Kicker

Now it's time for NaNoEdMo (a month devoted to editing last November's effort)

This concerns me. I like the length of the novel -- about 75,000 words -- and that makes it hard for me to think of deleting anything. The thing is, there are a few major sections (the underwear theft comes to mind) that I'm talking myself into keeping. As a rule (and I just made this up), anything I have to convince myself about is probably wrong. I'm fighting my gut, and I should be following it.

Also, I just finished the self-editing book mentioned on the EdMo website. Okay, I've got problems and a major re-write is the only way I can make this novel what I want it to be. By "major re-write" I mean writing the whole damn thing all over again.

I think some of my writing is good, so I'm not freaked about the mechanics, but the story needs to be better, or at least presented in a more engaging way.

2004 Update!

I spent the week from Christmas through New Year's looking over Kicker. I added two chapters and made changes in all the others, mostly minor ones.

Not sure how I feel about the result of November's efforts. I think I tried to do too much and am deciding if it would be less work to write it again, or just move on to something else.

How in the hell did Lotty end up being the self-centered bitch? That was supposed to be Charlene's role! I don't think I like having such an unlikeable POV character, and one I feel such sympathy and love for.

The updates should all be uploaded by January 5^th.

My 2003 “novel in a month” exercise is over. I planned it in October, wrote it in November, and now I need to forget about it for awhile so I can look at it later with fresh eyes.

It was supposed to be the story of triplets, one fraternal guy with identical twin sisters. The story was supposed to be about how he'd been their protector all his life and when one of them gets married the three drift apart and he loses his identity, his role in the world. Then, he was supposed to flounder and be given a chance to decide whether to go on and take a new place in life.

I managed to get that in, but only by dumping his loss into one chapter as his drunk introspection and later by telling the reader that he was making a “life defining” decision. That arc ends up being totally flat.

On the other hand, Chester (the male third of the triplets) ends up stealing his sister's best friend. She doesn't want them together and forces the poor girl to decide between Chester and her. She wins, but then Chester gets her back in the end. Not the story I envisioned at all.

A plot outline / summary / synopsis thing is here, where you can also look over some of the chapters or even the whole novel. If you've never seen a first draft of a novel before, you'll be amazed at how unsatisfying it is. Names probably change, things mentioned in the beginning are totally forgotten later on or else brought back as something else later, lots of plot and continuity problems. That's why I edit. I know that Sheila (the friend) tells Lotty (one of the sisters) about a ring girl job early on, but when we get to that part of the story, Lotty discovers it on her own. Expect lots of that kind of stuff.

Also, just for kicks, here's a link to a summary of the novel, consisting of sentences pulled from the text.