observations on the novel, vol. I

[aamcnamara]

42858 / 80000

Yesterday I did the math to figure out what kind of a daily wordcount I'll need to get to 50k by the end of June. Both yesterday and today, I have met it. This is the kind of daily writing, fingers on the keyboard stuff that I learned how to do so well from NaNoWriMo.

(Someday, probably when I have finished this particular novel draft thing, there will be a post about the differences between my experience writing a novel for NaNoWriMo and writing a novel on my own.)

Oddly, when I write short stories I am never satisfied with just writing a short story that is easy to read and understandable, that has a plot that readers can follow. I always complicate things with layers or hidden meanings or vagueness. But a novel is long enough that apparently just putting one story down on paper is enough to satisfy my brain. As exemplified by this novel, which has spelled out just about everything about itself.

Maybe I am secretly a novella writer, and there's a happy medium in length where I can complicate things, but not too much. (I kind of hope not.)

Maybe I will learn over time to complicate my novels a little more, and to uncomplicate my short stories. (This is the one I should probably aim for.)

Maybe I should just shut up and keep writing.

Comments

[kelljones.livejournal.com]

Interesting! I find I write novels in layers, going from a skeletal ~20,000-word first draft towards a more intricate and fully on the page final draft of ~80,000 words, for instance (with several other layers in between). Whole novels in all their complexity are apparently too much to hold in my brain, for now. But I never write shorts, partly because I can't see how to fit the complexity into that short a space...

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

This started as an exploratory wander, so everything has sort of just been coming out of nowhere as far as complexity. It's only recently that I've figured out what the plot is like, what the rest of the novel will look like, stuff like that. I've had a few ideas and images in my head for a while, but there are a lot of things that are just emerging.

...which is one of the things in my writing process that's probably a legacy of NaNoWriMo. I would be interested to try something along the lines of what you're doing, but I suspect that it would end very badly for me--my brain has to push up the necessary information as I go along.

It'll also be interesting to see what happens when I do a bunch of work and try to write a second draft from scratch. Like, if my brain finds it necessary to invent new plot twists just to keep itself from being bored, or if I can actually get through the whole thing again knowing what's going to happen.

[kelljones.livejournal.com]

I think I made my process sound more logical and linear than it really is; I don't follow an outline when I write, so the complexity I'm talking about it deepening motifs and connections, not plot twists. I don't get anything like a plot until draft 3 or so, most times; my first drafts are character bits and interactions, relationships, usually, and sometimes a bit of setting or linkage. So the next draft is building those things into bigger and bigger connections until finally I have a plot that makes sense. (I suspect this makes no sense out of context, but I did write about it a while ago... *digs around* here, if you're curious.)

And my ends change a lot. Actually, my whole plot is more flexible than any other piece; I change plots far more often than characters, themes, settings, etc. I wonder why?

(I'll be very interested to see what your rewrite for this is like! There aren't so many of us that sculpt up rather than carving out...)

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

That post of yours fascinates to me. The way you describe your writing process is very evocative, but does not much resemble mine.

Plots are hard.

(I will be too. I don't think I've ever rewritten a novel before.)