Enjoy the AI-enhanced photos of Fred and me. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to write with AI, but enhanced images could step up my meme game and be fun. And the layout of photos on my website posts will work better. This post is not about Fred, though. In Word, I turned off Microsoft’s Co-Pilot and Grammarly. It’s now 9:48 p.m. Eastern time, and the goal is to see how long it takes to get to 1,250 words. Once I get to 1,250 words, I’ll stop and do a Grammarly check to see how time-consuming that is. If you haven’t guessed, 1,250 words a session is my new scheme for my novel.
I finished typing up my most recent version of my novel last July, and in August, I revised it with Grammarly. I thought it was good to go, and sent it to beta readers. I got feedback from a few, but not from the majority of my beta readers. One friend gave a detailed email of what could be improved. Recently, I reviewed that email and decided I needed to reread my novel to see for myself. August to May is enough time away from it to judge my own work.
Rereading it, I still liked some of the scenes from the first half, but then the second half had a lot of problems. The sex scenes and themes are still too much. I made the same mistake on three full rewrites. I think I wrote them at times with lingering mental illness, and weed and alcohol use made me glorify sex and drugs too much. We live in a time when pornography and erotica are available to adults. And putting them too much in a novel doesn’t add much. Henry Miller and other authors broke the censorship boundaries in the 1950’s and 1960s, which was significant and paved the way for the movie ratings in this country. Now that sexual themes are everywhere, a novel has to be a good story first.
Also, in this rewrite, I made another mistake: I decided to make it over 85,000 words because that is the standard for novels, especially sci-fi novels, that agents and publishers abide by. Getting an agent or publisher is a daunting task and perhaps an unrealistic one. I recently looked at an agent, and they asked for a query letter, a brief synopsis, and only the first five pages of your manuscript. How can they evaluate the story on five pages? My guess is they can’t. The query letter needs some serious creds, like legitimate publications or a ton of social media followers.
I plotted out the first half of my novel, okay, but in the second half, I relied more on dialogue between characters than on action scenes. There is a writing rule, ‘Show, don’t tell,’ which makes sense but is hard to do. So instead of writing ‘she was angry’ you write something like ‘she inhaled deeply while making fists with both hands.’ Another writing rule is to avoid ‘information dumps.’ That is when a narrator or a character tells too much of the plot. Action is what moves a story forward. Having chapter after chapter of characters discussing their problems was a mistake.
I did some research on self-publishing. The main problem with it is getting the editing done, and traditional publishing does have more status. Traditional publishers want novels that are 85,000 words, but that may be a trend. For years, the pulp sci-fi and noir books were much less than that. And ebooks in the 50,000-word range sell well. Over time, I could do multiple short novels.
I looked up these short novels on Amazon, and the readers want them to be a series. They are read quickly, and I read that having at least 3 done before you start is a good idea. So every two to three months, you release a new one. I am discouraged with myself for having too much sex and drugs in my previous attempts, but I do like the world I created. It could be expanded and used in many novels.
My first novel was a father-son story, but the emphasis was on the father. On the next version, I’ll simplify it and start with only the dad character. The storyline takes place in the future, and I could have each novel take on a different character. It does not have to be the same characters in each one.
There is a popular event called NaNo, where participants try to write a first draft of a novel in November. The goal is 50,000 words for that month, or about 1,666 a day. That would be tough, but I decided to try it over 40 writing sessions, which is 1,250 words per session. And I’d make it 40 chapters so that each night would be a fresh chapter. 40 nights of writing over two months should be doable.
I’ve had this novel concept since 2013, and I’m not going to rush the rewrite again. Before I start the draft, I’ll be sure to outline carefully. In each chapter, something has to happen to move the story along. The three-act structure has to be done properly. Such as the character needs to be introduced in his normal world. Something has to happen to set him on a journey. He has to surpass a bunch of hurdles. And then the climax and resolution. The characters have to be interesting, and there can be a love interest without too much sex. The dialogue needs to be concise and good. When I edit with Grammarly, I’ll be more careful when asked to change the dialogue. My previous versions were dialogue-heavy.
Before I started my last novel, I got a blow-up poster made of the three-act structure. I’ll start with that and, using post-it notes, mark the plotting points. I can’t just rely on that; I plan to make a thorough outline of all the chapters. Also, I haven’t done this outside of a writing class, but I may have my characters’ checklists too, to really know why they are important to the story and how they are unique.
Also, I should be free to change it up and not include everything from previous rewrites. For the first one, taking out the son character will force me to think of some other plotting device the main character has to go through. I’ll have to rethink the whole intro, and more. Also, with the plan to write multiple storylines, I don’t have to cram everything into the first one. I did that to a fault in my last version.
The outline preparation could be done in a month. In total, for one book, it would take a month of outlining and two months to write the first draft. That would be three months for a 50,000-word draft. I realize I’m horrible at revising, and I avoid it. I finish a draft, send it to beta readers, and end up taking a lot of time off.
Since self-publishing is a financial hurdle and a gamble, I plan to write many versions before I attempt it. With the three-month plan for first drafts, I can do three a year. The world I created in my skateboard dystopian epic is endless, so I could continue writing multiple books for years. And while I’m doing that, I could learn more about revising and editing.
I got over 1,250 words, and it’s 10:42 pm, and this took only about an hour, that’s good news. I will type my future novels, no more handwritten drafts that I can’t read and take over a year to type up.
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Grammarly took only 10 minutes, and it made many corrections.
