Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 9/12/17

While working on the second chapter, I decided to combine it with the first. Chapter 2 was always pretty short, and it felt similar to chapter 1. I always knew there was a real possibility they would become one chapter. That could easily happen to a few other chapters as well. We will have to wait and see.

Chapters are funny things. When you read a finished book, it's obvious where the chapters begin and end. Sometimes there might be a big shift in time and place or the point of view changes. Sometimes it's just a natural division in the story. The chapters have to change where they do.

But during the first draft, it's not always so obvious. Sometimes I will write a sentence that just screams out to be the end of a chapter. So I might move on to what I assume is going to be the next chapter, until I realize that I'm still working on the previous chapter.

Sometimes I know where all the chapters will be before I start to write. Hailey's Bali Diary was always going to have 8 chapters. I could have made each chapter longer or shorter, but it was always going to be divided into 8. That is simply the way it had to be. Shooting For Paris, on the other hand, just kept going and going. I had no idea how long that one was going to turn out. The first draft had 50 chapters, each between 6,000-10,000 words. Chapter 47 clocked in at 12,000 words. It was out of control. To put it in perspective, Harry Potter books usually have 4,000-5,000 word chapters.

Of course, there are no rules. Anyone who follows arbitrary rules is following a formula. Formula books are the worst. Mark Twain has a novel with the shortest chapters I have ever seen. Stephen King has a novel that is all one chapter. Mark Twain and Stephen King might not sound like similar writers, but, like them or not, they both knew what they were doing.

My own point of view is that a chapter should be whatever it is. You don't try to cram your dog into the sweater you have. You buy him the sweater that fits. But publishers want shorter chapters. That is what sells. They, generally, believe that readers have short attention spans. People with short attention spans can read a few thousand words in one sitting. Twelve thousand words is unacceptable.

Someone once said, “Write your story the way it wants to be written. As soon as you look over your own shoulder and second guess yourself, you're doomed.” I would attribute the quote, but I don't remember who said it, and Google refused to help.



A Horse's Tale
Mark Twain


Cujo
Stephen King

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 9/10/17

For the second draft, I'm just going through it chapter by chapter and fixing whatever needs to be fixed. Once finished, I will read it cover to cover again and think about the third draft. The more I change along the way, the more I will do everything over and over again. The editing stage is more important than writing the first draft, but far less interesting to talk about. So, like it nor not, I will be droning on about it a lot less.

I have already fixed a few issues with the first chapter. It's always easier to write the first chapter after writing the rest of the book. I have thought about not even writing the first chapter until everything else is finished, but that would never feel right. Some people write the ending first. That is a good idea if you do mysteries, but I don't. I generally begin at the beginning and go back and fix whatever needs to be fixed as it evolves.

Thursday, September 7, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 9/7/17

After finishing the first draft, I went back and read the book from cover to cover. This is not the most exciting stage, and there is little worth talking about, but it is one of the most important stages. While writing, I will go back and read whatever I just wrote, but usually a few sentences or paragraphs at a time, not necessarily in context, and sometimes out of order. It's very important to read the entire thing as quickly as possible.

No book is ever written in one sitting. Over a period of months, your ideas and state of mind can change. Your attitude while writing chapter 20 might be completely different than it was during chapter 2. I can't read the entire book in one sitting, but I can try to read as much as I can in the fewest days. Someone once told me that short stories are actually harder to write than full length novels, but reading a short story cover to cover is much easier.

I like to think that I catch most typos while reading over whatever I have just written. But that can never be true. I find 90% of the typos while reading the entire first draft. Even then, there will always be something that slips through. Those little devils are sneaky.

The point of reading the first draft cover to cover is not to catch typos. It's to see if whatever you transferred from your head to the page makes any sense. Does the story work? Are the characters honest? Does A lead to B and C? Inevitably, something will be off. That's why they invented second drafts.