writing before work this morning. It produced little more than a paragraph, but it's the most I've done all week, and I'm hoping it's a little spark to get me started again.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Agh, 4400 words tonight. I'm exhausted. That was a solid two hours. I'm going to bed.

[kuenjato]

Agh, 4400 words tonight. I'm exhausted. That was a solid two hours. I'm going to bed.

Damn, that's 2200 an hour.

Even when I'm really cranking, I don't usually break over 1200 in an hour. Maybe 1500, depending on the content.*

* at least with fiction. Blogging or message board posting is a whole other ballgame.