Cleaning Up
A general clean-up post, before diving into a weekend that involves a heavy deadline....
ChunkyC:
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Noooo! or NOOOO!
If extra vowels are acceptable, how many is too many? Or is this a purely subjective thing?
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I wouldn't use extra vowels at all. How the character delivers the word should be obvious to the reader from the story-telling and character development to that point. "Nooooo!" is close to dialect and stage directions, both of which should be used lightly if at all.
All things are subjective, and if you make it work for you, you've made it work. Alas, spelling out "Noooooo!" and "Yesssssss!" and "Arrrrrrggghhhh!" look very much like shameless padding.
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Weren Cole
If a character is important, he/she should be mentioned early, and should be given enough to do while waiting for his Big Moment so that when the Big Moment arrives the readers don't say "Who?" and have to flip back fifty or a hundred pages to refresh their memories.
At the same time, if a character is given a name, the readers will try to hold him in mind, assuming that he'll be important later. (Thus: don't name your characters unless you want them to stay in the readers' heads where they'll take up processing power: it's like naming kittens that follow you home.)
Generally speaking, try to get by with as few characters as you can. And try to have them all on-stage and acting in the first hundred pages.
It's perfectly okay to outline after you've created the first-draft text. The outline will show you where the bumps that need to be filed off and the dips that need to be filled are.
File cards are your friends.
You'll learn how much is too much backstory by writing it, and trying it on your beta readers. But also ... imagine that you are that person. What do you actually say? Realism is also your friend. (This will help you avoid "as-you-know-Bob" dialog, and "Gentle reader" insertions.) Generally speaking, use the absolute minimum backstory necessary to keep the introduction from being completely cryptic.
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Rigby Eleanor
No, you haven't written a doorstop by accident. 400 manuscript pages is pretty reasonable.
A novel (at least, a YA novel) can start as low as 40,000 words. You won't start being saleable for an adult novel until around 60,000 words (with the standard Genius Exception: If you've written a work of genius, all bets are off).
So don't worry. As long as the words are the Right words, all's well.
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AnneStJohn
I write for a living.
What you might try is this: If you're too tired of looking at a screen to write fiction after a long day at the office, write your fiction in the morning before you go to work. Set the alarm clock early, and get one of those coffeemakers that will start a pot of coffee based on a timer so it's hot and steaming when you stumble out of bed.
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qatz:
More on Outlining soon.