Crafting the Novel

Posted on December 23, 2009
Filed Under PAG Progress Report, Writing Process - Panix |

I found myself on an extended burnout after NaNoWriMo as I mentioned below.  I’ve still been writing, but I’ve had a hard time trying to get motivated to do my Panix rewrite.

I was referred to the link below:

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=607

This is an ongoing series by Dean Wesley Smith on writing as a career.  He talks about producing novels (note the plural) each year.  I have no problem with writing a lot of words, but I do have a problem of getting them right.  That is where practice and craft comes in.

Rewriting and restructuring my Panix novel has been tough to get going.  I’m not quite halfway through my first real rewrite on Panix.  The Panix path so far has been as follows (times are calendar not time spent writing):

What does my first rewrite involve?

  1. I removed my prologue.
  2. Started the novel in a different place.
  3. Gave the MC’s romantic interest a little more reader time with more foreshadowing of future actions.
  4. Began the stronger story arc that was weak in the last section of the book and will continue to strengthen to the end.
  5. Put in a new character to leaven out the massive accomplishments of the MC in the middle.
  6. Strengthen the MC’s leadership element in the his character arc.
  7. Continue to work with the language to make writing stronger.

I’m to number 5.  The new character’s been introduced, but not involved in the story, now he gets involved.  This is the biggest change in the novel’s narrative.  The others were more mechanical.

My goal is to get Panix in shape to query by the end of January.  Then I have to move on to work with Bellian.  After that I finish my contemporary fantasy that mired in its first draft after I realized last spring, I didn’t have the writing part down well enough.

So part of my goals, that will appear in a post soon to come, is to query three or four novels in 2010.

More on this subject in future posts.

Comments

Leave a Reply




Fiction Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory