Good grief, is it July already?
It’s been a few months since I last blogged. Back in March, I wrote that I was going to take a break from the novel and work on other things. It was in the hands of the Beta readers and while I waited for some feedback, I planned to put some distance between myself and Novel Number 6, so I could come back to it with fresh eyes and a more neutral perspective. I had other projects to keep me busy – reading, maybe writing some short stories. I also thought I might have more time for blogging. So what happened?
I did exactly the opposite of what I said I was going to do.
The trouble was, just thinking about new people reading the novel gave me a new perspective. As soon as I had sent it out to them, I was curious to look at the novel and try and see it from their point of view. What would they see when they started to read it? So even though I told myself I wasn’t going to, I opened up the file and pretended to be one of my Beta readers, seeing the novel for the very first time. Suddenly, just knowing who the readers were had given me the fresh eyes I needed.
I have to say, I wasn’t very impressed.
It’s those tricky opening chapters. Finding the balance between action and exposition, providing enough information to explain what’s going on and fitting it in with some engaging plot building, it’s so hard. And my instant reaction was that I hadn’t got it right. There was too much exposition and explanation, too much scene setting and back story. It is important to the story, and it is not uninteresting, but there was just too much. It took up pretty much all the first three chapters. I’d been so pleased with myself for getting the novel to this stage, but this was crushing.
So, I instantly started rewriting it. I took those first three chapters and started to rethink how to present all that important information. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the last three and half months – writing, amending, editing, rewriting, re-editing, going over and over the same 10,000 words. Because that was important too. Some literary agencies ask for the first three chapters, but others ask for the first 10,000 words. That’s not a lot of words to make a good impression. But thinking ahead to when I might feel ready to start submitting this novel, I had decided to play the game and make the first three chapters no longer than 10,000 words. And this just adds another challenge – find a way to explain the setting and backstory, get the main characters in action as soon as possible, and do it all within the constraints of 10,000 words.
I’ve been a bit obsessed with it, to be honest. I have tried so many different things – slashing huge explanatory paragraphs, coming at scenes from new angles, adding some completely new scenes then slashing them too, and putting back the old stuff in different places. I have rejigged the set up in so many different permutations that I now have to keep checking that I haven’t lost any of the key points along the way. There’s always the danger of not putting in enough detail! Will I ever feel confident that I have got it right?
Meanwhile, I mentioned to one of Beta readers that I had started making changes to version I had sent to her. Her reaction? “Oh no, I really liked it!” Well, that’s promising. If she liked it as it was, that tells me that the characters and situation are working as I intended them to, which is nice to know. I reassured her that I wasn’t going to change any of the story or the characters, just how they were presented in the opening chapters. And I finally think the changes are working. It’s still 500 words too long, and just last week I decided to change the name of one of the characters, but it’s better than it was four months ago. Obviously, that won’t be it. However, it is now the middle of July and the summer holidays are coming up. We will be going away soon and that will force me to take a break from it. So I’m hoping that this time, I really can step away and let it settle for a while.
Hmmm. Starting next week.
M J Schofield 