Where the book ends

I finished my third manuscript yesterday. It was my most ambitious book that I’ve written. More POV characters, a more involved story, and more depth to the lore that I’ve had in anything previous. It is by no means complete, but I’ve given myself a good place to begin and shape a better book out of it. Excited wouldn’t be the right word to describe how eager I am to share this one. This story represents what I’d like to become skilled at with my writing. It has taken three manuscripts, but I believe I’m beginning to discover what sort of stories I like to tell.

Now that it is done, I’m going to continue working and writing on something, and use my time the best that I can. I’m a morning writer largely, 2ish hours a day. That is why the launch of this blog has come at an excellent time. It’ll be an outlet to talk about writing for me and to for others to get some insight on how writing works for me. Writing is a wonderous thing because it is different for everyone.

A great story isn’t created overnight, it takes perseverance.

Each time I finish a book I learn something different. The first one, which was 80% done during Nanowrimo, my first and only (Oh yes I was a winner). Learning that it can be done is the biggest thing to understand. Before writing my first novel I’d written a few short stories up to three thousand words. Finishing one project was an awakening for me, I learned so many things. A great story isn’t created overnight, it takes perseverance. You come back day after day and work on it, even when the story barely makes sense to you.

By the end of that book one other key thing that I had learned is how to make things happen. I’ve never read through that manuscript, but I have a good idea of how it would go. Long stretches of nothing happening but two characters walking followed by a scene and then back to more walking! I didn’t know how to marry the story happening and the characters speaking. It was a stilted first effort, but what mattered more than anything was that it was finished and that I created it. Never underestimate the power of your own creation.

Character and agency were key aspects of story that I learned about here, and also the importance of brevity and planning.

My second manuscript, was a massive learning experience as well and when I say massive I mean, massive. This one clocked in at 210,000 words. Was it painful to write? At times absolutely. Did I have a plan going? Surprisingly, yes I did, but that plan fell apart and evolved very fast.

Character and agency were key aspects of story that I learned about here, and also the importance of brevity and planning. Characters were more unique here and made choices that affected others. There was a small love story subplot in this manuscript, but that turned out ok at best. I began to learn about world building in this project. It may have been more successful if I had done the world building before hand, but I didn’t have that experience and foreknowledge.

I am certain that I could learn so much more, in fact there is no doubt that I could, but it would be an extreme understatement to say that my scenes improved drastically during this project. If I’m brave at some point in the future I may post some excerpts to illustrate the difference between projects. It may be painful to look back at my early attempts, but should be an interesting learning experience.

Now we arrive at my third project that I just finished. I preplanned a lot for this one. I spent about a month planning character, plot, and world. My first two attempts were mostly pantsing so this was a very big change for me, but I think it was a success. Having a plot laid out gave me a destination to head to in the story. My characters were planned out in who they were and there was a healthy amount of world built before I wrote my first word of the story.

If you take anything for this post, it is that. Give free writing with each important character a try before you begin your writing in earnest.

Each significant character had a few pages of free writing, an exercise I would heartily recommend. You will find things out about your world and your characters that you wouldn’t otherwise. I will always do this from now on. It helps you establish character voice from the outset. If you take anything from this post, it is that. Give free writing with each important a try before you begin in earnest.

Though the story was planned out, I made changes to it while I was writing. An outline is a tool, it isn’t there to a be a hinderance. If something doesn’t serve the story you’re writing then throw it out. A large chunk of my outline got thrown out because it seemed unnecessary and did little to move things forward. “Kill your darlings” is so true. Though you may love something and feel you need it in your story, sometimes it is better to let it go.

I’m sure there is more that I will bring up over the coming weeks about things that I’ve written, but for now I think that covers most of what I wanted to attempt to cover in my first post. Hit me up on Twitter if you read this. I’d love to hear from you.