I read though what I have so far on a novel with the working title "Secret Keeper." Only 7k words and pretty rough. Worse, what I have already probably needs to be trashed and I need to simply start over. Better, I actually have an abundance of antagonists for this one. I figured out a couple of plot points that were holding me up and I do think that I could get all of the way through this.
Reading what I've got so far, though, I realize that it's quite different from what I thought I had. A few bits are good and creepy but they're probably going to have to go.
So I'm taking notes in a "note" file of thoughts about the plot or reasoning and I hope that when I look at them later they will still make sense.
Part of what was wrong with what I've got so far is that the character Zhenu simply decides to let the character Raun walk around free and this is after I establish that nothing frightens Zhenu more than someone with Raun's particular ability. It was just wrong to have her decide because she was *tired* that she wasn't going to worry about him killing her anymore. So I've got to go back, she has to tie him up and utterly refuse to let him go, and her treatment of him has got to so anger a third character, a child named Ava, that Ava attacks her with a knife and nearly kills her. Because Zhenu *has* to somehow decide to trust Raun, or at least not care anymore that he might kill her or kill Ava and getting knifed will be enough for her to wash her hands of them both and decide to save her own life. Then she can come back and (insert a fight with bounty hunters) start fresh but uneasy with them both and go from there.
So it's sort of paradoxical. I'm *ahead* on this story compared to the First Contact one, but I have to start over.
I sometimes consider that I really ought to work on one novel or story and not several but then I think of how useless it would be to bang my head on First Contact if I'm stuck on it. It's not switching that's tripping me up, I think, but not actually producing new words on *something* every day.
New words.
We'll see how tomorrow goes.
Reading what I've got so far, though, I realize that it's quite different from what I thought I had. A few bits are good and creepy but they're probably going to have to go.
So I'm taking notes in a "note" file of thoughts about the plot or reasoning and I hope that when I look at them later they will still make sense.
Part of what was wrong with what I've got so far is that the character Zhenu simply decides to let the character Raun walk around free and this is after I establish that nothing frightens Zhenu more than someone with Raun's particular ability. It was just wrong to have her decide because she was *tired* that she wasn't going to worry about him killing her anymore. So I've got to go back, she has to tie him up and utterly refuse to let him go, and her treatment of him has got to so anger a third character, a child named Ava, that Ava attacks her with a knife and nearly kills her. Because Zhenu *has* to somehow decide to trust Raun, or at least not care anymore that he might kill her or kill Ava and getting knifed will be enough for her to wash her hands of them both and decide to save her own life. Then she can come back and (insert a fight with bounty hunters) start fresh but uneasy with them both and go from there.
So it's sort of paradoxical. I'm *ahead* on this story compared to the First Contact one, but I have to start over.
I sometimes consider that I really ought to work on one novel or story and not several but then I think of how useless it would be to bang my head on First Contact if I'm stuck on it. It's not switching that's tripping me up, I think, but not actually producing new words on *something* every day.
New words.
We'll see how tomorrow goes.
Comments
A lot of other writers get help with this by soliciting other people's opinions, through their forums or someone else's forums.
Time, is of course, an issue, given that random people in a forum won't spend enough time reading your work to provide you a consistent background from which to tell whether something is broken or how to fix it.
I suppose half of the bonus to having good editors and manuscript readers is that they are always there with a completely consistent, yet different, perspecitve on your writing. You can then gauge how you are doing, without going into existential and meta-think scenarios in which you have to wonder if your views of a scenario, plot, or character is really solid.
So I would highly recommend that you post your stories on your blog, Synova.
I, and perhaps some others, come here because we have read your comments and liked them.
I'm very encouraged. :-)
I'll consider posting to my blog but it would probably take a different format, or I could post links to a regular web page or something. A novel is *long*. Even the bits I manage to finish are long.
I've written plenty of technical books before, but always on a tighter deadline with less opportunity to refine material. I'm shocked at how much better this book is turning out. Even though it hurts to write for an hour or two and then throw it away with one swipe of the mouse, in the end the quality really benefits from such ruthlessness.
I hear you about ruthlessly throwing stuff away. I usually suggest having a file to keep the thrown away stuff in, however, in case it needs to be resurrected.
It might even make it easier to be ruthless.
My brain... where have I left my brain?
LOL.
Oh, yeah... from Baen's Universe slush. Forgot about that. Duh.