Boarders Writing a Novel - Thread V

[emberling]

Hmm. Is that chronological order by character or chronological order full stop?

My novel is in first person, so there's no distinction in this particular case, but it's by character. I can't really get a good picture of a character's motivations and thought process if I jump forward - not good enough to write in their PoV.

If your problem is right at the beginning, have you considered shifting the beginning of the book till after the problem, even if you have to backtrack later?

I'm very happy with the essence of my first chapter, which is medias res, showing not the inciting event, but where it pushes the heroine. It's not whiz-bang-fireworks, but it shouldn't be; heavy action isn't the promise I want to sell my reader on.

The fuzzy area is more about the action-content of the first act than the lead-in to it. Some characters are in a situation together, and after a certain amount of time, just by being who they are, they will end up with certain opinions of one another, certain events will happen, certain decisions will be made, certain secrets revealed. That's the character-content, which I'm happy with, but it needs to be shown (which doesn't change if it were told in flashbacks). It's not enough to drive the story by itself, though; there needs to be something these people are doing in the foreground while all that stuff is happening in the background. And I'm just not happy with what I'm coming up with. I have an angle I'm experimenting with, but I'm not optimistic. Maybe I should be.

[Madness]

Thanks all for the word counts. I will just slink back into the background and remain here to soak up the continued wisdom.

Thanks.

[Zoë Sumra]

The fuzzy area is more about the action-content of the first act than the lead-in to it. Some characters are in a situation together, and after a certain amount of time, just by being who they are, they will end up with certain opinions of one another, certain events will happen, certain decisions will be made, certain secrets revealed. That's the character-content, which I'm happy with, but it needs to be shown (which doesn't change if it were told in flashbacks). It's not enough to drive the story by itself, though; there needs to be something these people are doing in the foreground while all that stuff is happening in the background. And I'm just not happy with what I'm coming up with. I have an angle I'm experimenting with, but I'm not optimistic. Maybe I should be.

OK. Taking this as chapter 1, ask yourself what happens in chapter 2 - step back from what assumptions the characters need about each other, and ask where they need to be and what they need to have already learned and done on-screen (as opposed to their pre-book knowledge and actions), as of chapter 2. Then try just grabbing a piece of paper and jotting down the path each character needs to have taken in order to get them to the physical position and in-book experiences that they have to get at this stage. As the paths intersect, I have no doubt you'll be able to build in the interpersonal relations you need...

[ZombieWife]

Question:

Has anyone on the board started any kind of online writing group? Just throwing that out there.

I find that sharing your work and getting constructive criticism is so helpful.

[Arthmail]

I've been on a tear lately. For the last two months it was nothing. Start up Word, shut it down.

Then i reread some chapters last thursday, got back into, started writing last friday.

Pumped out 28k words in a week. Very happy with that. Approximately 4000k a day. It's just flowing as i work towards the end of the book. After having written a truly horrendous monster of a first book, likely unpublishable given its size and the intention of having it as a series (at least, unpublishable right now), i am pretty stoked to be coming close to the end of my second completed novel. And to be honest, i think the Scar has something to offer.

First draft nearly done, it'll be time to move on to the second draft. I am at 135k right now, and if i can keep it below 170k i will be very happy. My initial plan was for 150k, which is a nice safe number for a first time author to strive towards, but there is no way i can finish up the story in 15k. My characters would likely spit on me were i to try and do so.

[Sophelia]

Question:

Has anyone on the board started any kind of online writing group? Just throwing that out there.

I find that sharing your work and getting constructive criticism is so helpful.

BwB writers group

(also in my sig)

New members welcome - the current active members (of whom hardly any, alas, and doesn't even include me at the moment) could do with some company...

[emberling]

Pumped out 28k words in a week. Very happy with that. Approximately 4000k a day. It's just flowing as i work towards the end of the book.

Woohoo! :thumbsup: That's a lot of writing.

New members welcome - the current active members (of whom hardly any, alas, and doesn't even include me at the moment) could do with some company...

Eloisa is the only person who's posted anything in 2011. I'll probably put up my first few scenes soon, since I'm cleaning that section up for a workshop submission, but mostly I'm still writing with the door closed. Or not writing at all. (Seriously, I have half as many words in my entire draft as Arth wrote in a week? Shoot me.)

[ZombieWife]

I've been on a tear lately. For the last two months it was nothing. Start up Word, shut it down.

Then i reread some chapters last thursday, got back into, started writing last friday.

Pumped out 28k words in a week. Very happy with that. Approximately 4000k a day. It's just flowing as i work towards the end of the book. After having written a truly horrendous monster of a first book, likely unpublishable given its size and the intention of having it as a series (at least, unpublishable right now), i am pretty stoked to be coming close to the end of my second completed novel. And to be honest, i think the Scar has something to offer.

First draft nearly done, it'll be time to move on to the second draft. I am at 135k right now, and if i can keep it below 170k i will be very happy. My initial plan was for 150k, which is a nice safe number for a first time author to strive towards, but there is no way i can finish up the story in 15k. My characters would likely spit on me were i to try and do so.

That is AWESOME! I'm a bit of a binge/purge writer. I go through dry spells, then BAM, I'll write 20k in a week. I love that feeling. Hold onto that muse!

[kuenjato]

I've been on a tear lately. For the last two months it was nothing. Start up Word, shut it down.

Then i reread some chapters last thursday, got back into, started writing last friday.

Pumped out 28k words in a week. Very happy with that. Approximately 4000k a day. It's just flowing as i work towards the end of the book. After having written a truly horrendous monster of a first book, likely unpublishable given its size and the intention of having it as a series (at least, unpublishable right now), i am pretty stoked to be coming close to the end of my second completed novel. And to be honest, i think the Scar has something to offer.

First draft nearly done, it'll be time to move on to the second draft. I am at 135k right now, and if i can keep it below 170k i will be very happy. My initial plan was for 150k, which is a nice safe number for a first time author to strive towards, but there is no way i can finish up the story in 15k. My characters would likely spit on me were i to try and do so.

Fantastic, 28k is remarkable for a week's work. It's interesting, I'm the same when I close in on the last third/quarter of a novel. The beginning always takes a while as I plan the necessary scenes and build in depth what's bright but nebulous in the head; the middle can sometimes be a slog, and usually progresses slow as I weave the threads... but with all that then established, the climatic action/drama & ending (long worked out and long daydreamed by that point) just tends to flow. It's a wondrous and deeply satisfying feeling.

I'm in the same boat with the length "issue". My last novel I originally planned on being 120k; at one point I feared it would bloat to 210k (due to the demands of those pesky characters!) and eventually settled at 173k, mostly by keeping it fast and furious in the endgame pacing. Frankly, I feel it needs another 5-10k to enhance a handful of scenes that were sketchily rendered the first go around... and subsequent edits will probably eliminate that many words, so I'll be left at 170. But that's OK. I've written novels at 65k and at 300k, so I'm aware at this point what's necessary (in my mind) to tell the tale fully, ambiguous industry "standards" (aka bullshit based on the cost of paper a given year and/or to deter novice writers from cranking the purple prose wheel) be damned. It's not like I'm jumping into the agent/submission pool anytime soon (maybe in three years).

My next three books after I complete my current novellete/novella fiction compilation will be short, though. I'm thinking 65, 60 and 110k.* With this current project estimated at 250k when I finish (hopefully by the end of this month) -- those short books are going to be fun, relaxing, and exciting.

* edit - I've already written the first 1/3 and 1/4 of the two shorter books, thus my predictions as to length. The third I've only completed the prologue... but it's going to take place in one environment (albet expansive) and I'm determined to keep it below 120k, as both an exercise in brevity and, from what I've planned, the tale's needed length.

[emberling]

Sigh. I'm experiencing an attack of the "my book sucks and so do I".

I'm now convinced that my opening that I previously liked is complete crap, and I don't think I can start anywhere else without throwing my current draft out the window again. And I'm questioning the entire story, because it resists description as a simple "event causes protagonist to want X; antagonist objects" and it seems incredibly arrogant (to depressed me) to think I can ignore the basic forms in my first attempt. Not to mention reading people say 'new writers should never do first person', etc, even though others disagree, is getting my spirits down. I know the cure is to just keep writing, but moping is so much easier.

I also failed to meet my 500 words yesterday for the first time since Jun 16.

:crying:

[Zoë Sumra]

Sigh. I'm experiencing an attack of the "my book sucks and so do I".

I'm now convinced that my opening that I previously liked is complete crap, and I don't think I can start anywhere else without throwing my current draft out the window again. And I'm questioning the entire story, because it resists description as a simple "event causes protagonist to want X; antagonist objects" and it seems incredibly arrogant (to depressed me) to think I can ignore the basic forms in my first attempt. Not to mention reading people say 'new writers should never do first person', etc, even though others disagree, is getting my spirits down. I know the cure is to just keep writing, but moping is so much easier.

I also failed to meet my 500 words yesterday for the first time since Jun 16.

:crying:

:grouphug:

Go for a run. Take a few deep breaths of fresh air. Kick a pillow or two, or go to martial arts class, or dance around your living room to overly loud heavy metal. Then come back with a clearer head.

(yes, yes, hypocrisy coming up)

First off, you're describing yourself as a "new writer". How new? If I describe myself as a new writer, I'm ignoring nineteen years' practice. This is not the first time you've picked up a pen. You know how to do this.

Don't kick yourself for not meeting an arbitrarily decided-upon word count per day, but at the same time, don't give up. Get to a place where you can step back from a complete draft and look at it as a whole. If you obsess over fragments - including openings - you'll inevitably get so wound up in them that you can't tell if they're good or not, unless you give yourself that distance.

[Bronn is God]

I have this problem where I feel as though my descriptions lack depth. As a reader, I usually tend to skip or merely skim the highly descriptive portions of the text because I dont find it interesting and I find the scene could be set much quicker. I also like to use my imagination rather than be forced into an image which really has no effect on anything.

Now this quirk of mine translates to my writing as well. Not good. Now I wouldn't say I am bad at describing a certain setting, but I just dont know how much to put in or really how to do it. From my readings, I found that authors like to dedicate the first 1 or 2 paragraphs to describing the setting and then leaving it for some time. Others continue the setting as the writing progresses thus setting the scene as the action is taking place.

In the former, my paragraphs are short. There just are not that many ways to describe a warm summers days without forcing yourself to become poetic. And often when I have to describe a building or something, it is just a very bland description. The freaking building is not important! It is what is going on inside that is.

I know that different people like different things whilst reading. Some people want to be fully immersed in the world and I just dont feel like I can provide that without being fully descriptive. My original plan was to GET IT WRITTEN then second time around try and address the issue.

Any suggestions?

[emberling]

The key to vivid and interesting description lies in a tangent to the 'show, don't tell' concept: rather than telling us that there is a building, picture that building in your mind, exactly as it looks to your character, and find one thing about that picture that is compelling and capturable in a metaphor or background action. Then maybe another. Maybe a memorable, quirky detail you wouldn't expect. Then fill in the rest of the necessary details with blandness, and omit the unnecessary ones. (Most characters don't need hair colors, or clothing.)

I'm just starting to get the hang of this, where previously I'd do basically just what you describe. My mistake was simply not taking the step of envisioning the scene fully in my mind. Let me try one off the top of my head:

I had to duck when I stepped onto the path. Though concrete stretched before me, on this stretch of sidewalk, I felt more an explorer in the jungle than a writer on his daily walk. Dragonflies frolicked to and fro; one buzzed past my ear, and I slapped the back of my neck, unsure whether it had landed. If I kept my gaze to the left, I could only see the overgrowth, and I could imagine the cars whizzing past on the highway were the grown dragons, as capricious as their smaller kin. I pushed on, here holding a branch out of my face, there stepping carefully to avoid the insects, until I passed the next tree and a sign came into view: NO COAL PLANT. The illusion was shattered, and I was a restless writer once more.

Kind of cheating - it's easy to visualize something I see every day, and it's easier to 'show' when the setting provides action. And it's probably a bit purple. But that's my attempt.

[Arthmail]

Sigh. I'm experiencing an attack of the "my book sucks and so do I".

I'm now convinced that my opening that I previously liked is complete crap, and I don't think I can start anywhere else without throwing my current draft out the window again. And I'm questioning the entire story, because it resists description as a simple "event causes protagonist to want X; antagonist objects" and it seems incredibly arrogant (to depressed me) to think I can ignore the basic forms in my first attempt. Not to mention reading people say 'new writers should never do first person', etc, even though others disagree, is getting my spirits down. I know the cure is to just keep writing, but moping is so much easier.

I also failed to meet my 500 words yesterday for the first time since Jun 16.

:crying:

What you need, my friend, is a Safety Dance. Nothing will cheer you up more.

[kuenjato]

The key to vivid and interesting description lies in a tangent to the 'show, don't tell' concept: rather than telling us that there is a building, picture that building in your mind, exactly as it looks to your character, and find one thing about that picture that is compelling and capturable in a metaphor or background action. Then maybe another. Maybe a memorable, quirky detail you wouldn't expect. Then fill in the rest of the necessary details with blandness, and omit the unnecessary ones. (Most characters don't need hair colors, or clothing.)

I'm just starting to get the hang of this, where previously I'd do basically just what you describe. My mistake was simply not taking the step of envisioning the scene fully in my mind. Let me try one off the top of my head:

I had to duck when I stepped onto the path. Though concrete stretched before me, on this stretch of sidewalk, I felt more an explorer in the jungle than a writer on his daily walk. Dragonflies frolicked to and fro; one buzzed past my ear, and I slapped the back of my neck, unsure whether it had landed. If I kept my gaze to the left, I could only see the overgrowth, and I could imagine the cars whizzing past on the highway were the grown dragons, as capricious as their smaller kin. I pushed on, here holding a branch out of my face, there stepping carefully to avoid the insects, until I passed the next tree and a sign came into view: NO COAL PLANT. The illusion was shattered, and I was a restless writer once more.

Kind of cheating - it's easy to visualize something I see every day, and it's easier to 'show' when the setting provides action. And it's probably a bit purple. But that's my attempt.

Kurokaze gives some good advice here. Pick out some distinctive elements of the scene, elements which may suggest other unseen aspects.

Frankly, I think description overload is a waste, as it takes the place of the reader's imagination and it can very easily bog down the narrative. So don't feel bad about not committing Robert Jordan-style crimes with the pen. A few distinctive elements can really bring out a scene--GRRM, for example, is quite good at this.

[Zoë Sumra]

I have this problem where I feel as though my descriptions lack depth. As a reader, I usually tend to skip or merely skim the highly descriptive portions of the text because I dont find it interesting and I find the scene could be set much quicker. I also like to use my imagination rather than be forced into an image which really has no effect on anything.

Now this quirk of mine translates to my writing as well. Not good. Now I wouldn't say I am bad at describing a certain setting, but I just dont know how much to put in or really how to do it. From my readings, I found that authors like to dedicate the first 1 or 2 paragraphs to describing the setting and then leaving it for some time. Others continue the setting as the writing progresses thus setting the scene as the action is taking place.

In the former, my paragraphs are short. There just are not that many ways to describe a warm summers days without forcing yourself to become poetic. And often when I have to describe a building or something, it is just a very bland description. The freaking building is not important! It is what is going on inside that is.

I know that different people like different things whilst reading. Some people want to be fully immersed in the world and I just dont feel like I can provide that without being fully descriptive. My original plan was to GET IT WRITTEN then second time around try and address the issue.

Any suggestions?

You read the same way I do - skimming the descriptions. It's important to realise that we don't skip them. Even at our quickest, we're using the barest traces of those descriptions to build our own images of the scenes.

I almost never get down good descriptions in their entirety in a first draft, but as I'm aware of my failing in this respect (and what causes me to do it), I'm quite alert for needing to go back and add them later. The only times I get description down pat in a first draft is on the rare occasions when I think of the physical setting as another character in the scene. You could try this approach - works particularly well if the scene isn't just being there; if the characters have a particular need to react strongly to it, or if the weather's atrocious, etc.

[SpaceChampion]

I wrote 1000 words today, and have promised myself I could read the first chapter of ADWD because of it... Now I have this idea in my head that I must write 1000 words for each chapter I get to read. This could take me MONTHS to finish the book if I don't keep up the pace. There is about 70 chapters i heard at one point.... If I can get 70k of writing done by the end of the ADWD, this exercise in masochism may be worth it.

[kuenjato]

I just had to add this after reading Space Champion's post...

years and years ago, while I was on a long road trip, I stopped in Book People in Austin, TX and saw ASoS on the shelves. Back in those days I rarely paid attention to release dates and hadn't even known that the new AsoiaF was out. I picked up the book, returned home, and re-read the series. Afterward, I said to myself -- "Damn, what an ending. And I'm going to have to wait at least 2 years for the next book :worried: ." I'd already written two novels by this point but for the last year had been in a bit of a creative funk. So I decided I would start up again to help deal with the wait -- if I was preoccupied with my own world, it wouldn't seem so long before GRRM's was back on the shelves.

It's funny that I can still remember that decision so clearly after 11 years. From that time I've completed 7 books, 4 of which are in that world I decided to start writing in. And today the further adventures of Jon, Tyrion, Dany and crew are finally back on the shelves. It seems so long and yet a blink of an eye...

Now, I'm wondering how many more I'll complete (now that I'm older and much more disciplined) between ADwD and tWoW...

[ErikConrad]

Quiet here :) Everybody reading Dance? This is the first Martin book I've read since I started writing. My accursed 'writer's eyes' do occasionally see some hiccups in GRRMs words... "You're not wrong", am I right? :P

Maybe we can discuss Dance when everybody is finished and see if we might learn a thing or two

As to my own writing - it's slowed, but for a good reason: 1 month till marriage!

[emberling]

My writer's eye had some issues in Game when I tried to reread - lots of adverbs! Most of them have semi-legitimate reasons to be there, but every damn time he used one I stopped and tried to think of a better way to say it.

Dance didn't give me any problems, though. Except the damn broken dialogue in the ebook.

In other news, I seem to have restarted my novel again. I need to stop doing this. This time I'll force myself to go back to the end after I finish the first chapter rewrite, even though the tone and several key background details have changed significantly.