Mid-Week Review
May. 5th, 2010 06:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuI've eked out about 4,000 words on the novel this week. A little under two thousand Monday, a little over Tuesday. Today I didn't write anything on it. But that isn't to say that the day was wasted. I've been feeling like the novel wasn't working lately, and not just in the "today I think it sucks" way, but in a more serious fashion.
So I spent today reading it over. I started a "bible" file for the novel, including all the names of characters and their occupations, as well as where they were first introduced. A lot of them are spear-carriers of one sort or another, so that's about all I need. Only a few are major characters, so I may add more detail later. But for now I've got a list of characters. I also wrote down all the names of places (planets and starports, mostly), ships, organizations (companies or corporations) and gear (types of tech*) mentioned or used in the story. I caught the same name used twice for different characters, as well a character whose name changed in mid-scene (probably from one day to the next while writing).
I probably should have started the bible when I started the novel, but I'm a seat-of-the-pants writer and it didn't occur to me, though I've certainly read about doing that. Live and learn. It's in place now, which is the important thing.
I also now have a better grasp of who some of the characters are. I know that I'll need to go back and plant more clues earlier in the novel to support that. One section of the novel--it's episodic in nature--is very short. Too short. I'll need to flesh it out considerably. And now I know to think about how to do that.
The end result is that I feel better about the novel. It hangs together better than I feared, though it's definitely a rough draft at this point. It needs work in addition to still needing to be completed--but I have a clear idea of what some of that work needs to be, and it's stuff I can do. It's no longer a vague sense that there are problems I can't quite articulate and thus can't fix. It's stuff I've identified and that I know I CAN fix. Which is a great relief. But I still need a name for the novel. "Starship Repo Man" just ain't cutting it.
*And those decisions, made on the fly, sometimes come back to affect your plot. In this case, the idea that starships (at least those small enough and aerodynamic enough that they land on planets at all) take off and land like jet planes, and thus require long, long runways has turned into a plot point in the latter half of the novel. Who knew!
Stories in Circulation: 11
Rejections: 36
Stories Accepted: SEVEN
Stories to Resubmit: 0
Novel Queries: 1 Novel, 5 queries out
Novel Rejections: 5
Project 1: Space Opera (Title TBD)
Words Written: 62,786
So I spent today reading it over. I started a "bible" file for the novel, including all the names of characters and their occupations, as well as where they were first introduced. A lot of them are spear-carriers of one sort or another, so that's about all I need. Only a few are major characters, so I may add more detail later. But for now I've got a list of characters. I also wrote down all the names of places (planets and starports, mostly), ships, organizations (companies or corporations) and gear (types of tech*) mentioned or used in the story. I caught the same name used twice for different characters, as well a character whose name changed in mid-scene (probably from one day to the next while writing).
I probably should have started the bible when I started the novel, but I'm a seat-of-the-pants writer and it didn't occur to me, though I've certainly read about doing that. Live and learn. It's in place now, which is the important thing.
I also now have a better grasp of who some of the characters are. I know that I'll need to go back and plant more clues earlier in the novel to support that. One section of the novel--it's episodic in nature--is very short. Too short. I'll need to flesh it out considerably. And now I know to think about how to do that.
The end result is that I feel better about the novel. It hangs together better than I feared, though it's definitely a rough draft at this point. It needs work in addition to still needing to be completed--but I have a clear idea of what some of that work needs to be, and it's stuff I can do. It's no longer a vague sense that there are problems I can't quite articulate and thus can't fix. It's stuff I've identified and that I know I CAN fix. Which is a great relief. But I still need a name for the novel. "Starship Repo Man" just ain't cutting it.
*And those decisions, made on the fly, sometimes come back to affect your plot. In this case, the idea that starships (at least those small enough and aerodynamic enough that they land on planets at all) take off and land like jet planes, and thus require long, long runways has turned into a plot point in the latter half of the novel. Who knew!
Stories in Circulation: 11
Rejections: 36
Stories Accepted: SEVEN
Stories to Resubmit: 0
Novel Queries: 1 Novel, 5 queries out
Novel Rejections: 5
Project 1: Space Opera (Title TBD)
Words Written: 62,786