Last night, in spite of a case of writing block, I reached a significant milestone. I’ve reached the half-way point to my goal of 120,000 words for my novel. Granted, that goal is a bit arbitrary (it’s how many words my last novel came in at). My instincts tell me I’m more than half way through the material I have to cover. But more importantly, I’ve regained the ground I lost when I tossed out my first draft and started over, taking less than half the time it took to write the throw-away first draft.
I still miss a day or two here and there, but I’m writing much more steadily. My daily word count has increased notably since I stopped checking Facebook first before writing during lunch. And in general, I think I’m enjoying the book a bit more on this pass. I’m not sure I’m giving as much attention to my sub-plots as I should, but I’m not going to stress over that one too much. That’s what revision is for.
I think I’m homing in on a writing approach that works for me. I think it’s important for me to have a plan before I start writing. Several times I’ve felt like I might be stuck, but thought back to my plan and remembered where I could go next. But I don’t think it’s helpful for me to create a highly-detailed outline. My creative mind tends to curl up in the back seat and go to sleep if it senses I’ve left it no room in which to be creative. Knowing where I need to go, but not necessarily how to get there, gives my creativity enough of a challenge to keep its interest up.
Not being so committed to an outline also allows me to change things more easily when I get a better idea. There’s not so heavy an investment in the outline, so I feel less obligated to defend it. It’s easier to “kill your darlings” when they’re really only “minor acquaintances”. And hopefully it helps the story feel more real when I allow it to grow out of what’s come before it rather than an arbitrary path.
I’m also starting to learn how to increase tension. At least twice in recent experience I’ve asked myself, “How can I turn up the heat on my protagonist?” The results have been satisfying. I may yet learn how to be really mean to my characters. I’ve got some things brewing now for my protagonist that were never in the original outline that will be…actually kind of fun to put him through! Just yesterday I tried to drown him. I enjoyed it more than he did, obviously.
I admit I’m still tempted to drop this novel and go work on something else. But that desire is decreasing at the moment. I’ve come to the conclusion that even though I don’t have much choice but to chop my writing up into one-hour blocks each weekday, it’s not the best approach. I tend to focus on my work (which is a good thing) up until lunch time, then shift gears quickly into writing, write for an hour, and then shift gears immediately back to work. I fire up my laptop while I gobble my lunch and then start writing where I left off before. That’s fine for the current scene, but I’ve found I don’t spend enough time thinking ahead, so my writing tends to feel a little lifeless. I’m composing a scene rather than contemplating where that scene fits in relation to what’s gone before and what I think is coming up. It’s like an assembly line.
So I’ve been trying to find some other parts of my day to devote to big-picture thinking. Do I like where things are heading? Is the story going somewhere, or am I just marking time? Is there something I can do to heighten the tension? Are my main players all behaving like they should? Knowing what they know, what should my side-characters be doing?
I’m still working on finding a consistent time, but even inconsistent thinking time is paying dividends. The drowning scene was a direct outgrowth of that. It occurred to me that my protagonist will have incurred enough ill-will from the bad guys that they’d start looking for ways to kill him. That made me realize that they would be watching for opportunities, which in turn made me realize I had just the opportunity coming up, and it was originally intended to be an unimportant scene. What began as an insignificant side-trip suddenly ended with him nearly dying. Awesome stuff!
So clearly I shouldn’t over-think things up front. I still could do more work on characters and setting before I start, but the plot can be a lot more vague. I probably do better having a general idea of where to go, then letting the setting, the characters, and the plot as it’s written drive where to go next. At the same time, I do need to spend more time doing a little forward scouting to see if there isn’t a more exciting route forward as things move toward the general goals.
But in any case, I’m still writing, still making progress, and still enjoying what I’m doing. And I’ve hit a major milestone. Yay me!
Congrats on the milestone, bro.