Back to the Novel--Your tips?

[sethp]

Back to the Novel.

I've got the outline/Characters/Map and I'm 4 chapters into it. Getting ready to edit all that with better names, better outline, Characters and Map and then rewrite the first 4 chapters again.

Anyone have any tips for Novel writing that has worked for them?

I just read "Legend" by David Gemmell. It was okay...but I know I can do better. It's not overly complicated, no maps, plot was predictable, action was okay but not amazing, dialogue was average and it just wasn't epic.

So, that decided it. I can write a novel that will be published. What tips do you guys have? When you write, how you write, back up, plot devices, etc.

Cheers!

Amazing Sethp!

 

[sr71plt]

Suggest applying ass to chair in front of the computer; blocking out distractions; keeping a loose outline of plot, character, and theme points in your mind; opening your mind to possibilities; applying fingers to the keyboard; and letting it rip. Don't get bogged down in getting it all perfectly worded or complete at this point. Get to the end as fast as possible without getting bogged down. And then go back and see what you've got, what you need to toss out, what you want to keep, and what needs to be rewoven to the point where all threads serve the story and are completed.

 

[TxRad]

Like SR said, put one word in front of the other until you reach the two that say, the end.

That's the simplistic version.

Writing it is the easy part. Editing it so it's readable is where the work begins.

 

[Weird Harold]

Like SR said, put one word in front of the other until you reach the two that say, the end.

That's the simplistic version.

Writing it is the easy part. Editing it so it's readable is where the work begins.

An early mentor told me, "Sit down and just let the words flow through your fingers to the screen. Don't edit or worry about spelling, just type until you run out of words.

"Then, delete the two-thirds that are total crap and edit the remainder into a story."

 

[TxRad]

An early mentor told me, "Sit down and just let the words flow through your fingers to the screen. Don't edit or worry about spelling, just type until you run out of words.

"Then, delete the two-thirds that are total crap and edit the remainder into a story."

That works for me.

Eleven novels in five years and 9 sold.

 

[MaxSebastian]

What those guys said.

Don't re-write the first four chapters, just get going!

 

[sethp]

What those guys said.

Don't re-write the first four chapters, just get going!

But...I've used words like "The Horde" for my evil army and My two main characters are lacking in depth and motivations.

Thanks for all the kind words. I think I get the point. Shut up and write! lol Maybe just a slight tweak on the first four chapters or so and then BAM! I'm off.

 

[_Lynn_]

An early mentor told me, "Sit down and just let the words flow through your fingers to the screen. Don't edit or worry about spelling, just type until you run out of words."Then, delete the two-thirds that are total crap and edit the remainder into a story."

Something I still can't do. *sigh*

 

[sr71plt]

An early mentor told me, "Sit down and just let the words flow through your fingers to the screen. Don't edit or worry about spelling, just type until you run out of words.

"Then, delete the two-thirds that are total crap and edit the remainder into a story."

I do the first; the second doesn't happen. I add in my reviews, not delete.

 

[BONNIEBREA]

I always feel some apprehension when I agree with old sr71 too much, but his advice is on the money. Particularly considering you say you know the story and where it's going, you just need to sit down and write the thing.

My last story was a novel (about 140,000 words) and, as with every story I write, I knew the beginning and the end and most of how to get from one to the other. So I was able to sit down and just write the story. The first draft took, if I remember right, about six weeks. Having that basic framework in place, I was able to then go back and add the flourishes and embellishments that make a story a story, and create the inner structural connections and resonances that grow out of the plot and the characters' relationships (and create the consistencies and continuities with other stories, since this one was the seventh story of a longer work).

The ending as I finally wrote it involved leaving the first-person character where I'd planned, but the details of where that ending took place, and under what circumstances and with what thematic and emotional meaning was dictated by the flow of the story.

 

[Kathleen11]

All right

 

[lovecraft68]

I'll just add my two cents with the blow it out the door and worry about it later.

I wrote my Circle novel in two months. Then I went and started improving and fooling around. The original version was 275K.

My first go through took it to 260, my second down to 251 and I am going to go through once more when it gets back from the editor.

Writing is like money, better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

It's easier to have too much and slice and dice than it is to have to try to add to it.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

We wade thru this nonsense occasionally, one team champions the verbal diarrhea approach (let it spray everywhere), and a few of us know that the best route is a plot with thought-out architecture so you dont invest weeks for a pile of shit.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I'll just add my two cents with the blow it out the door and worry about it later.

I wrote my Circle novel in two months. Then I went and started improving and fooling around. The original version was 275K.

My first go through took it to 260, my second down to 251 and I am going to go through once more when it gets back from the editor.

Writing is like money, better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

It's easier to have too much and slice and dice than it is to have to try to add to it.

You remind me of how newbies cut sheet metal. They just grab their shears and cut, masters (me) cut the largest pieces first and work down, for the best use of the metal.

 

[sr71plt]

It's easier to have too much and slice and dice than it is to have to try to add to it.

To "have" to add to it, maybe. It wouldn't be no picnic for your editor to say "give me your favorite 90,000 words of those 251,000 words" either--which is exactly what would happen to you in real publishing.

As I noted above, I never cut in review; I always wind up beefing up threads that already are there. It all depends on how someone writes. I have it pretty well organized in my mind (or my mind does on its own) before I sit down to write. I don't scattergun putting in everything and the kitchen sink in the first draft.

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

Have fun, and enjoy it.

For me I came up with the initial idea and a rough outline in my head as to how I wanted things to play out. I had a fellow Lit. author work with editing as I went and also help me to stay on track.

I'd write a large portion and sometimes feel panicked that I had gotten off track, so I'd send it to them, they'd read through and give me their opinion. When I felt that part of the story was done, I'd send it to them for an edit and once I got it back, I'd take off again, and repeat the process. It allowed for the work to get a cleaning as well as gave my mind a break.

It worked for me. I'm 85K and done with what I can now call the first draft. I don't see me having to do dozens of drafts because I think we knocked a lot of editorial issues out throughout the process, but I know it's not quite ready. It won't take me as long though since I dealt with some of it early on.

I did start over once during the process, only about 30K in, and I felt more positive going back and editing what I needed and adding what I needed to change the flow of the piece.

Good luck and again have fun.

 

[sr71plt]

Just a tip that in e-booking and erotica, the novella level (generally the 25,000-45,000-word range for e-books) is a gold mine field for sales. The $1.99 or $2.99 sales point is the most enticing. (For some reason, the once-popular $.99 price point is becoming suspect as meant to push substandard quality.)

 

[lovecraft68]

I'm not trying to offend anyone with my next remark(and know that I also have a bunch of stuff up from 12-125k) but I still having a hard time grasping 80 or so thousand words as a "book" or "Novel"

When I was looking into a project with create space last year the work in question was about 93k and they said that would be about a 150 page paperback. Hardly a book to me.

A friend of mine who has done pretty well on amazon with a book was telling me all about how people on the kindle want "novel length" books.

She then told me her "novel" was 56k. That's a long short story to me.

I guess it's a sign of the times and my being old school but I hear "novel" I want to see 3-400+ page works. When people say to me "wow you have books published? I tell then they're short stories because to me they are. I have two in the 125k range and I refer to them as "novellas"

another big perception the e-market has created I guess.

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

I have always been told anything over 50K is a novel. I don't mean just from my time here on Lit. but I mean from my creative writing class that I took two-three years ago as well as while I was in school - 20 years ago (so sad). I guess it depends on the person hearing the numbers and the person giving the numbers.

 

[oggbashan]

But...I've used words like "The Horde" for my evil army and My two main characters are lacking in depth and motivations.

Thanks for all the kind words. I think I get the point. Shut up and write! lol Maybe just a slight tweak on the first four chapters or so and then BAM! I'm off.

Find and Replace is your friend. "The Horde" can be changed to "The New-name-I've-invented-to-be-the-Evil-Empire" at any time.

 

[sr71plt]

I have always been told anything over 50K is a novel. I don't mean just from my time here on Lit. but I mean from my creative writing class that I took two-three years ago as well as while I was in school - 20 years ago (so sad). I guess it depends on the person hearing the numbers and the person giving the numbers.

In the traditional print publishing world, 50,000 words is too short for a commercial adult-market novel, because it isn't cost effective to print/sell (unless the author already is a best seller). It depends on the genre, of course. Young Adult novels are shorter; Sci Fi is on the long side. Publishers like to see something between 72,000 and 90,000 words for a first-time author's novel in adult genres.

It's falacious to give limited-range general number of pages per wordage formulas, because words per printed page can be manipulated in a broad range.

In the e-book world, the work can be called a novel staring at 45,000 words, and the sky is the limit on the number of words permitted at the other end (you just couldn't get way up there in wordage if you can't to also put it out in cost-effective print).

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

It makes sense that if someone is looking for print form that a publisher would want something larger than 50K, but the general definition of a novel sounds as if it can be whatever someone wants to slap down - from 45K to the skys...

 

[sr71plt]

It makes sense that if someone is looking for print form that a publisher would want something larger than 50K, but the general definition of a novel sounds as if it can be whatever someone wants to slap down - from 45K to the skys...

It's more what whoever is footing the bill to produce and market it wants to call it--and they were pretty rigid limits when mainstream print publishing controled the industry. E-publishing has wiped away many of the hard considerations that had to be given it in the mainstream print world. At the lower end, you couldn't make money off a thin book because of per-unit set production costs and, at the other end, you could only get so much width of a spine in a binding machine.

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

The pros and cons of advancement. I'm very happy with my 85K novel and admit the idea of having one twice that size under my belt is mind-bogglin'. But if the story called for it, then I'd write it --- I hope.

 

[lovecraft68]

Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness is 110 pages in the paperback I have. But I bet the word count is ridiculous, there is virtually no dialogue in it, its all narrative so every page is just blocks of text.