Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Finding the story

So I'm over 10K into the NaNo novel, but I haven't hit my story yet. I think this is the problem with writing in sequence for me. If I'd stuck with my usual writing style, I probably would have written the scene where Tony hears the news of the crash first. Then worked from there. With writing in sequence, I've written almost 6 chapters now, and gotten nowhere near the crash. Hell, we haven't even heard about the wedding yet!

I know this probably sounds really confusing because you don't know my story, but it doesn't matter. I'm just ranting to try and clear my head. I have to try and get this book on track. I'm pretty sure about 90% of what I've written so far is a waste of time and has done nothing for the book (except maybe helped me find my voices).

The question is, do I scrap it now, and start from somewhere else, or just keep going and hope I drive right into the story soon?

4 comments:

  1. Don't scrap it all yet. Either keep going, or skip ahead to where you feel the story starts. Even if you don't use any of this later, it still gives you valuable back story (I went through the same thing last year, and that's what I told myself then, and I still believe it :-))

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  2. That's what I'm about to do. I'm going to restart at a new point and see if I can get things actually happening. So far I've found my voices, developed some feeling for my characters and I'm sure I'll use almost all I've written in the end, just probably not where I thought I would.

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  3. I found that with my novel. I planned to have X amount of chapters, but it just went on and on...lol...At least you haven't wasted your time. I think it's good that you are starting again with a better opening. Just think of the other stuff as outline.

    Good luck, mate!!!

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  4. Thanks Kurt!

    It's just flowing so much better now. And I'm using a lot of the stuff I wrote earlier in flashbacks, so I didn't waste my time after all.

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