Novel: I have a draft. Now what?
So I've written over 56 thousand words, and will do my best to bring that number up to 60K by the end of November 30th. Then, I will have a Shitty First Draft. What next? The largest document I've ever revised, edited, paginated, and otherwise wrangled into a form suitable for submission to an outside evaluator was my master's thesis, and that was only about 90 pages. This thing will be about 160. Dear God, help!
I'll do what I did for the thesis: divide it into chapters, then into sections. Er... but a novel isn't the same as a thesis. It's less clear which parts go before and after which other parts, unless I just keep it strictly chronological with no flashbacks, no simultaneous actions, and no "things a character dreamed/imagined/hallucinated but that didn't actually happen according to the Omniscient Narrator".
I bought the Kindle edition of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. I hope that gives me some idea of how to approach this. If I want to write, I need to learn how to plan and execute the revision stage of a project. Most novels are much longer than 160 pages. This will be a good first effort. Future books, should I persist, will be longer.
Here's what I already know about revision:
Here's what I don't know:
I have more experience with editing, at least for short pieces. Check the grammar, check the spelling, check the spacing, check the page-breaks, check that the characters don't change names mid-book unless that's part of the plot, etc., etc. Editing my thesis, by the way, was harder than writing it. Ever-shifting page-breaks were my nemesis. I never got the hang of pagination. Even the graduate school's Editor, a prim, imposing elderly woman, through whom all theses and dissertations must pass, said that my pagination was fucked up (though she mouthed the words behind a piece of paper). (Perhaps having to edit a thesis about obscene language had finally affected her.)
As intimidating as the prospect of revision might be, I need to finish this novel. This is a book that has been bubbling, twitching, babbling, and poking around inside my head since high school. The characters have changed since then, some almost out of recognition. I have no illusions about it's being the Great American Novel or even a Defining Work for My Generation. I do fancy, however, that it might have one or two amusing things to say to grown-up gifted children who feel invisible when they look for themselves on TV, in movies or in popular fiction.
I'm trying not to think too much at this point about trying to get published. Just reading articles about how to promote oneself aggressively through social networking makes me feel anxious and disgusted. I hate self-promotion. I hate even writing a cover letter for a job application. How does one market oneself on Twitter and FaceBook and Google+, etc. without feeling like a braggart or a whore? And why, if writers now have to do all their own publicity, are those companies still calling themselves "publishers"?
There are other projects clamoring for attention. One is a humor book, and most of the others are short stories and personal essays. If I had any sense, I would have tackled one of the smaller ones first. Then again, completely sensible people tend not to become writers.
I'll do what I did for the thesis: divide it into chapters, then into sections. Er... but a novel isn't the same as a thesis. It's less clear which parts go before and after which other parts, unless I just keep it strictly chronological with no flashbacks, no simultaneous actions, and no "things a character dreamed/imagined/hallucinated but that didn't actually happen according to the Omniscient Narrator".
I bought the Kindle edition of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. I hope that gives me some idea of how to approach this. If I want to write, I need to learn how to plan and execute the revision stage of a project. Most novels are much longer than 160 pages. This will be a good first effort. Future books, should I persist, will be longer.
Here's what I already know about revision:
- it involves cutting out useless, repetitive, and generally rubbishy parts
- it involves moving parts around
- it involves checking facts and correcting potentially offensive and embarrassing mistakes
- it takes lots of time
- it's about as much fun as cleaning the house (unless you're one of those people who enjoy cleaning, in which case, it's about as much fun as some other activity that you don't like)
- if you don't do it, your work will suck
Here's what I don't know:
- Where do you start?
- How long does it take do revise a page, a chapter, a book?
- How do you revise a large piece of fiction?
- I mean, physically and logistically, how? Piles of paper? Lots of computer files? Folders? Boxes?
- How do you keep track of revisions?
- How do you know when you're finished?
- Does the revision usually take longer than the writing itself? (I suspect so.)
I have more experience with editing, at least for short pieces. Check the grammar, check the spelling, check the spacing, check the page-breaks, check that the characters don't change names mid-book unless that's part of the plot, etc., etc. Editing my thesis, by the way, was harder than writing it. Ever-shifting page-breaks were my nemesis. I never got the hang of pagination. Even the graduate school's Editor, a prim, imposing elderly woman, through whom all theses and dissertations must pass, said that my pagination was fucked up (though she mouthed the words behind a piece of paper). (Perhaps having to edit a thesis about obscene language had finally affected her.)
As intimidating as the prospect of revision might be, I need to finish this novel. This is a book that has been bubbling, twitching, babbling, and poking around inside my head since high school. The characters have changed since then, some almost out of recognition. I have no illusions about it's being the Great American Novel or even a Defining Work for My Generation. I do fancy, however, that it might have one or two amusing things to say to grown-up gifted children who feel invisible when they look for themselves on TV, in movies or in popular fiction.
I'm trying not to think too much at this point about trying to get published. Just reading articles about how to promote oneself aggressively through social networking makes me feel anxious and disgusted. I hate self-promotion. I hate even writing a cover letter for a job application. How does one market oneself on Twitter and FaceBook and Google+, etc. without feeling like a braggart or a whore? And why, if writers now have to do all their own publicity, are those companies still calling themselves "publishers"?
There are other projects clamoring for attention. One is a humor book, and most of the others are short stories and personal essays. If I had any sense, I would have tackled one of the smaller ones first. Then again, completely sensible people tend not to become writers.