As an update on how my book is going, I have now written just shy of 56,000 words. If we take a book to be between 80k-90k words, I’m 70% of the way through at the lower end. Of course, this is just the raw word count of the first draft and – as others have advised me – months of rewriting and editing will follow and then publishing, marketing, etc.
Still, it’s progress. I have structured the story using “scenes” or “conversations” which I want to take place, and outlined these in advance – although more get added as I think of them, or I want to split scenes up into smaller parts. Probably 60-70% of the book consists of key scenes or conversations which I consider vital to the story, and these are the ones I have written first. My plan is to finish these and then see how many words I have remaining to join them together and flesh out the characters in advance of anything interesting happening between them: one of the things I consider vital in any story is that the reader gets to know the characters well enough to take an interest, otherwise they won’t care what happens to them. I’m not far off completing these “essential” scenes now, maybe three or four left to go. Some of them are in rough draft, some I have gone back over and tidied up, a few I have fine-tuned.
I’ve found my method of writing goes something like this. I write the scene or conversation as fast as I can, getting down the pertinent points and not caring if words are repeated, using “I said” and “she said” a lot, not writing whether something was said loudly, simply, etc. and not describing any facial expressions, etc. It is just the raw outline of what is happening or being said. This part takes the most effort, because now I am up to 56k words I forget what points I have made elsewhere and what ground is still left to cover. I find myself re-reading other sections to remind myself what I have already written. Once this is done I go over it again, improving it as much as I can: removing repeated words, adding in descriptions, expanding sections, removing lines, trying to get it as readable as possible. The third step is to fine-tune it, twiddling with bits here and there to get it to read better. Once this is done I put it aside and consider it finished, for now.
The plan is to get every scene to this stage and join it all together, then re-read the whole thing several times, fine-tuning as much as I can. I will also need to cut or expand sections to ensure the book balances: it’s no good to have half a book of character development and then what happens with them is packed into a few pages, and the same is true for the reverse. Pacing is also important, and adjustments will need to be made: I am aware I need to include scenes which drop the pace and let the reader catch their breath for a while, before putting them through another intense passage of dialogue. Then I need to stick the whole lot in front of an editor who will probably tell me to chuck it all in the bin and start again, this time refraining from basing the central character on Ron Jeremy.
As I said in my previous post, I am doing this as much for the learning experience as anything else. I don’t know how many other writers would use the methodology I describe above, but the three things I have learned so far are:
1. Scrivener is an excellent tool for writing in the way that I am.
2. My original idea that a novel could be written in chronological order now appears to be insane.
3. The idea that passages can be well-written on the first attempt is equally insane.
So far I still have the motivation to continue, I hope it stays that way.
This is very interesting Tim, and touches on a number of things that writers encounter.
First of all, you talk about fine-tuning. True, you will have to edit it but be careful here: you can squeeze the life out of it by being picky. I am a huge fan of conversations driving the plot forward (that’s why detectives have sidekicks, so the reader/viewer can have the main character’s thinking explained, so many a writer needs to find ways of constructing conversations) but they can be raw, as talk often is.
Also, on this, “he said” and “she said” is perfectly good. Sometimes, you can spot an author twisting the options so you get, awkwardly, “he intoned” or “she reflected”. Nope, sticking with he/she said is fine.
Editing, as anyone who has written anything knows, is an utter pain up the dark place. It may be having an idea is fairly easy, writing a draft is fun but editing really does separate the men from the sheep, as it were. You have to have a hard heart to edit something you have come to love. (By the way, when I was at Art College one exercise that came as a real shock to us kiddies was spending an hour drawing some plant and then being told to rub it out and start again. Naturally, we all tried to save the ‘best bits’ of the drawing. To edit, you have to be prepared to rub out the ‘best bits’ and, pooh above, that is really, really hard)
Next up: Scrivener is great for any writer, and not just for your way. I use it, love it, but my way of writing is to see how the character develops and what springs from that. I have a vague end point but I love how the character takes over and at times does things I am not expecting. Yes, really. I know this sounds very artist-selfish-vain but to find out one’s main character who has been so carefully nurtured is really a serial killer can come hard to an author.
As I say, writing is my way of playing games. I can get blindsided in chess, say, and equally get surprised by what emerges as a tale unfolds.
Back to your work. Yes, pacing is vital, and so too is surprise: you can’t have your reader seeing where the story is going from page one.
Removing repeated words: oh yes, absolutely. The goal of all writers is to avoid saying the same thing over and over and over again (see what I did there?)
Good luck Tim with the project, and keep on keeping on.
One lesson I’ve learned from watching TV drama – it’s very hard to make Young People at all interesting. So little has happened to most of them that they are dull dogs, hard to differentiate, and even harder to love. See, for instance, virtually all of the student characters in the Morse/Lewis/Endeavour stories. Or see the first series of Homeland, where the only possible response to the teenage daughter was to pray that she’d be written out of the script ASAP: she was easily the most cardboard of the characters. (Since the show became unwatchable after the denouement of the first series, I have no idea how tedious the teenage daughter continued to be.)
By contrast it’s easy to write unspeakably vile Dons or College Masters, backstabbing and murdering uninhibitedly, or policemen, or journalists or ex-marines.
Watcher,
Some excellent comments in there, thanks.
First of all, you talk about fine-tuning. True, you will have to edit it but be careful here: you can squeeze the life out of it by being picky. I am a huge fan of conversations driving the plot forward (that’s why detectives have sidekicks, so the reader/viewer can have the main character’s thinking explained, so many a writer needs to find ways of constructing conversations) but they can be raw, as talk often is.
Indeed, I have structured a lot of the book as a narrator recounting his story to two friends on a train, so that he can explain his thinking. I too think conversations are good for driving the plot forward, and a huge portion of the book is dialogue (which isn’t surprising given it is mostly about human interaction).
Also, on this, “he said” and “she said” is perfectly good. Sometimes, you can spot an author twisting the options so you get, awkwardly, “he intoned” or “she reflected”. Nope, sticking with he/she said is fine.
Absolutely. I only change it when necessary, or add an adverb: the reader doesn’t generally notice “he said/she said” anyway.
Editing, as anyone who has written anything knows, is an utter pain up the dark place. It may be having an idea is fairly easy, writing a draft is fun but editing really does separate the men from the sheep, as it were. You have to have a hard heart to edit something you have come to love. (By the way, when I was at Art College one exercise that came as a real shock to us kiddies was spending an hour drawing some plant and then being told to rub it out and start again. Naturally, we all tried to save the ‘best bits’ of the drawing. To edit, you have to be prepared to rub out the ‘best bits’ and, pooh above, that is really, really hard)
The response to this deserves a post in itself, which I’ll try to write tomorrow.
Next up: Scrivener is great for any writer, and not just for your way. I use it, love it, but my way of writing is to see how the character develops and what springs from that. I have a vague end point but I love how the character takes over and at times does things I am not expecting. Yes, really. I know this sounds very artist-selfish-vain but to find out one’s main character who has been so carefully nurtured is really a serial killer can come hard to an author.
That’s interesting, not just for how your characters develop but also because Scrivener is suited to that as well.
Back to your work. Yes, pacing is vital, and so too is surprise: you can’t have your reader seeing where the story is going from page one.
Yup, and I’m going to have to work quite hard to get this right. The reader also needs to be interested after the surprise, and I think I might have more difficulty with this than dropping the initial surprise.
Good luck Tim with the project, and keep on keeping on.
Many thanks!
dearieme,
This is what I was getting at in this post: people either can’t or won’t write complex characters any more, they are all so one-dimensional they might as well be cartoons.
I’m hoping the characters I write will be partially good and partially bad – as people are in real life. I’m not sure I’d ever want to dumb-down my characters to attract readers, to be honest.
“The reader also needs to be interested after the surprise, and I think I might have more difficulty with this than dropping the initial surprise.”
Oooh- fucking YES. That’s the hardest part about writing a story that centres on a relationship (or turning a relationship into a story that resonates with a reader).
You can develop your characters as much as you like, keep the will they/won’t they going for an age, but when the denouement arrives and you can no longer postpone showing your authorial hand, it’s bloody hard to know what to do next.
Worse than that, all the subtle nuance and ambiguity you carefully crafted in earlier on in the tale ( for suspense and texture and shit) now look like bloody great big neon arrows pointing towards a destination that all of a sudden looks obvious, trite and cliched all at once.
As you can tell, I’m struggling with my ‘umble scribblings at the moment.
@dearieme
“One lesson I’ve learned from watching TV drama – it’s very hard to make Young People at all interesting. So little has happened to most of them that they are dull dogs, hard to differentiate, and even harder to love.”
I’m not disputing this, but I like writing young characters for two reasons-
Firstly, anyone under the age of 30 is still dumb enough to do something that a more sensible person wouldn’t. This is fabulous when you write yourself into a corner. I like keeping a young character around to provide a spot of deus ex machina in case I get stuck.
Secondly, because they’ve got no experience of anything, they serve as a handy gimp to bounce off- need to get a bit of exposition* out in an unobtrusive way? Reach for a young person! Less clunky than a narrator, better than an Arthur Dent, and they only take a paragraph or two to sketch up as well.
So, they are undoubtedly useful idiots. Not sure I could hang a whole book on one of them though.
*exposition is the bane of my writing life: it’s utterly essential, but a pig to work in subtly. I’ve spent more time trying to hide exposition than writing believable dialogue, crafting well-rounded characters and resolving plot holes combined. No matter how carefully you try to do it, on re reading, it sits on the page like a turd on a tablecloth.
Frustrating thing is, brilliant writers do it effortlessly, and convey an entire background and setting in about seven words. Guess it’s like rhythmn- you’ve either got it, or you haven’t.
““he said” and “she said” is perfectly good.” But then there’s the classic “Shut up,” he explained. Not everybody can pull this off, of course.
The use of an explicit ‘he said’ should be minimized; used only when absolutely necessary, because they are distractions from the dialogue.
“The use of an explicit ‘he said’ should be minimized; used only when absolutely necessary, because they are distractions from the dialogue.”
Point taken, ZT, and in two people conversations it is often unnecessary to continually point out to the reader which player has batted a sentence over the net. If a dialogue is just that, the reader can work out whose turn it is to speak (and by their use of language/tone/insults, etc, make it even more obvious)
My point would be that authors who laboriously polish the turd with flowing and exotic verbs are wasting their time. However, in for example the ‘competition’ called NaNoWriMo where the author has 30 days to hit 50,000 words — and I have done this for the past seven years, yay for me — the temptation to intone, reflect and even admonish pushes hard at the fingertips hovering over the keyboard.