Hello (I made an account like 20 months ago but never said hello) + Novel Revision help

[TimothyDovekeeper]

Hello, everyone! My name is Timothy!
As the title reveals, I created an account a while ago. It is late, so I will make this concise:
I am from a STEM background as an undergrad. However, my writing journey started when my parents "made" me read a ton (I enjoyed it too) growing up. Then, after Sophomore year of undergrad, I was joking with my sisters about writing a princess story with them, and said I would.
Here I am, years and 185K+ words later (One sister wrote one word, the other wrote 200). I graduated from undergraduate college, and now I need to edit the mammoth I created (I should have plenty of time for the next 15 months at least). It is not a princess story but a coming-of-age, archaic, world-building fantasy story. Not sure about genre, but leaning towards epic. I ditched the princess for 150K words, in fact.
So, nine months since I did anything major, I know I need to read it through (I want to in 3 weeks, but that might be much).
Any other overall tips? I know I need to rewrite a ton (it seems introspective versus action-oriented), but I am a committed type person, and I am committed to this, and I know a lot of the users here know their stuff, so I would love tips, and you all already taught me a good bit via your comments over the years.

 

[Pen_Warrior]

The sister who wrote 200 here: it's a great book!

 

[TimothyDovekeeper]

And...this is what happens when you call your sister instead of texting her back...not how I anticipated this thread to go...oh well...

 

[Adam Scribentis]

Welcome! If you're looking for feedback, I'm sure the Critique Request forum on this site will prove helpful.

 

[TimothyDovekeeper]

Ok, thanks, that was locked for me, but one more post! Also, looking for overall tips to go from a first to second draft.

 

[RoccO]

It sounds like a good premise. The over all tone of the piece sounds like it might need a bit of work, though.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Welcome. And congrats on finishing the first draft. That's an amazing achievement you can be proud of.

Tips for editing: First, read through it. Don't edit (much at least...). On this read-through, you have 2 jobs:
- The first is, be honest with yourself about how good the book is (both the prose and the plot). Based on that, decide if it's worth investing the time to edit and rewrite it, or if it's better to start the next project, using all you learned.
- The second is to take lots of note. On everything. Does the plot work? How does the pacing feel? What is the character arc of the protagonist? Which parts need to be cut or expanded? And so on.

After you've finished reading through it, look at your notes, and sit down to do the second draft. Now, everyone's process is different. But the most common advice (especially for people still learning their process) is to start the next draft or edit with a focus on improving a specific thing, and to work from big to small.

So in the next draft, work on getting the plot right first and / or the character journey. And only once that's in good shape, start focussing on more detail level stuff, like getting the character voices (especially for smaller characters) right. And only then start polishing the prose, and so on. There's little point in make the prose perfect if you then just cut the chapter because it doesn't fit the story anymore.

Most of all, enjoy the process.

 

[xena]

Hello, everyone! My name is Timothy!
As the title reveals, I created an account a while ago. It is late, so I will make this concise:
I am from a STEM background as an undergrad. However, my writing journey started when my parents "made" me read a ton (I enjoyed it too) growing up. Then, after Sophomore year of undergrad, I was joking with my sisters about writing a princess story with them, and said I would.
Here I am, years and 185K+ words later (One sister wrote one word, the other wrote 200). I graduated from undergraduate college, and now I need to edit the mammoth I created (I should have plenty of time for the next 15 months at least). It is not a princess story but a coming-of-age, archaic, world-building fantasy story. Not sure about genre, but leaning towards epic. I ditched the princess for 150K words, in fact.
So, nine months since I did anything major, I know I need to read it through (I want to in 3 weeks, but that might be much).
Any other overall tips? I know I need to rewrite a ton (it seems introspective versus action-oriented), but I am a committed type person, and I am committed to this, and I know a lot of the users here know their stuff, so I would love tips, and you all already taught me a good bit via your comments over the years.

Welcome, Timothy!

185K+ words is impressive, especially for a story that started as a joke with your sisters. Congradulations for finishing your first draft!

 

[TimothyDovekeeper]

Well, perhaps I should start a new thread (Should I? Still kind of new here), but I read through the entire thing, very lightly editing as I went. I got a little side tracked, but 186K words is no joke to read and to take notes on

I will answer Prince of Spires tips (first one ends in a question), as I found them super helpful:
Q1. Is it worth investing the time to edit and rewrite?
A: I think I did a good job considering scrapping this. I wrote many bad chapters, the newbie I am, leaving me frustrated, I believe enough good remains to rewrite. Two other factors: 1) The idea for this story has been simmering in my brain since I was very young (particularly elements of the female protagonist, I was a young child), and I do not have enough inspiration to write another project. 2) 186K words is a lot. Even with an epic Fantasy book, as a YA one, I think I could cut it in half, throwing out a lot of garbage.

Flawed, but I think the most beneficial course of action for me is to continue. I think if I start from scratch a new project without trying to fix this, I will fall into the same errors. I think I need to at least try to fix this to improve.

Tip 2: Take lots of notes.
So I took almost 3000 words of notes, which is not much, I wish I took more. But I learned a lot of what needs fixing.
1) does the plot work? --> No, but it seems fixable. That will be its own post, I think.
2) how does the pacing feel? --> All over the place. The end of the book seems much better paced than the beginning, honestly the last ten chapters encourage me, but overall way to slow. It is unbelievably wordy, but that gradually gets better as I learned to write.
3) What is the character arc of the protagonist? --> The main protagonist...good? I think that is by far the strong point of the book, his growth is pretty steady and I want to think believable. The secondary protagonist needs a lot of work. I could technically scrap her, or move her out, but I think she can work. I just need to completely rewrite her.
4) Which parts need to be cut or expanded? --> The first half needs to be cut a lot, particularly chapters 5 to 15. I need to rewrite the first chapter, and add a few more to the beginning. I need to show the reader more of the lead-up, rather than telling it. Overall I should cut most chapters down by around 40% by average, they are that wordy (near the end needs to stay mostly in tact).

My questions for the Mythic Scribe members:
1) I drifted so far off my original outline it is worthless. Before rewriting, should I craft a new one? Or should I make some of the major changes first, then try to craft an outline?
2) How many characters are too many? It is a journey story, so naturally I have dozens of characters that only appear in a chapter or two, but for the bigger ones? I think I have too many, but not sure how much it would help to wipe some out (I kill off enough anyway). I would say I have 6 "main" ones that have large amounts of dialogue, and nearly twenty other "medium" ones (but many come in late or die early on).
3) How hard would it be take replace a dull main (perhaps 5th most mentioned) character for a more interesting one? It would be a completely different character (female v. male, different country, different occupation), with hopefully a somewhat similar personality though.
4) Any good articles on writing second drafts? I tried searching the web, but did not find a ton of helpful ones.
5) I think the general goal is to fix/add/delete chapters, not completely rewrite most of them (some definitely need it)?

Any question or comments would be helpful, I do not expect anyone to answer all 5 questions given I am super new here, but anyone answering one or two of them would be amazing. Thanks for reading!

 

[RoccO]

To answer question 4, there are a lot of books that deal with the over all grammar issue of publishing books. I am sure they have tonnes of issues in pursuing editing up until it’s final stage. Also, there are a lot of publishers who take it the other way, they want the genuine issue, the first draft suffices.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

Welcome, Timothy!

185K+ words is impressive, especially for a story that started as a joke with your sisters. Congradulations for finishing your first draft!

You'd be surprised how far some of my stories go with just a single bit between characters. (though I have the issue of having to write the rest of the story)

Welcome in Timothy.

 

[skip.knox]

Congratulations on having completed a draft. That's a huge accomplishment in itself. When you get discouraged (and you will), remind yourself of this.

Several of your comments are grounds to believe you will do well on the rewrite. Not many newbies are able to look at their own work and see the flaws as something that is not a disaster but is simply something to work on. I have some comments on your post above.

1. Try making an outline of what you have actually written. Treat the draft as if it had come from someone else and the first thing you want is to make a workable outline of it. This will help you make an outline of what the novel *should* look like.

2. Don't worry about character count at this point. Once you have the second draft completed, you'll be able to answer this question for yourself.

3. How hard would it be? Hm, anywhere between easy and impossible. <grin> But it does sound as if you are not happy with the character. Consider how they might be altered before resorting to guillotines.

4. I've never found one. The great majority of articles and books are written for the aspiring author, not for the one hip-deep in the work. The comment about working big to small is probably sensible. Don't be surprised if you find yourself bouncing all over the place, though. You might consider horizontal division: plot, characters, setting, theme. In each you would look for depth, clarity, consistency, pacing. That is way more organized than I've ever managed, but I hold to it as ideals of good intentions.

5. Best of luck with that. My best advice here is not to hold any one approach too dearly. If you feel like you're making progress, keep doing it. If it feels wrong, try another approach. Mind I did not say if you feel frustrated. That's just a given. So is discouragement. But just because the work is hard doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. Writing is easy, compared to rewriting. Sometimes, though, you might feel that the revision (of a scene or chapter) is simply not working. Trust that instinct; it's an ability you will want to nurture.

And here's the truly awful thing about writing--for me, certainly, but I've heard it from others. The first draft is finished? That's a good start. *sigh*