I'm nine-and-a-half chapters in, over a hundred pages, and still going strong. I have five-and-a-half chapters left to go before I'm done. Then I will put it aside, and start something new. I don't know what, yet, but I hope it will occupy my time so I unwind and disconnect from the novel. Then, I will go back and edit the hell out of it.
This first draft stage is the (as a writer friend of mine says) "Junk It Through" stage. It's just supposed to be crap, and written as crap. None of the words are supposed to stay, scenes can be rewritten and reordered. As with any draft though, I have to RUE (Resist the Urge to Explain) every little detail about the world. Thankfully, I can do that with my blog ;-)
Blogging about the backstories and histories and cultures helps me to categorize them and acts (for me) as a fact-checker. This way, I can't contradict myself, and am able to keep things consistent. That's another thing I see in some novels. Some writers don't keep consistency within their own work. This speaks as unprofessional and turns the reader off. Not editing a book/novel also does the same.
I write to show people the worlds I create. If I wanted to tell you about them, it would be like a history book; flat and boring and stale. Granted, some people love history. Good for them. I don't and probably never will enjoy history.
3 comments:
history is flat? boring? stale? ugg, i hate how teachers teach history, it makes everyone think this. History is not boring, it just has to looked at in the right light.
That was my point. I need to be more involved with the subject for it to have any meaning for me. If history were taught as a fun class without a droning voice from a teacher who has no emotion, I might have paid better attention.
I'm ADHD, and am a visual and hands on learner. I need to either have the information presented as a media outlet (short clips, reenactments) or like boardgames (Battleship). If it were taught in this light, then, for me anyway, I would have had fun with it.
once in school a teacher taught social studys class by playing a game in which we were given a box of cardboard discs and on the white board was written different things people use for daily living in different parts of the world, the more modern or convenient an item was the more discs you had to use to gain it. that was fun, it gave a very good look into what we americans *think* is required v.s. what really is, and how other people in other places live.
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