These notes were mostly written within a day of writing the chapter. I'll post them every five chapters or so. I'm not sure what I or you should expect to get out of them but here they are.
Chapter One (1,897 words): I had a hard time with this beginning. Sometimes they hit me like lightning and they're right and they work but more often than not I struggle and this beginning was no exception.
As a writer and a reader, I like to start with a good hook followed by an immediate introduction to the main character. Not backstory - I don't want his biography - I want to know what he's doing right now, what's changing for him and why I should care.
I can't say I'm entirely happy with the way the first chapter came out. I don't think I got across all of the information I wanted to get across. I especially hate the clumsy introduction of Throp by his age, but I couldn't find a natural way to work it in.
Part of the problem is the format I've chosen. I'm writing this as a serial - short chapters in which something always happens to keep the reader interested. I do not want to go over 2000 words a chapter so some things will have to wait. It's not a huge deal, it's just that I want to paint the clearest picture possible.
On the other hand, chapter one is finished and that's something. These self-imposed constraints - only having 2000 words, having to finish the chapter before moving on to the next one - helped me get it done and kept me from stressing over it for too long. Under normal circumstances I could have taken days to find the beginning and I still might not be happy with it.
Oh, and that lyre song Throp sings along to? Ripped off wholesale from an actual folk song. I was going to write my own or at least alter an existing one but song writing? is hard. So yeah.
Chapter Two (1,758 words): Sometimes a lot of things happen in a short amount of time. Some writers can spend pages and pages describing a chaos that takes place over just a few seconds without making it feel like pages and pages and I'm always amazed when it happens. It feels like a magic trick. Actually it feels like magic any time I breeze through a dozen pages without even realizing I'm reading something, not actually experiencing it.
I've never been great at lots of action that doesn't feel tedious. So I avoid writing it. So I've never gotten any better. I imagine this novel is going to present me with a lot of opportunities to struggle through the action, but that's the only way to get any better.
I actually looked up videos of pig scrambles. Because it's a thing people still do.
Chapter Three (1,405 words): I wanted to make each chapter between 1500 - 2000 words, in part because that would keep me on track with the 1,667 daily NaNo goal and in part because my research said that 1500-2000 is the perfect bite-sized chunk for a serial episode. This chapter originally ended at around 550 words. I considered going back and padding it but then the next chapter ran close to 2300 so I adjusted and knocked a bit back into the third chapter. I don't love the asterisk split in the middle of the chapter, but went with that instead of drawing out his return home. Mostly I just wanted to hurry up and get them on the road!
Chapter Four (1,540 words): I had fun here. Finally got to write the princess! And just as soon as she appears, she's gone again! Wily princess.
Chapter Five (2,129 words): While plotting in October, I did research on whether ferrets can hunt by scent and found a single article in which a ferret had been trained to find people in disaster zones. Good enough for me!
I went back and added or changed something to every single one of these chapters as I worked on succeeding ones. It wasn't really editing, but I kept coming across things that would make more sense if I mentioned them in a previous chapter. It's a good lesson for any future serials, which is that I should be a good ten chapters ahead instead of just three or four, so I have plenty of room to make adjustments.
Chapter 1: I like stories that start by showing us the protagonist doing an eyery-day thing, too. Do you think you'll try to write a song during editing?
ReplyDeleteChapter 2: I suck at action, and I hardly ever write it. Doing an adventure novel sounds like an awesome way to force yourself to improve at it. I need to stop avoiding action.
Chapter 3: The set chapter length is an interesting idea. When I write, I think too much like a reader, and I constantly try to figure out how long a scene would be in book pages, usually leading to me thinking my scene is too short. But it's not like there's a right length for something, right? In conclusion: developing Writer Brain is hard.
Chapter 4: Yay princess!
Chapter 5: That's cause Nib is a very special ferret! =D