After getting through the rough draft I took a mental break (which lasted longer than I intended), before starting to edit in June. Completing a rough draft is supposed to be the hardest thing about writing a book. But I'm here to tell you that bit of common wisdom is bul -- ahem, not the case. Unfortunately.
Last year I bought a couple books about rough draft editing. They’ve been on the shelf, waiting until I needed them. And now it's time! Yay!
But guess what. The first step in editing is to go through your rough draft, find holes in the narrative, and fill them. That's right. Find all those barely-sketched-out-not-sure-what-to-write *hardest parts*, and expand them into fully-written scenes. Ha!
Of course my most-sketchiest scenes are about the antagonist's fall. I want the reader to see him as a three-dimensional person they can relate to, instead of a cardboard cut-out villain, so showing his decline is important. But picking out and describing key moments in his life to illustrate that descent has been one of hardest things to figure out.
Anyway, kicking and screaming, I've been filling the holes, hardest ones first. I’ve finished a scene about the antagonist as a teenager in school, already somewhat arrogant, and a bully. The scene shows how his instructors' fear of his power results in them treating him unfairly - and becomes part of the cause for his villain-hood.
Now I’m working on another scene, when he's about 7 or 8. It’s early in his character arc. He’s still breaking the rules, but he has good intentions for his actions.
Next I’ll move on to filling holes for other, easier, POV characters. I'm still learning about this whole ‘writing a novel’ thing. For me, at this stage, it's really important to write it allllll down. Even if I end up cutting stuff later. The process of thinking as I write helps me figure out what works, and I come up with new ideas I wouldn't have had without writing the first stuff.
So, progress on the novel is being made. But! ...
About a month ago I had a new idea, one of those short dreams you sometimes have just before waking up. And the main character is insisting on being written. It's Science Fiction, near-future. New scenes keep playing like a movie in my head. It’s so cinematic I've started writing it as a script. It might not stay a script, but at least I can write down what I’m seeing. What I don’t have is a complete story, yet. So as a plotting exercise I’ve been working on a logline. These are the two latest. Serious, and not-so-serious.
1. Earth, 2062. Aliens visit Earth at last… and begin laser-mining the planet from orbit. Foreign Service officer Revan and her team must figure out how to convince the alien hive-mind that humans are a sentient race with Galactic rights, before the politicians on both sides start a war Earth can’t win.
2. Earth, 2062. Aliens visit Earth at last… and start laser-mining from orbit! No warning, no hello, not even an uplifting musical dialogue. Recalled from medical leave under protest, Foreign Service officer Revan and team must scramble to convince the alien hive-mind that humans are sentient beings with Galactic rights, before politicians on both sides start a war that Earth can’t win.
This logline has been through soooo many iterations. Getting it to this point has helped me figure out much more of the story, but there’s still a ways to go.
Of course this new idea means I'm splitting my writing time between two projects. Other writers blog about writing two or more stories simultaneously, working on one story when they’re stumped on the other, as a way to keep making progress.
I’ve been trying, but I don’t think that strategy is working for me. I really do NOT want to lose momentum on the bl**dy novel. I’m going to finish it, all the way to a submission-worthy manuscript that's as good as the story in my head. OTOH, I don't want it to be my only novel. This new tale could be the next one.
But in the coming weeks I really need to limit the time I spend on Revan, and get back to writing about Seja. There's lots more fun stuff for her to go through.
