My novel's driving me NUTS!

[gwendy85]

Hello guys!

I'm a newbie here, and would just like to share a bit of my experiences about writing, and hopefully, I'll get some good advice.

Like everyone else here, I suppose, I started out as an avid reader. I first started writing in fanfiction. I kind of honed my craft from there (disclaimer raised of course).

Then, came the day when I decided to make my own novel. This was mostly spurred by my grandfather, a World War II guerilla. I love that era and have set my book in those times. Being that I'm also a sucker for romance, that's the genre: historical romance.

This story has been in my mind since I was a kid. I've since been slaving away in front of my computer for a year and a half. After my grandfather's death, I wasn't able to touch the computer for two months until I felt he was urging me to finish. And so, here I am again, slaving away, but I don't care. My novel is consuming me. My classmates think I'm nuts (and aren't exactly supportive :( ) I think of my characters day in and day out. But when I face my computer, I sometimes have nothing to write! Is this the infamous writer's block? I rarely, if ever, had this when I wrote fanfiction, or maybe because fanfictions are pretty short. Any advice on this? Because what I do when I have this block, is I go up and revise/edit my work from start to finish. Most of the time, I get to know my characters again while other times, I get sick of my story (well...not too sick, but still sick). Is it right, what I'm doing?

And contrary to other writers, I don't exactly write the outline. I draw them. I draw my characters in their scenes and sometimes, a new scene unfolds when I stare at the picture long enough. But by now, I think I may have to really start outlining.

And to those who have experience writing historical fiction, can you give me advice on how to describe clothing? I think mine are far too long (Also the descriptions about the places and such)

I'm up to my neck in word numbers. I'm reaching 200K!!! Am I doing something wrong? Any advice to help me lessen the bulk? Or maybe I'm just breezing too fast with my novel? Because sometimes, I think I've written enough, and then, I haven't written enough...I think I'm going insane! Do all writers experience this?

Sorry if I sound like and idiot. This is my first time to seek advice in an online writer's network. This is also my first real experience as a writer of my very own novel, and, like all writers, I want it to be the best it can be (esp. for my grandpa). Thank you for reading this lengthy post and hope I haven't strained your eyes too much :)

Thanks!
Gwendy

[Linda Adams]

But when I face my computer, I sometimes have nothing to write! Is this the infamous writer's block? I rarely, if ever, had this when I wrote fanfiction, or maybe because fanfictions are pretty short. Any advice on this? Because what I do when I have this block, is I go up and revise/edit my work from start to finish. Most of the time, I get to know my characters again while other times, I get sick of my story (well...not too sick, but still sick). Is it right, what I'm doing?

It is okay to get in front of the computer and have trouble coming up with something. Sometimes that means you have to think about what happens next or where you left off--or it could be other things are going on in your life.

What's not okay is the solution--rewriting from start to finish. I used to have one project where I had a lot of problems. I'd get stuck and couldn't figure out what it was, so I rewrote and rewrote and rewrote. But without knowing what I was "fixing," I didn't fix anything other than rewrite the same sections over and over. Rewriting won't help fix a problem you think you might have if you don't know what needs to be fixed. Instead, it'll keep you from finishing the book and eventually get very frustrated with it (which is already happening, since you said you're sick of it--the rewriting is directly causing that).

If you get stuck, wait a couple of days and come back to it. Or try writing something different or planning the next book. Sometimes that's all it needs. I'd suggest finishing it first, letting it sit for a little while, then revising it. When you revise a story, you should go into the revision of that particular scene knowing what you need to fix. If you think something is wrong and don't know, go to a different scene and work on that.


And contrary to other writers, I don't exactly write the outline. I draw them. I draw my characters in their scenes and sometimes, a new scene unfolds when I stare at the picture long enough. But by now, I think I may have to really start outlining.



Everyone works on it differently. Yours will probably evolve as time goes on, which is normal. Don't feel set in one by one style of outline. If you think you need one and aren't happy with one type, feel free to experiment.


And to those who have experience writing historical fiction, can you give me advice on how to describe clothing? I think mine are far too long (Also the descriptions about the places and such)


In historical fiction, it's easy to pay more attention to the research than the story. Your descriptions should not be overpowering the story. For example, if you're describing every single character's clothing, including the walk on roles, that's probably something yoy should edit down. Likewise, if you're describing the character's clothes everytime they walk on the scene--well, that's going to get really old for the reader really fast. I'd suggest hitting your major characters, and then adding in a few more descriptions through the story as they are needed (i.e., a character attending a ball would be a good reason to describe the dress)--and leave the rest out. And don't describe the clothes in great detail; you can often do everything you need in no more than three sentences.

Same thing about places. Get the reader oriented into the scene, but don't spend pages and pages describing the scenery. Remember, you may think it's pretty (and it may be), but the reader wants to see the story and what's happening with the story--not ten pages of what the trees look like.

[PeeDee]

As an author who also sharpened his teeth first and foremost in fanfiction (and did pretty well by it, for that matter, and still miss it, for that matter), I explained once to some folks that while fanfiction is a magnificant thing which teaches you how to build characters, and really detailed stories (the good ones, anyway, the rest just hit the keyboard with their palms and then post it), one of the things that it doesn't teach are what to do with things like writer's block.

Writer's block is extremely rare in fanfiction (at least, in the neck of the woods I wrote in), and I always theorized that part of it was because a very large chunk of the world, and many of the supporting characters, have already been designed and built for you. So when all else fails, there are many many worlds of things floating around which you can pick up and use to carry on. Thus, one of the problems that I noticed many writers having when they tried to branch out from fanfiction and write original stuff was that they would get stuck, have no experience on how to deal with it, and give up.

Anyway, I was sympathetic toward you until I read you'd written two hundred thousand words! Good lord! My sympathy went out the window. It could very well be (and I'm just guessing) that the reason you're suffering from writer's block is that somewhere in the past few thousand words, you had your ending, your finishing line, and you unknowingly kept on writing past it. So now, you're stretching the story past the point where it comfortably ends, and the back part of your mind which knows this (but never tells you, dastardly thing) is running out of things to keep the story going.

By the by, what Linda said is solid advice. Nothing pulls you out of the action of a novel like a good and lengthy description of clothing. Like Stephen King said, and Pete paraphrased, "If I want a fashion description, I can get a J Crew catalog. If I say my character is a high school outcast with a fashion victim wardrobe, then you create your own image; if I describe mine in detail, it freezes out yours and we lose a little of that bond between us."

It's good advice. With fantasy novels (and historical novels) I see a lot of description of clothing, because we're in "another time! another place!" and so the author tries to show me everything htere. The thing is, I don't need to see everything. With your book, if you wrote World War II clothing descriptions in gentle sweeps and kept going, I could fill in most of it. So can most of your audience. I bet they've seen at least one WWII movie in their life, played one WWII video game. And even in they haven't, all you have to do is point their imagination in the right direction and they'll fill in the details for you.

...

Finally (yeah, I'm almost done) I just wanted to say, welcome to the site. Stick around, it's a very useful place. Especially for a first time novelist. Oh, and don't sweat your classmates not being supportive too much. Most people aren't very supportive of writing. Also, most people are idiots. It is possible there's a link between these two things.

[Soccer Mom]

I suspect that you lost your way in your story. It's surprisingly easy to do. Somewhere around the middle, you find that certain characters or subplots start hikacking your story. You can wander around in this desert for forty years. Trust me. You need to go back and look at your story. I don't usually recommend editing and reworking a story while in the process of writing it, but sometimes that is unfortunately necessary when it stalls.

THink critically about you your story and its structure. Try to identify where things went wrong. Take everything that happened in your story after that point and set it aside. Begin your re-write there.

BUT FIRST--What? What do you mean, but first???

Go back up to the stop of the novel forum and check out Writing with Uncle Jim. Take the time to read and learn about the craft of writing a novel. Trust me on this one too. It will help you to crystalize what you want to achieve in your novel and how you are going to achieve it. It is worth your time.

BTW- 200K is extremely long. Think closer to the 100K mark or even a little shorter.

Welcome to AW. Your classmates can't support what they don't understand but the people here will. We've all been there. Good luck and best wishes.

[JanDarby]

I struggle with description in the opposite direction, having to force myself to include it, rather than keeping it down to a minimum.

For what it's worth, two ways to keep it balanced are to:

1) only include the details that the POV character would notice, e.g., if the POV is a regular guy, he's probably only going to notice someone's wearing a blue dress and it's low-cut, not that the skirt is gored and the fabric is some obscure type of silk, and there's ruching in certain spots, whereas if the POV is a clothing designer, he/she is probably going to focus in on the feature that marks it as the current (or past) season's design or the difficult/expensive hand-embroidery. And so on, depending on who the POV character is.

2) hit only the key points, capturing the unique or defining aspects of the clothing or room or countryside or whatever, presenting an image in just one sentence. Unfortunately, I can't give a good example of this, b/c, as noted, description is NOT my forte. Think in terms of the emotion or meaning the item or place evokes, rather than a scientific description.

JD

[PeeDee]

1) only include the details that the POV character would notice, e.g., if the POV is a regular guy, he's probably only going to notice someone's wearing a blue dress and it's low-cut, not that the skirt is gored and the fabric is some obscure type of silk, and there's ruching in certain spots, whereas if the POV is a clothing designer, he/she is probably going to focus in on the feature that marks it as the current (or past) season's design or the difficult/expensive hand-embroidery. And so on, depending on who the POV character is.

What a great idea. That hadn't previously occured to me. It's fairly obvious, the description of clothing based on what that particular character would notice, but it never crossed my mind. It doesn't come into play much in my current WIP, but it's something I'll happily add to my bag of tricks.

[Bufty]

Hi Gwendy, and welcome. My only input here is to say, remember that your readers have an imagination, too. Let them use it.

[JanDarby]

It's fairly obvious, the description of clothing based on what that particular character would notice, but it never crossed my mind. It doesn't come into play much in my current WIP, but it's something I'll happily add to my bag of tricks.

And remember this sort of thing applies not just to clothing, but to all kinds of description. What a mechanic notices about cars is going to be different from what someone like me, for example, who is oblivious to cars beyond their color and gas mileage, would notice. A carpenter will notice different things about a building than a politician would. An herbalist will notice different plants along the roadside than the average commuter. And so on.

Deep immersion into POV is a wonderful tool for writers.

JD

[gwendy85]

Hello guys!

Thank you so much for the replies! Sorry I haven't been around. The internet connection really bad here, especially with the weather.

Wow! I never thought I'd find so much helpful advice! I really enjoyed it! I like how I'm not the only one who sharpened my teeth with fanfics too, though yeah, I know understand why I never suffered from the writer's block at the time. I still enjoy that category in writing, though for now, I've left it a bit to pursue this one.

Thank you so much, guys. I'm not sure if I'll be able to stop myself from re-editing. You see, I was closing in on the ending when I decided to turn around and change the place because the climax happens in another. I already have the ending. In truth, my book can be divided into three sub-stories if you could call it that.

Taking your advice to heart, I realized I had too many subplots, too many characters and too much descriptions. I was able to will myself to pull out several, so now, I'm down to 150K words (some writers advised to just breeze through your novel until the ending and only revise in the end but I just freaked out when I saw i already had 200k). Still, there are some chapters that don't seem to add up to the plot but really help build my character. Others play short roles but are highly important to the story. I don't know what to do with them...

Let me give you an overview:
my heroine is the eldest of seven children, and most have short but major roles which greatly affect the other characters. one of my heroes has four friends who greatly affect him as time passes. There are other characters too, like acquaintances, though some, I've turned nameless.
I think the reason why my story's so long is because it breezes through 3-5 years of the war, from the start, to the climactic end.

Strange, but writing all this seems to make me think of more subplots that needed to be deleted.

Thank you, guys! Really! You've helped me A LOT! And also, I know of the online version of Strunk's Elements of Style (which is a Godsend), but can anyone point me out to an online website that's more...er...descriptive and not too blunt? Esp. with more examples?

Again, thanks a million :)

[Ordinary_Guy]

Gwendy, you never know where good inspiration will come from next.
...This was mostly spurred by my grandfather, a World War II guerilla. I love that era and have set my book in those times. Being that I'm also a sucker for romance, that's the genre: historical romance.
Very cool that grampa was a motivator... if you haven't shared your story with him, do so – he may have a few extra anecdotes or some flavor for your story (and he'd likely be honored that you'd want to know).

*************
On a completely odd note, the "World War II guerilla" brought me back to an odd time in my childhood. It was around 1974 and I was just a wee tyke – but I remember watching the news with my father and hearing casualty reports of guerilla warfare. This was, coincidentally, right after "Planet of the Apes" aired on TV...

Man... let's just say that for several years after that, when we went to the zoo, I gave the primate house a real wide berth...

[Novelist in Paradise]

Let me give you an overview:
my heroine is the eldest of seven children, and most have short but major roles which greatly affect the other characters. one of my heroes has four friends who greatly affect him as time passes. ), but can anyone point me out to an online website that's more...er...descriptive and not too blunt? Esp. with more examples?

:)

Who is your protagonist--whose story are you telling? Figure that out, stick to that story.


Do you know the ending, what your protagonist achieves/resolves? Many writers don't, they find the story in the telling of it, but it can help. If you do know, that's what you aim for.

It's not online, but one book many beginning novelists find helpful is Sol Stein's "How to Grow Your Own Novel". It pretty nuts-and-bolts with the craft and not so theoretical on the art. Another that colleagues recommend is Jerry Cleaver's "Immediate Fiction."

[JanDarby]

See if you can collapse a couple (or more) secondary characters into a single character that can serve more than one purpose. In particular, the hero's four friends -- can you combine them so as to end up with just one or two named friends? If one friend's role in the story is to show the hero's emotional side, for example, and another friend's role is to help him learn how to use a sword, and those are these characters' primary roles in the story, see if you can get those two purposes combined into one character. The friend can show the hero's emotional side in one scene and teach him to use a sword in another. They don't have to be separate characters.

Same for the siblings. I can understand that it would change who the heroine is if she were from a family of three kids, rather than a family of 8 kids, but that doesn't mean all 7 siblings need to have "speaking" roles. Pick one or two, and let them have some dialogue, but let the others be the equivalent of a movie "extra."

This is a suggestion from Donald Maass's Writing the Breakout Novel, and he explains it much better than I do. You might want to read his book for this and other excellent suggestions.

JD

[TrickyFiction]

I was able to will myself to pull out several, so now, I'm down to 150K words (some writers advised to just breeze through your novel until the ending and only revise in the end but I just freaked out when I saw i already had 200k).

Wow. You're quick. I'm jealous of your problem, because my novels always tend to come out short, and cutting is easier for me than adding.

A writer I know gave me great advice for those times when you have trouble writing. Try to have more than one project going, or edit when you can't bring yourself to write (sounds as though you've got that down already). It's okay to multitask.

[gwendy85]

Very cool that grampa was a motivator... if you haven't shared your story with him, do so – he may have a few extra anecdotes or some flavor for your story (and he'd likely be honored that you'd want to know).


Sadly, my grandfather passed away this summer, which I deemed the worst of my life. Before he died, I managed to interview him for the novel, and he had supported me through it and called me his little novelist. This is why this novel is very important to me. It's dedicated to him. And you made me laugh at that ape thing :)

Who is your protagonist--whose story are you telling? Figure that out, stick to that story.


Do you know the ending, what your protagonist achieves/resolves? Many writers don't, they find the story in the telling of it, but it can help. If you do know, that's what you aim for.



Hmmm...that's a good way to look at it. I have two main protagonists, plus one minor protagonist. My novel's in the third person perspective and jumps from one point of view to another, but not as frequently. I usually stick to one character and if it's necessary to jump, I do it in a separate paragraph. And yes, I do know the ending, what the protagonists will achieve so I guess I'm staring at the finish line while making my way through the maze.

See if you can collapse a couple (or more) secondary characters into a single character that can serve more than one purpose. In particular, the hero's four friends -- can you combine them so as to end up with just one or two named friends? If one friend's role in the story is to show the hero's emotional side, for example, and another friend's role is to help him learn how to use a sword, and those are these characters' primary roles in the story, see if you can get those two purposes combined into one character. The friend can show the hero's emotional side in one scene and teach him to use a sword in another. They don't have to be separate characters.

Same for the siblings. I can understand that it would change who the heroine is if she were from a family of three kids, rather than a family of 8 kids, but that doesn't mean all 7 siblings need to have "speaking" roles. Pick one or two, and let them have some dialogue, but let the others be the equivalent of a movie "extra."



Thank God for this forum! Why didn't I think of fusing the characters sooner?! Thank you so much for the tip! I'll try to look for that book you told me. Thanks a bunch!

Wow. You're quick. I'm jealous of your problem, because my novels always tend to come out short, and cutting is easier for me than adding.

A writer I know gave me great advice for those times when you have trouble writing. Try to have more than one project going, or edit when you can't bring yourself to write (sounds as though you've got that down already). It's okay to multitask.

Maybe I'm quick because I spent over well...sometimes 16 hrs a day pouring into this, though now, I can only pull about 4 because of classes. Plus, I have the memory of my grandpa to spur me. I can almost hear him egging me on to finish :) Also, getting away from a few chores helps. Hahaha! I am so not good at giving advice... But I think you just have to set time for yourself and have a "Novel Diary". I carry mine all the time. It's just a notebook, but whenever I think of something for my novel, I write it. Simple things like quotes on what they're gonna say and do helps, and I write to myself in the diary too. It really helps! :)

Thank goodness someone finally told me it's alright to multitask! My sis thinks I'm nuts because while I'm writing this novel, I also started another 3, though I've only written about a page or two for each.

Again, thanks for the writing tips! It's a huge help!

[TrickyFiction]

Also, getting away from a few chores helps. Hahaha! I am so not good at giving advice...

No, I think you probably gave me the best advice EVER! Seriously.
I'm going to make a list of things to do tomorrow, and then write instead.
Aha! This is gonna be fun!