My novel

Post Reply New Topic

Still stuck on the first chapter. I'm trying to give the book and manageable length, quicker than 632 pages (the number projected by my first, and so far, only outline).

Almost done with the first chapter. Again.

Your psychiatrist obviously doesn't know anything about writing...

This book is a nightmare of structure. I can't figure out what the purpose of Project Catharsis is, I don't know how to foreshadow, and I don't know how to develop characters in the story.

It isn't clear if you're unsure of the purpose of Project Catharsis in the world you've built or in your novel. The two are very different things.

As for the others: foreshadowing is relatively simple to add in when working on a later draft. By then, you know what you're foreshadowing, so you can work out ways of slipping the mentions in. A clumsy example: a character who will later die in a burning building has a nightmare of being trapped in a fire. A slightly subtler example: that same character has a minor tendency to check for fire exits whenever they go anywhere. Nothing too heavy handed there - and it is always possible to screw things up for them when the chips are down. In fact, if you complicate the plot a bit, it might make the story better.

Character development is a bit trickier, but the basic process is a bit like this. Character begins the story as a clueless jerk, of whatever flavour you choose. Incidents in the story force them to confront the consequences of whatever it is they are doing. They begin to change, as they begin to understand those consequences. Of course, change isn't easy. That's what makes the process fun - once you get it figured out.

Those are just rough suggestions. One very good place to learn more about writing, and get a lot of input, is Forward Motion for Writers. The bad part: you have to follow the TOS, some of which can be tough for aspies. The good part: everyone else has to follow the TOS, too, which means as long as you don't break the rules, no one else can beat up on you. (Even if you break the rules, no one is allowed to beat up on you, actually; you'd just be warned or banned by a mod.) FM is the only writing site I'd recommend to any writer with no caveats at all - other than the warning not to break the TOS, because getting kicked out is a real punishment. The site is that good.
Forward Motion for Writers

Edited to add: If you aren't sure if you'll run afoul of the TOS (I've wondered what to do a few times), there's a link on every post - just before you post it - to let you check them. And if you still aren't sure, you can ask the mods. If you let them know you're really trying not to cause trouble, and genuinely aren't sure what to do, they will give you honest advice.

Yet another problem: still stuck on the first chapter. Again. Can't decide what the narrative mode will be.
First-person? Too claustrophobic, doesn't match the epic scale.
Multiple first-person? Too diverse and complex. Can't express the thoughts and emotions of SIX characters well enough.
Third person? Too prosaic.
One idea I had was that Eva would be an omniscient narrator (a la Oz), telling the story in a biting, satirical tone reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut. The catch is that she's somewhat unreliable, to say the least; there's a faint possibility she's making all this s**t up as she goes along.

An unreliable narrator can be tricky. What about multiple third person? That way, you can show the world from Eva's point of view - but you can also show it from other points of view as well, to make it clear to the reader that she is an unreliable narrator. Yes, you will then have to show their thoughts and emotions - but you're doing so at a distance. You don't have to capture their unique voice that way.

Or you could use multiple first person, but keep it down to Eva and one other pivotal character. That way, you only have to manage two narratives, not six.

In the long run, you're better off telling the story any way you can. Once you have it all down on paper, it is much easier to go back and alter even something as basic as the point of view. (Many authors have done exactly that, at an editor's request, usually, but sometimes on their own initiative, when they see it would work better another way.)

One thing you'll learn about writing as you do more of it: almost always, you have to jump into the story and start writing it before you can fully understand it. An "exploratory draft" before the first draft is not uncommon, and not a bad idea, especially for a story that's giving you so much trouble. If you don't want to write a whole book's worth of prose just to explore, experiment with snippets, shorter stories that form part of the book. Even scenes. Just play around, write what you can, and save it all, even if you think it's garbage. You never know when you'll need to go back and salvage something that didn't seem important at the time.

How do I write an exploratory draft?

Just write. Follow whatever comes up. Don't worry if it is garbage, or if the characters are messing up. The point isn't to wind up with a finished story - although if you do end up with something you can polish up, there's nothing wrong with that. The point is to see what you can learn - about the characters and how they think and act, about the world of the story, about the possibilities inherent in those. You use what you learn to plan out the first draft. So just write, until you either run out of steam or the characters have painted themselves into a corner you can't figure out how to get them out of. (But give that a little time: you'd be surprised how many corners you can escape from, if you just think it over a little.)

It's not working.

You don't give enough detail for me to be sure, but the most obvious possibility is that your inner editor refuses to let you just write. When this happens, the inner editor becomes a tyrant who points out every flaw, everything that is going wrong, and you feel as if you're wasting time and getting nowhere. Now, on the other hand, some people don't have a firm enough grasp of their story to make this work, and the result will feel similar.

I do have a suggestion that will require you to wait most of a year, at this point, but is free and lets you work together with others in a guided course to finish your novel. Join Forward Motion, the online writing community, then sign up for the free Two Year Novel Course next year. (A new course begins every year; now, Zette has not formally promised to hold one next year, but as far as I know, it will probably happen unless something awful happens in Zette's life.)

If you can't wait, or have enough cash that you don't mind spending some, you could buy the Two Year Novel books (it is a set of two books, one for each year) by Lazette Gifford. That would let you work through them at your own speed, and on your own. They don't cost a fortune, and they are helpful - as long as you remember that they aren't set in stone. If you stumble, you can go back, or you can skip a week if that exercise really seems pointless to you. (But I advise trying it first; I found a few exercises I thought were useless turned out very well and helped me immensely.)

Or, for higher powered help, sign up for Holly Lisle's next How To Think Sideways course. It costs a lot more then the books I mentioned, but if I had the cash, I'd sign up in an instant. (Actually, I did have the cash once, but I don't use credit, and without a credit card, PayPal wouldn't let me sign up. I've heard that issue may have been fixed since then, but I'm not sure.)

I've gotten to working on a decent plot outline, but there's another problem: the storyline of Natasha Grant has no real connection with the rest of the story.

I think I've made something unwriteable.

Save all your notes. Even if you can't write this now, after you've written other stories, it is possible you'll be able to write it then. That happens more often than you might think...

Thanks.

Have I mentioned anything about first person omniscient narration? If I did, please remind me. I'm just typing away this post off the top of my head. One theme I want to explore is the line between reality and unreality, truth and lies, life and fiction. One way I could highlight this is by giving narration duties to Eva, even for scenes where she's not present. Somehow she knows what's going on with people she's never met, people she's only been acquainted with, past sexual partners, etc. Even their thoughts. The thing is, Eva's mentally unstable, and prone to flat-out lying, which raises the question if some, most, or all of the narrative are the ramblings of a f**ked-up woman (think American Psycho).

Yes, you said something about that earlier. It does sound like it adds an interesting dimension.

In fact, although only you can say whether or not you can write the story you have in mind, but I will say that it seems, if you can ever manage it, that you'd have a story worth reading. The complicated ones are the most fun, at least in my opinion.