A Quick Note on the Adverb Issue

While I’m looking out for adverbs in my editing, the one spot where I’m not looking to correct them is in dialogue.  In reality we talk in adverbs — they’re an easy (some would say weak) grammatical device, and they make conversations flow.  I’m not going to change the way people talk — trying to remove adverbs from conversation would make the dialogue seem a little more stilted and unnatural (at least to me).  That being said, I am still removing adverbs from dialogue tags — that’s one of the spots where adverbs are most overused and often the most unnecessary.

Things I’m looking for (Part 2)

I already talked about how I’m looking at the pacing of the first half of the novel as I go through this draft.  The next thing I’m looking for are the dreaded adverbs.  I find that my writing, like many others, contains far too many of these weak links.  In particular, I’ve that “clearly” invades my work way too often.

So my goal is to work around as many of the “ly”s as I can.  If I can’t rewrite it without an “ly”, I have to decide if the word is needed (for example, as I was writing this sentence, I almost wrote “I have to decide if the word is really needed” and then changed “really” to “actually” and then realized that neither is needed).

I’m alright with the occasional adverb — sometimes they are the clearest, most concise way to make a point, but for the most part they are unnecessary.

The first 100

Over the last two days I’ve read through the first 100 pages (~20%) of my first draft.  I’ve already got a nice long list of changes/revisions that have to be made.  Some of them are simple — combine a couple of chapters, remove a couple of others.  Some are more complicated, including redrafting large portions of a couple of chapters.  Some are just generalized time line issues that are easy to change — I manage to go from late summer to early winter while passing about two weeks.

Overall, I can see the difference between the end of the book and the beginning — my writing definitely improved during the course of the draft.  I’m avoiding nit-picky editing — I need to keep my focus on the big picture issues, regardless of how much I want to change a word or small phrasing.

Of course, work is not being very cooperative right about now.  I’ve gotten hit with a couple of big projects which have cut into my reading time.  Normally I spend my lunch hour reading, in addition to reading at night.  Instead, I’ve been stuck slamming down a sandwich while working, leaving me with only reading at night.  At least there’s the weekend.  Hopefully I’ll be through the draft by Monday or Tuesday, ready to start doing the revisions.

The Revision Process

In another day or two, I start the revision process on my novel.  I’ve thought long and hard about how I’m going to go about the revisions, and have come up with a method that I think will work for me.

First, I’m going to read through the novel, with a notepad by my side.  I won’t be marking up the pages in any manner — that comes in a later stage.  What I will be looking for in this first read-through are major changes that need to happen.  I’ll be looking for chapters to add, chapters to remove, major pieces of the story that have to be changed because the plot changed later in the book.  I already have a few things that I know need to be added in, so I’m also going to look at where those should be fit in, and if existing chapters should be reordered.  I’m going to try to avoid rewriting small passages for clarity purposes on this go-around, with the exception of the battle that would not end.  That is one ridiculously long passage that is going to get rewritten this time around for flow and clarity.

After I make these major changes, I’ll be printing out copy of the second draft, sticking it in a binder and sticking the binder on a shelf for about a month.  Before I sit down and do line edits, I need separation from the material.  While I’m pretty well separated from the early parts of the book, the end is fresher in my mind and the major revisions will be also.

After putting it aside for a month (during which I will be performing other writing/publishing based tasks), I will do line edits — going line-by-line revising the story.  Once the third draft is done, I will have to decide if I want to do another round of line edits, depending on what I think of the story.

Once the line edits are done, it goes to my first round beta readers.  While they have it, I will be doing other writing/publishing based tasks, waiting for their input.  Once I get it back from them, I’ll go through, make necessary revisions, and then it goes to my final beta reader.  If it passes that test, it goes out to agents.

Now this is the current plan for the revision process.  It’s definitely subject to change, in which case I’ll post the revised revision process.  We’ll see how well it works based on the results — since this is my first time doing revisions, I may find some things unworkable.  I do know the hardest thing will be setting it aside for a month and trying to ignore the book’s existence.

Feeling guilty…

Yesterday, I printed out the 476 pages that make up my first draft, three-hole punched them and stuck them in a binder.  Seeing it that way made it real for me — I completed the first draft of a novel.  It’s a euphoric feeling — I’m light-years ahead of where I’ve ever been, where I ever thought I’d be.

Soon I start the revision process (which I will discuss in my next post).  Until then, I’m taking a few days off.

In the past, when I’ve taken a few days off, it’s been fine.  Even earlier this month, I knew I was going to take a couple of days off.  No problem.  Now that the draft is actually finished and I decide to take a few days off, I feel guilty that I’m not writing.  I know I shouldn’t — I’m following the plan I had set out for myself when I figured out how I would do the revisions.  Still, there’s a certain guilty feeling that goes with taking a couple of days off.  That bodes well for the future — I expect the next novel will take less time to complete.

Stuttering and stammering toward the finish line

I’m currently just over 112,000 words, which is good and bad.  It’s good in the sense that I’m over 112,000 words and I’m getting close to the finish.  It’s bad in the sense that I was just over 110,000 words on December 30, 2008 — it’s taken me a week to get out 2,000 words.

The pace is definitely slower than I would like — I’m hoping to be done with the first draft by this time next week, and I expect it to take another 8,000 words (or possibly a little more).  That being said, what I have written is shaping up nicely — the secrets are coming out and the final (political) conflict is shaping up nicely.  I think it’ll be an exciting ending, and I expect it to be worth the time and effort.

How’s everyone else doing?

Not going to finish on time….

I had set December 31, 2008 as the deadline for finishing draft number one of my yet-to-be-named novel.  I’m now stating that there is no way I’m going to finish by then.  No way, no how.

I’m okay with that.  My original deadline was based on the thought that it was going to take me approximately 110,000 words to complete the draft.  That prediction, of course, was based on absolutely nothing other than my pulling a number from a dark place and saying “that sounds good” (okay, it’s also based on the understanding that the average novel is between 80,000 and 120,000 words, with most falling in the 95,000 to 110,000 range).

It turns out that 110,000 words will not be enough to finish the first draft, and I absolutely will NOT rush through the ending to come in around a specific number of words.  I will hit 110,000 before the end of the year (as of right now, I’m less than 700 away — I may actually pass the 110,000 mark tonight).  I will not finish the book until probably January 10th.

Here’s the thing — it’s okay.  This isn’t a brief for work where, if I miss the filing deadline the courts won’t accept it.  This isn’t a work under contract where, if I miss the due date in the contract I could trigger some sort of penalty clause.  This is a work in progress, and I’m only on the first stage.  If I finish on January 10th, instead of December 31st, the world won’t end.  My book won’t suddenly turn to a pile of crap.  Agents won’t reject me because I missed my own artificial deadline (I’m sure they’ll find plenty of other reasons… ).  All that matters is that I’m close to completing it.  All that matters is that I’m going to complete it.  All that matters is that it gets completed.

Really, all that matters is that I’m loving writing it.

Hope everyone has had, and continues to have, a happy holiday.

Dichotomy

I think I’m going to like the second half of my draft better than the first.  Of course, part of it could be that there’s some disconnect with my first half — most of it was written between a year and six months ago.  Of the part written relatively recently, a lot of that was tied up in the battle that would not end.

Partially, however, I think it’s because I’m getting more descriptive in my writing.  I’ve noticed that, earlier in the book, there are passages here and there that had that distinctive “literary” quality in the descriptions, but there are also plenty of passages that don’t have that same feel.  The events flow smoothly, and perhaps it’s because of the flow that the descriptions got left out — I won’t know until I do my first real read through.  All I know is that I’m getting the sense that the second half has more of that quality, that taste to it.

It’ll be interesting to see, once I’m finished and do a read through, whether there is a marked difference between the first and second halves.  If there is, matching the two will definitely be a huge part of the revision process.  If there is, if it really feels like two different books, then I’m going to have to rework the first to feel like the second, because I really really like how the second is turning out.

(P.S.: word count is over 103,000.  I’m realizing that I’m definitely going past 110,000, possibly even past 115,000 on this draft.  If that happens, it may take me a couple past the end of the year to finish.  That’s okay — I don’t want to rush things to meet an arbitrary deadline.  It’s all about making sure the final product is quality.)

96,162

It’s been a hectic week since I last posted.  There were a couple of issues that came up at work last week, continuing education classes that had to be taken, christmas shopping that had to be done, an obligatory family visit, football, basketball and, oh yeah, writing.

In the last week, I’ve written a little over 6,000 words (as you can see by the amazingly clever titles for this post and the one before).  I’m settling in for the home stretch — the first major secret which drives the ending has been revealed.  The second is just gnawing to come out, but it’s not quite time.

I think I might blow past the 110,000 word mark in finishing this first draft.  At the rate it’s taking me to get through some of the parts that have to be wrapped up, I’ll probably finish closer to the 115,000 word mark.  That’s not a problem — I’ll still be done by the end of the year.

I have 20 “events” that have to happen between now and the end of the novel.  I think my pacing will now be tied more to the events instead of a word count — if I get through 1.3 events per day, I’ll finish in time.  Many of the events blend together — there will be chapters where three or four of the events get completed in under 2,000 words.  That means that the pacing won’t be too onerous — I just have to stick with it.

I’m very excited about how the ending is coming — I don’t feel that it’s going to be dragged out, but I also don’t think it’s going to be over too quickly.  I’m aiming for “just right” on the pacing front.  I’ll know soon enough.

90,087

I’m getting there.  Slowly but surely, I’m getting there.  110,000 definitely seems like it’ll be the magic number.  That means I have roughly 20,000 words to complete in the next 24 days.  That’s 833 words/day, assuming I don’t take a day off.

With the holidays, and the obligitory family visits, I expect to lose three days.  Assuming I lose another two days in there, that leaves me at 1,052 words/day.

Is it doable?  Absolutely.  Do I think it’s going to require me to push the pace at all?  Not really.  I’m upping my daily minimum to 600 words from 300.  For every 600 word day, I expect to have plenty of 1,500 word days.  I have a quality outline of the remainder of the book, the divergent plot lines are coming together nicely, and once the first two meet (which should happen in about the next three thousand words) the rest should snowball.

I’m excited and anxious about finishing the draft.  Just a few months ago, it seemed like an impossible dream, like finishing a novel was a flight of fancy.  Now that I’m so close to finishing the draft, so close to moving on to the second step, it feels great.

Twenty-four days to go.