Saturday 15 January 2011

Bad, bad writing

I've taken to writing some of STORM again. It's one of my goals for this year, to get a rough draft finished. And what I am writing is definitely rough. In fact, I'd call it bad. Thankfully, that's okay with me. I'm just writing to get the thing finished. To get the story down on paper (so to speak), I guess. But it's interesting to think that the stuff I'm writing now will undoubtedly cease to exist in future revisions.

Revisions for STORM are of course so far in the future they're not even worth thinking about. But nonetheless, I think about them!

While writing this series of novels, I have at times found the need to rearrange the plotlines in big ways, moving huge chunks of writing to a later point in the story, or a sooner point, for it to make more sense, etc. Changing the setting in which a scene unfolds, to make it more realistic. Blah, blah. I get the impression that STORM may be no exception in this regard. I actually get the impression it might take over the title of "Novel that most needs to be MESSED with!" in this series.

The stuff I'm writing is not meaty. It's not pretty, or sparkling, or gasp-worthy. It's just, "Okay, let's get back to the hotel already! Jared's waiting, and we miss him!!!" Or more like, "Hurry up, I want to finish this chapter so I can start the next one, and then the next one..." I only have about three chapters to go. Maybe four.

Another thing that's troubling about this novel is...I'm not sure what the underlying novel-length theme is. It does involve both Jared and Louise "cleaning their slates" so to speak, so they can start fresh together. A lot of crap goes down, a lot of agony and pain and the like. But it feels like things just kind of happen. First one thing, then another. There is possibly a lack of continuity. I'm also not sure whose issues in the novel are more important: Louise's or Jared's. Louise is telling the story, and she has her own struggles throughout, but a lot of it is Jared's story unfolding.

In other words...what point am I trying to make here?

Again, not that bothered by the question at this stage. It's just another of those things that I've thought about, and will need to think about again in future, with this particular novel.

Now that I've rambled on for such an impressive amount of time, I'm going to be quiet and save this, and then get ready for bed! I've got a book to finish reading before Wednesday night (Towers of Midnight in the Wheel of Time series), and it's a pretty epic damn book. Anyway... Hope everyone is having a great weekend. :)

3 comments:

  1. It's all part of the journey, isn't it. Making our way through the plots and characterizations, turning here, backtracking there, pausing and contemplating on the way, looking ahead to the destination. One step at a time, and before you know it, you're there :)

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  2. Yes, and it is quite an amazing journey. ;) I think I'm getting a lot better at editing ruthlessly nowadays though. Takes practice, for sure! And it helps having your work critiqued by ruthless strangers. hehe

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  3. Sounds like you need a bit of a toolkit to fix some essential mechanical parts in that book! Dare I suggest a small work by James Frey - "How to Write a Damn Good Novel". You can probably find it on amazon for a few bucks, like I did.

    It's not often I rave about, and plug, somebody else's work (who isn't a good friend or associate) but that book made me think so hard about my current work, Venus in Saturn - from defining premise to narrative structure.

    Pretty much all the fixes, and more inspiration besides, may be found therein!

    -Chaz, Fenriswulf Books

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Thanks for your words, me hearties! and don't forget to leave a link to your blog somewhere I can find it!