Anyone up for a novel writing support thread?

[Cel982]

Just thought it might be nice to have a place we could give each other a kick up the bum cheer each other along as we try to get our novels written.

I'm currently on the eleventy-hundredth draft of my first novel - hoping to have it ready for submission in the next month or two. Have been stuck on a niggly plot point for the last few weeks but had a bit of a breakthrough the other night so now the words are flowing again. Am a SAHM with a toddler at the moment so all my writing is done in the evenings when I can tear myself away from the TV. I know, I'm inspiring

So... you?

Thanks Naice! (No idea how to do bold at all!) It's a very rough 70k. The only way I can write a first draft is to never look back or edit, not even a word. I don't even put all the names etc in, just placeholders. And occasional things like [insert witty anecdote here]. Starting to wonder though if that's the best approach as I keep reading the Guardian's series on writers' working days and they all seem to start by reading over what they wrote the day before and refining it until they're happy with it. My problem is I'm never happy with anything.

I think you've got the right approach, Tippety; I used to edit everything as I went along but I found I progressed very slowly that way. Now I try to just get a first draft down on paper and worry about the quality later, and that's working much better for me.

Hmm - interesting points Tippity and Cel.

I used to read over what I'd done every time I sat down at the computer, which - not surprisingly - slowed the writing down a lot! Now I'm trying to write a rougher first draft without the constant rereading, but I find it quite difficult to keep going when I think that I'm writing down stuff that's below par... iyswim.

Arse duly kicked. Thanks all.

Hi all.
Well done to everyone who managed to keep going through the summer holidays.
I am back at my desk and all my children are at school full time so I am finally getting moving again

I need to try to finish before the teaching year starts and eats my time!

Someone talk to me about pace. I'm editing a novel that seems to have become rather baggy in the latter two thirds, and I feel I need to pick up the pace, re-introduce a major character from the past earlier, and generally have fewer but more telling scenes - generally make it more punchy and try to lose a few thousand words (literary fiction and currently at 96000, which I think is a bit saggy.)

Any advice from other people on picking up the pace, intelligent ways to cut and amalgamate scenes?

Hi Potato... hmm. That's the kind of question that's hard to answer in the abstract, but might be very clear on reading the section. Have you had someone read it for you and give an opinion? I find it can be very hard to be objective on what needs to be cut in your own work, but much easier to be ruthless with others'!

Start each scene as late as you can and finish it as early?
Ask yourself if we really need to see each scene in real time or could it be condensed into a couple of sentences at the beginning of the next one.
I have also heard the advice to find your least favourite scene, and cut it.

(The point being that then you will have a new least favourite scene, and you can cut that etc etc until you are happy with the pace.)

All good advice, thank you! Cel, I have an excellent reader lined up, but I want to get it to her in as final a condition as I can, so I want to make my own cuts first. Countess, thanks - I will go hunting for my least favourite scene (and be shocked at the number of candidates !

There are many ways to increase pace and I guess it depends on what you've written, but small things like cutting out unneccesary description can speed things up significantly. (eg: Cut 'she walked across the room and sat down on the large sofa in the corner' to 'she slumped onto the sofa'), that's a rubbish example but that sort of thing - getting rid of words that clog the narrative and don't forward it in any way.

Re first drafts, I'm much more a get-it-all-down writer, stream of consciousness rules :) I find there is much more momentum like this than start-stopping to edit every section, then I can go to the first edit with a fresh canvas as it were and start adverb-slaying etc. Works differently for different people though.

Hello, all! How's everyone getting on? I finally finished this latest interminable draft, so now I've printed the whole thing out and am going to stick it in a drawer for a couple of weeks before I start editing again. Might actually get a chance to read a book this week instead

I had a plot revelation while stuck on a crowded commuter train. All I need to do now is write it through .....

Can I ask more experienced novelists whether they think that whether you feel something is any good is an accurate reflection of whether it is?

I've worked on this for so long, and I feel suddenly downhearted and unconfident about it, but don't know whether that's normal 'it's pretty much there, and I'm just tired' stuff, or whether, if it's ready to send out, I should feel very happy with it...? Do you only send out to agents once you are convinced what you've written is very, very, very good indeed?

I'm the same Newpotatoes.
I'm getting ready to send my work to agents, and I'm veering wildly from 'Oh my god this is a work of genius' to 'This is the worst thing anyone has written. Ever.'
I'd really like to send it to an editor to get some objective feedback, but can't really afford the 500 quid or whatever it is.
Sigh.

I'm not even having the intermittent Work of Genius moments tbh pasta!

And I realise the usual advice would be to put it aside for a few weeks/months in order to see it afresh, but I've done that on a number of occasions, and what tends to happen is that I am struck with all its flaws and completely rewrite it, and that is probably what would happen again, which is ridiculous. I need to stop reinventing it, and get this version as good as it can be, only...

And I did actually have a reputable editorial service look at it last year, but that version has been completely discarded to the extent that there isn't a single scene in the current version that was in the earlier one! Aaargh.

Newpotatoes, I knew the book I (successfully) sent to agents was a mile ahead of anything I had written before. Whether I believed it was brilliant is another matter. I have found that the more you learn the more you see, so if I thought it was good that might just mean I didn't know enough to see what was wrong. So I have never tried to make absolute judgements of quality.
But I think when you have made it as good as you can (and utilised external help to do so) you can send it off and let them decide.

Thanks, Countess. I think what I'm trying to distinguish between is 'a mile ahead of anything I've written before' (which it is, and earlier versions have had considerable external validation, been shortlisted in reputable competitions etc) and 'as good as I can get it', precisely because of what you've said - the more your learn, the more you see.

I also think I've worked on it for far too long, and its in danger of losing the original impetus that made me write it in the first place - but there's also no point at all in sending it out as it stands, because it's not quite there. But, if I put it aside for a few weeks, the chances are I'll decide whole swathes of it aren't up to scratch and rewrite it yet again. Aaargh.

Hmm, I think if I had been shortlisted in reputable competitions and knew my current work was miles better, I think I might reckon it was probably good enough to submit? Getting anywhere in competitions is HARD.
I would probably send out an initial batch then go by the response to that.

You know, it's so long since I have said the slightest encouraging thing to myself about this damn book, I am staring at the screen slightly choked up at your comment, Countess. (This is Potatoes after a regular NC, by the way.) It was longlisted for one competition and shortlisted for another - won't say which, as it's quite outing - but the shortlisting got me a discounted editorial read which was complimentary but suggested it needed cutting and a less complex structure. When I went about acting on the advice, it ended up involving a full rewrite, a move forward in time by several years and the loss of one narrator, so it's pretty much an entirely different, shorter novel about the same people. One of the judges for the shortlist seemed keen, but I don't want to send out too soon, as I did that with a far earlier version with predictable results...

Anyone still here? I've finally finished. Two years (almost to the day) after starting it, it seems to be done. It's 68,000 words, not the longest novel in the world, but I'm happy with it. Now to hope someone else likes it...

Cel982
70k words is on the short side - it's fine but you definitely don't want to go less than that. What genre is it?
I'm a literary agent at a very big and well known literary agency.

Well done Cel that's brilliant!

I'm still plugging away, am about two thirds through a second draft and hope to be finished by Christmas (but I think it will need at least two more drafts before I start showing it to anyone professional). The end seems very far away.

Good luck with the next step.

Thanks, totalturmoil. It's lit fiction, and fairly dialogue-heavy. I do appreciate it's at the lower end of what's acceptable, length-wise, for the genre, but it does seem comparable to other similar novels in terms of word count.

Congrats Cel! What a feeling :) I'm on the last chapter of my first draft, also coming in at 70k. Everything I write is on the short side recently. Last chapter is tough going. The rest of the book seemed to write itself. But I've no idea how it's going to read. Will be interesting to sit back and see what I've come up with ...