Category: Media

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of my big concerns of late about this novel has been that it’s just going to be too fucking long. I’m an unknown, untested first time novelist and, in general, any novel that I might try to pitch really needs to be in the general 100,000 word sweetspot.

Anymore than that and it just physically costs more to print the novel and, as such, the likelihood that an agent will be interested in the first place decreases significantly.

As it so often the case with such the bigger decisions I’ve made with this project, something occurred to me out of the blue that caused me to change a pretty fundimental element of the story. What happened was, when I added a longish second chapter that dealt with my heroine going on a self-destructive bender I had pushed the discovery of a body that gets the story going so late in the first act that the act itself had ballooned to ~50 scenes.

But something occurred to me. With just a little bit of structural change, I could turn this problem on its head. Instead of counting the body’s discovery as the novel’s inciting incident, I now count it as the thing that pushes my heroine into the “special world” of the second act.

This is different than Gone Girl, where the “abduction” happens in the second chapter and more like The Girl Who Played With Fire, where the murder takes place a whopping 70 scenes in!

Anyway, the only issue with this new set up is the first part of the second act, which is the “juicy” part of the story typically used in the blurb to sell the novel now isn’t as spicy as I’d like. But it’s still interesting. And I’m not writing it yet, so there’s a possibility that once I’m in the thick of writing that part of the novel that either I’ll grow comfortable with what I have or I’ll figure out a way to make that portion of the novel more obviously the “fun and games” that people expect.

But I’m feeling really hopefully, at least at the moment.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m finally beginning to get some sense of things with this second draft. It’s a real struggle to keep the first act down to a manageable size. At the moment, it’s flucuating back and forth between ~40 and ~50 scenes, which is just way, way too much.

One possible take on what my heroine might look like.

If I could get it down to ~30 scenes, I would feel very content. But, alas, it looks like to tell the story I want to tell, I’m going to hover at ~40 scenes. This reminds me that I need a second creative track. I need another novel I could potentially shop around as my first (sold) novel should it become clear that by blowing past the sweetspot of ~100,000 words that I’ve sort of “priced myself out of being able to be sold.”

I think writing a novel that’s too damn long is a problem a lot of first time novelists face for some reason. It’s easy to write long, hard to write tight. There is a reason why The Great Gatsby is very short relative to some modern tomes.

Anyway, the issue is I’ve established stakes and continue to flesh out my characters. My male romantic lead is now a really great guy in the sense that he saves my heroine in her time of need. That, in a sense, is that character’s “save the cat” moment.

I’m now working on the third chapter. This chapter is different because I have the detris of various other attempts at second draft to work with, though I have come to believe that I actually write faster when I start from scratch. Sometimes, it’s a lot more easier to just think up an entirely new scene than it is to root around in a bad scene that you’ve edited and re-edited over several months.

But I have to admit that sometimes I grow jaded and tired of re-writing a scene completely, so I decide to use what I’ve already written as the basis of a new scene, rather than starting from scratch.

One thing I’m a little uneasy about is the amount of spicy scenes I have in the first act. And, yet, they do move the plot along. But it all boils down to not only do I have no idea what I’m doing — I’m doing it all in a vacuum, too.

So, lulz?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve finally gotten into Chapter 2. I’ve really been struggling with the contents of the chapter. On one hand, I wanted to jump forward in time so I could try to keep the word count a bit lower.

But I’ve decided to linger for one chapter — the second chapter — on the consequences of a setback to my heroine. This additional chapter also gives me an opportunity to flesh out the character of my male romantic lead. I’m going out of my way to make the audience like my male romantic lead as well as to get some sense of why the male romantic lead is the male romantic lead.

The only reason why I’m not going to agonize too much over this is that since this is the second draft, I’m beginning to get to a point where all I can do is create my vision and then see what not just Beta Readers think, but also an editor if I manage to save up the money to buy the services of one.

So, here I am.

The second chapter will focus more on the male romantic lead and the self-destructive things my heroine does to herself because she believes she has failed to get something she REALLY wants.

I’ve actually already finished the a really spicy scene in the second chapter. It’s really good! Of course, there will be squeaky wheels in the reading audience who are enraged that a male author is writing a sex scene from a female POV. But, lulz, that’s part of my vision so I’m willing to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

In fact, I’ve fleshed out a scene summary for ANOTHER “spicy” scene, but this one is a lot darker and would help a lot when it comes to making the novel provocative enough for modern adult audiences.