A Novel's Journey: What I've learned on the first draft.
I finished the outline on 21 May, a day ahead of my self imposed schedule. (Yay me!)
In working on the first draft of Chapter 2, I was working out a scene that had some similarities to a scene in an earlier, unfinished novel, so I pulled it out to read it over.
This earlier piece of novel was the product of my one foray into NaNoWriMo a couple years ago. I spent that November working away feverishly, wanting to experience for myself the joys of turning off the internal editor and writing fast. I hated it. I persisted the whole month to see if I would break through some kind of barrier, and got up to 35,000 words, but I so hated the writing process that it took me 2 months before I could write another coherent word. I stuck the novel in a file and never wanted to see it again. Until a couple days ago.
It was much better than I thought. Though the writing was loose and sloppy, it needed editing, not rewriting, to make it decent. The story line was coherent and I really cared what happened to the two main characters. But as I kept reading, the story fell apart, and really did become horrible. With 2 1/2 years hindsight, I can now see what happened: the story had been rolling along, and I hit a point where my world building had some gaps and my plotting was wobbly. Instead of stepping back, thinking it over, drawing some maps and diagrams, I continued dashing forward in an effort to rack up the word count. If I'd taken the time to buttress my world and plotting, I may not have ended with as many words, but on the other hand may have been so inspired I might have made the 50,000 word target. But the important thing is, I would have enjoyed it. And I wouldn't have walked away thinking I'm allergic to writing fast.
The main lesson: The Story is King. Word count and hours in the chair are clues that I'm doing something and making progress, but it's the story and only the story that counts.
Maybe I'll go back and finish that novel some day.
In working on the first draft of Chapter 2, I was working out a scene that had some similarities to a scene in an earlier, unfinished novel, so I pulled it out to read it over.
This earlier piece of novel was the product of my one foray into NaNoWriMo a couple years ago. I spent that November working away feverishly, wanting to experience for myself the joys of turning off the internal editor and writing fast. I hated it. I persisted the whole month to see if I would break through some kind of barrier, and got up to 35,000 words, but I so hated the writing process that it took me 2 months before I could write another coherent word. I stuck the novel in a file and never wanted to see it again. Until a couple days ago.
It was much better than I thought. Though the writing was loose and sloppy, it needed editing, not rewriting, to make it decent. The story line was coherent and I really cared what happened to the two main characters. But as I kept reading, the story fell apart, and really did become horrible. With 2 1/2 years hindsight, I can now see what happened: the story had been rolling along, and I hit a point where my world building had some gaps and my plotting was wobbly. Instead of stepping back, thinking it over, drawing some maps and diagrams, I continued dashing forward in an effort to rack up the word count. If I'd taken the time to buttress my world and plotting, I may not have ended with as many words, but on the other hand may have been so inspired I might have made the 50,000 word target. But the important thing is, I would have enjoyed it. And I wouldn't have walked away thinking I'm allergic to writing fast.
The main lesson: The Story is King. Word count and hours in the chair are clues that I'm doing something and making progress, but it's the story and only the story that counts.
Maybe I'll go back and finish that novel some day.