Tag: Novel

1-Pass Day 13: Starting the Type-in

There’s a ton going on, and I don’t have the time to go into it now. The important thing is I started the Type-in finally. I’ve migrated from OpenOffice.org to WriteWay Pro. It has it’s good and bad, but I’m going to give it some more time before going into it.

Anyway, tracking progress should be interesting, since the total word count will fluctuate as I go. So here’s where I started:

Type in
0/106270

And here’s where I finished for the day:

Type in
2006/101995

The beginning is mostly cuts and rewording to make things tighter. Hopefully I’ll get some momentum and be able to move faster.

One Pass Revision: Day 6 (Belated)

Manuscript Slog Page Count
118/563

This is actually my post for Tuesday. I should have posted it that morning, but I had every intention of getting more done. Since then we’ve had a few power failures and other fun time black holes. The systems are UPS protected now, but it took two days to get everything working again.

We’ve got a really busy weekend coming up, and lot’s to get done before then, so that’s probably it until next Tuesday. I’m pretty frustrated about it because I wanted to be done the read through by next Friday (along with a number of other commitments I’ve made). After that my schedule is going to get really nuts. Finding time for anything is going to be tough.

Bah. I’m going to bed.

One Pass Revision: Day 5

Manuscript Slog Page Count
98/563

Reached the end of Chapter 5 (not that the existing chapter breaks are going to mean much of anything). I’m surprised how easy it is to brutally remove entire scenes, ones I loved when I wrote them, and replace them with a single line somewhere else. Some of the POV adjustments are a bit more time consuming.

I hope to get back to this today, but I’ve got a lot of other stuff to get done, so no promises.

One Pass Revision: Day 3 (46/563)

Manuscript Slog Page Count
46/563

Had a really busy weekend, but I finally was able to get some time in tonight… err.. this morning. Fairly heavy rewrites. Changed the point of view on a number of scenes. I removed a few scenes and was able to replace them with only a sentence or two in a later scene. I like some of the stuff I cut, but it really didn’t fit anymore. I wrote a few new scenes as well. I’ll need to review them before moving on, but I’m too tired to do that right now.

Started

Amazingly I managed to get started today even though many things conspired against me.

I completed the discovery section of the One Pass Revision with little issue. I had pretty much done all that stuff before starting the story, and some of it even still applied. I worry that it may have been too easy. Maybe I did something wrong? We’ll see.

So I started the slog. I managed to be brutal. I hacked the entire first chapter right out of the book. It was a tough choice, but I think it was the right one. I’m holding on to it, because it could easily be expanded into a short story on it’s own, but the book doesn’t need it. Do I think the book is better without it? I’m not sure, but it’s not the solid start I want, so it had to go.

Chapter 2 Scene 1 didn’t need too much work. Chapter 2 Scene 2 wasn’t bad, but I rewrote most of it. Chapter 2 is light on dialog. Chapter 1 wasn’t. Since it’s gone, I needed to get some more dialog into the book earlier. This removed a bit of infodumping, and allowed me to improve some weak characterization.

Not a bad hour and half’s worth of work. Special thanks to the kids for letting me get it done.

Ready to Begin

Ok. I think I’m ready to start on the revisions. Let me just check the supply list

  • A printed copy of the manuscript. Check.
    Supplies: Manuscript
  • A cheap spiral-bound notebook. Check.
    Supplies: Notebook
  • A couple of smooth-writing pens. Check.
    Supplies: Pens
  • A table with room for three piles and an open notebook. Check (covered earlier).
  • Good lighting. Check.
  • Nerves of SteelTM. We’ll find out!

2YN: The Two-Year Novel Course, Year One

I feel compelled to recommend 2YN: The Two-Year Novel Course, Year One, by Lazette Gifford to anyone who has even considered writing a novel. I haven’t yet read the book, but I did take the class on which the book is based. In fact, I’m taking it again for my next novel.

The first year covers:
  • Writing Basics: Ideas, Genres, Themes, Conflict and more
  • Character development
  • Worldbuilding
  • Outlining
  • Writing, including what to do when you get stuck

Having gone through the process, and I can tell you that it works. Pick up a copy now. It is currently available as a downloadable PDF, so you can get started right away. What are you waiting for?


Rebooting the Edit Process

It’s time to get back to editing my first novel. I’m going to start over. I read lots of articles on editing when I started, and one of them really stuck out: Holly Lisle’s One-Pass Manuscript Revision. I recently re-read the article, and it makes a lot more sense now. Right from the opening it grabbed me and said, “Just start over and try this.”

The first draft of your novel is finished. Now, according to the recommendations of any number of writing books, pundits, and writers who go through this themselves, you’re in for five or ten or more rounds of revision, in which you’ll polish your work until it is a gleaming, perfect pearl … and in which process you’ll dither for months or years.

You can do that if you want. But you don’t have to.

I believed that when I read it the first time, but I didn’t have the confidence to try it. Instead I tried something which can only be called “my way.” I can tell you with great confidence that “my way” sucks big time. Maybe I needed to fail on my own before trusting someone else on this. Who knows.

So I need to start with the Supplies section, and the thing that sticks out right now is:

A table where you have room to stack your manuscript into three piles and have the spiral-bound notebook open at the same time.

Yeah. I have that. It’s the rear section of my desk. Problem is it currently looks like this:

Supplies: The Desk

So that’ll be step one for me. Clean the desk!

Using a Mind Map to Organize Novel Notes

I downloaded Freemind to help organize my notes for the new novel. I’m really pleased with it. It’s easy to use, and really lets me get my thoughts down. I’m impressed with how easy it is to navigate around.

Here’s what my notes so far look like fully expanded:
BWC Notes Mind Map
You can’t really make them out, but there are little arrows connecting the nodes.