NaNoWriMo: 50,000 words in 30 days = first draft of a novel
Being a perfectionist, I find a nagging worry that the scenes I keep throwing at the page (gotta get those 1666 words/day done) may end up producing -- just a series of scenes. Will they flow, keep the reader engaged from one scene to another, wanting to find out what happens next, all the way to the end? (oh, please, oh, please)
I read to my husband. He loves it. Of course, he has no bias, at all.
I take the, probably stupid, chance of reading to someone out of the family. My question: "Does it sound like a book? One you'd read off the bookstore shelf?"
I even offered to read a scene at my husband's birthday party. Yes, I did. Pity me, please.
Nobody took me up on my offer. My husband has very wise friends.
As a journalist, I'd produce 1666 words in a day, in a finished news piece, easy. Of course, when one has an editor yelling "where is that quote!" you find the way to locate the data, to fit into the sentences, to tell the news, to make the editor happy, to keep your job.
Now, I pick up a pen and notebook, during the 15 minute break in a performance. Or I sit down, open the computer and try to figure out what NEXT should I do to my protagonist, because I now realize there needs to be SOMETHING happen, before I can get her to that next important turning point.
It's harrying. It's exhilarating.
Showing posts with label first draft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label first draft. Show all posts
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Saturday, October 6, 2012
5000 words out
This is my first effort with fiction. Journalism I know: Fiction was a complete mystery.
Until I got about half-way through the first draft.
Then, the flow began, and my completely uncritical spouse began to say, that sounds great! (always good to have a completely uncritical listener, at first) Even considering the source of this input, my gut says the story became, by the end, way better than the words I put on the screen early in the process.
In my own life, I work to keep everything smooth and drama free. And that's pretty much how I wrote that first third of the story. Now in the second draft, even I am scanning over vast tracts of boring verbiage. Ergo, 5000 words are exited from the manuscript, all from the first third of the story.
Now, I must figure out how to make the first third of the story as interesting as the last third.
Drama. More drama. And not just any drama. The kind that builds into the fascinating stuff near the end.
Perhaps introduce certain concepts/people earlier in the story -- or if I must, smooth in new ideas -- to produce the surprises at the end.
And those fascinating details I thought would be really cool to include but just didn't make sense later? Tickle them out so no one is the wiser.
Like weaving a tapestry, and go back to add new colors at the beginning to predict those that appear by the end. Also, extricate useless colors all along the way, one stitch at a time.
Until I got about half-way through the first draft.
Then, the flow began, and my completely uncritical spouse began to say, that sounds great! (always good to have a completely uncritical listener, at first) Even considering the source of this input, my gut says the story became, by the end, way better than the words I put on the screen early in the process.
In my own life, I work to keep everything smooth and drama free. And that's pretty much how I wrote that first third of the story. Now in the second draft, even I am scanning over vast tracts of boring verbiage. Ergo, 5000 words are exited from the manuscript, all from the first third of the story.
Now, I must figure out how to make the first third of the story as interesting as the last third.
Drama. More drama. And not just any drama. The kind that builds into the fascinating stuff near the end.
Perhaps introduce certain concepts/people earlier in the story -- or if I must, smooth in new ideas -- to produce the surprises at the end.
And those fascinating details I thought would be really cool to include but just didn't make sense later? Tickle them out so no one is the wiser.
Like weaving a tapestry, and go back to add new colors at the beginning to predict those that appear by the end. Also, extricate useless colors all along the way, one stitch at a time.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Climax Achieved! Whoo Hoo!
First draft of the story is, as of 10:26 pm tonight, officially written up to and including the Climax!
Moon walk. Slam the football down in the end zone. Yeah, baby. Yeah, baby.
I have been thinking and planning this part of the story -- I almost am willing to call it a book, now -- since before I wrote the first words of the beginning.
It has morphed, changed locations, and changed characters, but always with the same outcome.
At one point, this evening, I was running around outside with the stopwatch on my phone, timing how many seconds it would take to get from point A, to point B, and then to point C. The raccoons, I'm confident, are convinced that the human living here is quite nuts.
That total time, you see, had to mesh with what was happening in the shack, with this person going to this corner, and that person going to that spot, and the like.
After I clicked the keys for the last word on the document, I called my husband, who is on a business trip and who got up early this morning and has been driving to meeting after meeting after meeting all day.
I read the length of the last scene. I put all the drama into every shout and whisper. I performed brilliantly.
And he fell asleep before I finished.
He assured me when I woke him up that it wasn't because of the quality of the prose. The climax was good for him, too. (tee-hee)
Moon walk. Slam the football down in the end zone. Yeah, baby. Yeah, baby.
I have been thinking and planning this part of the story -- I almost am willing to call it a book, now -- since before I wrote the first words of the beginning.
It has morphed, changed locations, and changed characters, but always with the same outcome.
At one point, this evening, I was running around outside with the stopwatch on my phone, timing how many seconds it would take to get from point A, to point B, and then to point C. The raccoons, I'm confident, are convinced that the human living here is quite nuts.
That total time, you see, had to mesh with what was happening in the shack, with this person going to this corner, and that person going to that spot, and the like.
After I clicked the keys for the last word on the document, I called my husband, who is on a business trip and who got up early this morning and has been driving to meeting after meeting after meeting all day.
I read the length of the last scene. I put all the drama into every shout and whisper. I performed brilliantly.
And he fell asleep before I finished.
He assured me when I woke him up that it wasn't because of the quality of the prose. The climax was good for him, too. (tee-hee)
Friday, September 14, 2012
Home stretch to the Climax!
Alexa is back on Earth, and racing to the climax. And I am scrambling to find that perfect wave to carry her -- and the reader -- to the pinnacle.
Very exciting. Yes, it is just the "crummy" first draft. But this is the FIRST instance for me to approach completion of the "crummy" first draft.
Whereas on the space station the workings of the scene came down to physical placement (rock-outcropping post), in this scene or series of scenes the element of urgency comes down to timing of events. The situation that creates the pressure is an event that will happen in x days, then only x hours, then only x minutes: i.e., time.
The setting is in India, basically because India is timeless. One of the main characters is Indian. But the country also provides a fairly predictable societal location in the future, more so than, say, the ever-changing society of North America. If the India of now is very much like it was hundreds of years ago, it will probably have very similar recognizable elements even many years into the future.
I have been to India twice. My second visit included a race to get somewhere before a certain event, and I admit to borrowing elements from that visit (just like I may someday include memories of Paris, London, or Sao Paulo, or even Bartlesville, Oklahoma).
Anyway, I began this journey for Alexa about two years ago, and she and I are finding our way together to the ordained climax. I don't know how ordained is my own path, but whatever it is, I'm having a rollicking good time discovering it.
Very exciting. Yes, it is just the "crummy" first draft. But this is the FIRST instance for me to approach completion of the "crummy" first draft.
Whereas on the space station the workings of the scene came down to physical placement (rock-outcropping post), in this scene or series of scenes the element of urgency comes down to timing of events. The situation that creates the pressure is an event that will happen in x days, then only x hours, then only x minutes: i.e., time.
The setting is in India, basically because India is timeless. One of the main characters is Indian. But the country also provides a fairly predictable societal location in the future, more so than, say, the ever-changing society of North America. If the India of now is very much like it was hundreds of years ago, it will probably have very similar recognizable elements even many years into the future.
I have been to India twice. My second visit included a race to get somewhere before a certain event, and I admit to borrowing elements from that visit (just like I may someday include memories of Paris, London, or Sao Paulo, or even Bartlesville, Oklahoma).
Anyway, I began this journey for Alexa about two years ago, and she and I are finding our way together to the ordained climax. I don't know how ordained is my own path, but whatever it is, I'm having a rollicking good time discovering it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)