Aug 24, 2020
Do you hurry through a first draft, or are you conscious of flaws as they go down? Has that changed over time?
Have you ever heard of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)? It happens every November, and the challenge is to write at least 50,000 words during the month. That’s considered the minimum number of words for a novel.
Well, the first book I wrote was part of the challenge. I wrote every free moment I had. At work, at home, planning while I drove. Still, I only made it to 49,000 words. Not only did I run out of time, I ran out of story.
But we won’t talk about that book. It’s buried in my archives and will stay there. However, I have made the 50,000 words in a couple of other attempts. It’s tough.
I haven’t tried to compete in NaNoWriMo for a few years. I don’t know if I will try again. The plots of my mysteries are convoluted, and I have to pay close attention to ensure I tie everything together and don’t miss any potential loose ends. Plus, now I am paying more attention to grammar and word choice as I write. It slows down the initial process, but leads to less editing as I’ve already fixed minor errors
Speed also varies depending upon whether I’m writing by hand on paper or if I’m typing. When I’m typing, and see the way the words look on the monitor, I do more immediate editing and it slows things down. When I’m putting ink on paper, it’s more of a stream-of-consciousness process and I go faster. (But have to do editing in the transcription process.)
The other factor that affects my speed is whether the characters feel like talking to me and telling me what happens next. I’m what’s known as a pantser—I make it up as I go along. I don’t plot out my stories before I start writing. I may know the beginning and end but everything between has to be discovered. Some days the characters are willing to spill their guts and some days, I have to drag it out of them.
There are authors out there that write a book a month. Month after month. Yes, they are pretty much formula-driven. I’m not one of them. I challenge myself and my characters to break the mold. (including the mold I built them in!) For example, in The Ranger’s Dogtags, the next book in the Harmony Duprie Mysteries, I’ve pulled Harmony out of Oak Grove and plopped her down in Orlando. (And if you’ve read the books, you know she has nothing good to say about Florida!)
But back to the original question. Am I more conscious of my flaws as I write? Absolutely. I’m aware of every “was” “feel” and “had” that I drop into a sentence. I work to get rid of passive verbs and write more action. I spend time trying to figure out if I can redo the sentence to get rid of the offending word. Sometimes the fix comes to me, and sometimes I have to move along so I don’t lose my momentum. Yes, my writing is slower, but better.
And that’s why I doubt I’ll ever try to “win” NaNoWriMo again. I think I’d have to sacrifice quality for quantity, and create more work for myself in the end.
What do the other authors have to say? Find out my following the links below.
Until next time, please stay safe.
August 24, 2020
Do you hurry through a first draft, or are you conscious of flaws as they go down? Has that changed over time?
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Wow, I could never write a book in one month. It takes me at least 4 or 5 months to write 50,000 words.
I didn’t say they were all good words. 🙂 Or good sentences. Just that I broke the 50,000 word mark!
A book a month, with edits and everything else? I can’t get anywhere near that and I have few distractions. I can manage 3 a year, just! I guess it’s because they’re all different, even if they are in series.
Not every year either. That’s without having to plot.
I know. I find it hard to believe, too. I wonder how much editing is done by someone else. Almost like a ghostwriter.
50k is the mid line between 45 and 65 for the standard pulp. Though often obvious for flaws, there were authors cranking that out over a long weekend. The history of the pulp guys and their output is fascinating, a Tin Pan Alley of books. Consider any franchise series where you can spot the stylistic differences between Mack Bolan #165 and #166. Up to 15 a year. with nowhere near 15 captive writers. Some guy’s smoking a cigar, reading a San Antionio newspaper story, on the phone…”I need human trafficking, 60k, fifteen bodies, good guys and bad guys, maybe a cartel boss gets whacked. And a boxcar full of dead migrants to kick it off. By Monday. Okay, finish the Nancy Drew first, get it to me by Thursday?”
Nano isn’t that difficult until life gets in the way. There was a time I averaged 2500 a day, 2350 of them keepers. Probably 5 books, 500k in a year lsitening to the voices in my head?
But when you have the formula and the high points in front of you and it’s an “it ain’t your baby” gig, I can see a draft in four, five days. When it’s a desk job you sit and crank it out.
Phil, Greg and Kevin quit. Can you have Chariots of Fire and the rest of Rite of Spring a la Tomita in the can by Monday?
On the one hand we take this way too seriously, and on the other not seriously enough. There comes a point where when the red light comes on you nail it ot don’t get asked back and I wonder how often any of us are thinking the red light’s on, hit it.
The classic Harlequin romances weren’t far off this. And readers (especially older women) ate them up like candy. The small library I worked at couldn’t buy enough copies (budget-wise) to satisfy the people who wanted to be the first to read them. Oh, and Barbara Cartland books!
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I’ve tried Nano twice. The book I wrote will NEVER see the light of day, although I have stolen a couple of turns of phrase from it. I’ve tried editing it a few times, but it just feels fake to me and I can’t figure out how to make the characters come alive. They feel like someone else wrote them and they don’t take initiative and tell me their stories. If they’re not going to live their lives, I’m not going to write lives for them. That’s not how I wrote any other books and I just published book #10..
The second time, I took a book that was already a gravelly first draft and advanced it to publication as my challenge. That worked rather well, though it did sit on my hard drive for a year before I dusted it off and published it as “Red Kryptonite Curve”.The year was mainly because I was working on other projects.
Typically. it takes me three months to write a first draft and another three months to polish it. That’s for Transformation Project, which is America the day after tomorrow, I wrote the first draft of “Mirklin Wood” (a fat fantasy) in six months and then edited over the next six months, but now I’ve taken three years to do the third book and I’m not anywhere near ready to edit.
On the other hand, I wrote the first draft for “Dancing the Centerline” (the sequel to RKC) in a month. Blame that on “the Rona.” I’ve actually halfway drafted the 3rd book in that series as my “break”. And I’m working my money job still.Summers in Alaska are usually filled with activities that take me away from writing, but this summer, there were no community events and my father-in-law living was us meant I went hiking alone this spring and decided I’d rather tramp fictional trails. I guess that’s good. If life ever gets back to normal (whatever that looks like), I’ll have a library of drafts to progress to publication, which will mean a lot of editing. Editing something other than my most-recent WIP is always a nice break from writing.
I’ve written four books for NaNo. Only one of them was good enough for me to do the needed work to make it publishable. The others were good learning exercises. I look back at them and cringe in places and other places I’m like “I can use that.”
I like what you’ve said here, Patricia. I never rush. I can’t, it just goes against my nature and I would never participate in this challenge. I don’t see the need. I have my outline and my story and I just plod away at it in my own slow and precise way.
Outline? What is this heresy you speak of? (LOL)