Be True to The Book…and to Yourself

It’s Writer Tip Wednesday, and I’ve got two quick tips pulled from my own recent experience. They might seem like a, “No, duh,” at first glance, but when you’re in the throes of creating and crafting and perfecting a new world and new characters, and you’re riding the waves of innovation, many times “No, duh” common sense can take a hike.

I’ve been working on the sequel to my debut novel for almost three years now. It started with two main characters—and by that, I mean each one had her own story, character arc, etc.—whose individual plot lines would first take them in different directions before converging again by the end of the book. Thus, each story within the bigger story had its own theme.

In other words, I had a monster on my hands by the time I finished the first draft at 156+ thousand words. I had written the equivalent of two novels! (No wonder it took me so long to complete that first draft!)

Once I realized what I’d done, I had to decide which theme would stay and which would go, and I had to downgrade one of my main characters. She still plays an important role, she just doesn’t get as much time on the page, and that’s okay.

Twenty-one months after I completed Draft #1, I’ve deleted over 43,000 words, bringing my current draft (I don’t even know which number I’m on anymore!) to 113+K words. My goal is to get below 110K, and I pray it doesn’t take me much longer to reach it.

So tip #1: One theme per novel.

Tip #2…

For writers to have a well-written novel at the end of days, months, and in my case, years spent at the keyboard, we need critique partners to tell us what works, what doesn’t, what’s inconsistent, what makes no sense. 🙂 The more eyes on our novels, the better the outcome—within reason, of course. And it’s imperative (IMHO) that we have at least one crit partner who’s a better writer than we are…otherwise, our writing will stagnate.

Inevitably, however, two or more crit partners will have differing opinions over something major, like a part of a scene. One will love it, the other will recommend it gets cut. That happened to me this past summer, when two trusted and beloved critique partners had differing opinions on a certain section. What was I to do? How could I make them both happy? Which one was right? Was there even a right or wrong path to take?

Personally, I liked the section in question, and after being able to cut 40K words, I didn’t think my hesitation stemmed from not wanting to cut my darlings. In the end, I did rework and condense the scene, and I reworded some things so it doesn’t pull the reader from the story (I hope), but the essence of what I wanted in the scene remains.

So tip #2: Critique partners are your novel’s best friends, yet this is your baby, your artwork, so listen to your gut and accept the fact that you won’t please everyone. If you’ve done the time and hard work and the outcome makes you happy, then you’ll be proud to share it.