Tag: writing

I’m Studying Fleabag and Lisbeth Salander In An Effort To Make The Characters In My Novel Better

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s embarrassing how much obsessed I’ve been on plot over the years to the disservice of character. But, now, I’m playing catch up. I’m going through this rough version of the third draft and trying to beef up characterizations in the novel.

Fleabag is a very well developed character.

While my heroine is pretty well thought out, the other main characters in then novel too often are pretty piss-poor. I’m beginning to get a better sense of them, however, even if it’s going to take time to turn them from just “moods” into real people you want to spend time with.

My heroine sports a sleeve tattoo similar to the one that Meghan Fox now has, even though I thought of the idea first.

I’m really pleased with my heroine, though. She is very different than Lisbeth Salander, but she’s just about as intriguing, I think, if I do say so myself. I have done a good job thinking up a really, really interesting person. I could totally see her being someone people want to hang out with for a few novels, maybe even seven! (I hope.) I still am uneasy, however, about how there are members of the “woke cancel culture mob” who will be mad at me for being a smelly CIS white male writing from a female POV at times in the novel.

Lisbeth Salander is such a great character.

Ugh. I can’t help who I am.

My fear is that I’m going to get so sucked into trying to improve character that I will get really slowed down and miss sight of the fact that I need A Draft Done by April 19th so I can hand a few physical copies to people at an event I have. I like having a deadline so, lulz, I’m probably just going to buckle down and try to do everything in very short amount of time.

My heroine has the same phenotype as Corrie Yee.

The draft doesn’t have to be PERFECT, just EXIST in a form that isn’t too embarrassing. I really hope to zoom through this rough draft. One real problem I have is I continue to get impatient at the end of the novel and don’t put my all into making the copy as good as possible.

Ugh. I need to figure out a way to be in the right headspace when I work on the later scenes in the novel. I need to be a lot more serious and professional on that front.

Moving At A Fast Clip Now

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that I have “a version” done of the third draft, I’m going to go through and read it and pick out scenes that need to be re-written. There aren’t that many scenes at the beginning of the novel, but that number grows significantly the further I get into the text.

I hope to write a novel with a heroine as interesting as Lisbeth Salander.

I’m using AI to help with this by telling it to be a manuscript consultant for me. This only works so well, however, because when it comes to spicy scenes, too often the software just locks up. It balks at even looking at any copy that deals with sex or violence.

But it works well enough that it does speed the process up and it is fun to do something as novel as use AI to help me reach my goal. I still am on track to have something to hand to people at an event I’m set to attend on April 19th. This is very, very arbitrary because the REAL hard deadline is July 22.

And, what’s more, I have a sequel to this first novel that I want to start to work on. But the better this first novel gets, the more I realize I need to think hard about how to improve some of the elements of the second novel. Also, I still have a few scifi novels that I’m brooding on.

I’ve come up with a really interesting First Contact novel, but it’s got so many moving parts — and would require so much research — that it’s more a novel to write once I blow up with my novel money.

‘X10 Writer’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am using AI to help me rework scenes as I go through the methodical process of touching up the alpha release of the third draft in the transition to it becoming I can hand to someone in person.

I have to admit that I’m getting mixed results in doing this. And there are some scenes in the novel where I just can’t use AI at all because it balks and having to deal with spicy shit. I can only get so angry about this, of course, it kind keeps me honest in the scene that I still have to do all the hard work on some scenes without the an of an AI manuscript consultant.

But I do hope to zoom through things at a pretty nice clip. I am still on course to wrapping up A Version of this novel by April 19th. Then the next hard deadline is, of course, July 22.

So, we’ll see. I hope to be really judicious about what scenes I feel like I absolutely HAVE to re-write rather than just edit. Once I reach the second half of the novel, though, I fear I will be slowed down a great deal because of how many placeholder scenes I have there.

Plans

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that I have SOMETHING finished that I can use as the basis for the Third Draft of my first novel, I need to contemplate my next move. I think what I’m going to do is sit down and do some long-delayed development. In fact, I’m kind of doing it in a bassackards way because I probably should done character studies and treatments BEFORE I started the novel.

But it’s too late now.

I still have a hard deadlines of first April 19th then July 22. I want to have a draft of the novel done by April 19th that I can physically hand a few copies to people at an event that I am set to go to.

So, now I’m going to allow myself a few days to plot my next move, given the time restraints I face. I think my best bet is to do to, sometime soon, go through what I’ve written and do some sort of triage to figure out what scenes can be salvaged and what scenes have to be totally re-written or significantly fleshed out.

But, in general, I’m feeling pretty stoked. This is a really accessible tale. It’s fun, fast paced and spicy.

Now What

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that I have a complete draft done — even if it’s shit — I can collect my thoughts and think about what happens next.

I need to sit down and write out canon for all of the major characters. I also need to figure out what I’m going to do about the second half of the novel in a very fast amount of time.

I only have until April 19th to make a pretty shitty second half of the novel worth reading.

Now, obviously, all of this is EXTREMELY arbitrary because, lulz, I just want to be able to hand a “finished” draft to some people. I want to be able to say, “Hey, here’s the third draft of my novel,” even though I know personally that I’m going to keep working on it because the REAL deadline is July 22.

Anyway. Wish me luck.

A Milestone

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have finally finished SOMETHING that could be considered a very rough Alpha Release of the third draft of my first novel.

It’s very, very rough.

But it had to be done so I could do the next thing — sit down and flesh out canon and character. So, that’s my next task, to sit down and get a lot better sense of canon and character for this novel.

I am very much on track to finishing a draft by April 19th that is just good enough to physically hand to someone with a big grin on my face, filled with pride.

Writing This Novel Has Consumed My Life

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Not sense I was working on the original ROKon Magazine with the late Annie Shapiro back in the day has something so consumed my mental faculties as this novel has. It’s warped my perception of the world to the point that it is very, very difficult for me to consume anyone else’s media.

I have become a storytelling snob in the extreme and only very few stories are “good enough” for my time. I can’t help but pick apart the editorial choices made in any content I consume. In fact, I know I may get hooked with some TV or movie if that is NOT act the forefront of my mind.

Most of the time, I just roll my eyes at how dumb a story is — even if everyone else thinks it’s great.

The last time I saw a TV show that I really liked was Fleabag. It’s perfect when it comes to character creation. All the characters — especially Fleabag — are very, very well crafted and understood by their creator, Phoebe Waller-Bridge. (Whom I still think should play in a series of movies about Dr. Susan Calvin, robot psychologist.)

Anyway. It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out going forward. I hope to be a professional — and successful — creative type the rest of my life, starting with selling my first novel in the next few years.

I’m Nervous About The Spiciness Of My Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I zoom through what will form the basis of the April 19th Release of this novel, I realize I have something of a crutch when it comes to spicy scenes. I too often have people talk in bed when I could very well have them communicate the same information in a different way.

But that’s kind of the point of going through the novel in such a fast way — I need to see what problems pop up so I can fix them once I finish the entire thing, hopefully soon enough before April 19th that I will have some time to do clean up work.

The goal is to have something “finished” well enough by April 19th that when I physically hand out a few copies at the event I am going to on that day, I won’t embarrass myself.

As such, I feel ok writing a lot of scenes really quickly. Once I finish “a draft” of the novel, then I can turn around and work on the copy I’ve completed and polish it so when I actually do want to hand physical copies to be people I can do with so with pride.

All of this is very arbitrary, of course. But I need a deadline if I’m going to ever finish this fucking thing and to set such a tight deadline for “a version” that is complete in one way or another works well with my personality.

So, I sprint. Once the April 19th Version is done, THEN I can spend some time reworking it and rewriting scenes as necessary to either start to query or to save up the cash necessary to pay and editor.

I May Rile Up Woke People With This Novel Because I’m A Smelly CIS White Male Writing About A Romantic Relationship Between Two Women

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. This is an instance where being a smelly CIS white male isn’t exactly the most helpful. I have come up with a really interesting plot point for this novel — a woman who doesn’t see herself as gay having a torrid relationship with a young woman who is a free spirit — and every once in a while I do a gut check and worry the “woke cancel culture mob” will freak the fuck out that I’ve done such a thing.

I hope to write a novel as interesting as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

This particular element of the story is fun and provides a lot of comic relief to the story and also keeps the story going at a fast clip. And, yet, I’m not a 20something undocumented transgender woman writing about such things, but a smelly middle-aged MAN.

But, lulz, I never what I’m supposed to do and this is where the Muse has taken me for this novel and I guess I’m stuck with it.

At least I’m really, really self-conscious about what I’ve gotten myself into. I understand why me writing about lesbian stuff from a female POV as a smelly CIS white male might be….a problem. The way some young women talk on Tik-Tok, I have no right to exist as a human being, much less as an aspiring male author who occasionally writes from a female POV.

I wish I had a wife or a girlfriend to be my Reader. Then, at least, I would have woman to tell me when maybe I have taken things too far, even if you give me the benefit of the doubt. And, yet, Stieg Larsson wrote some pretty crazy shit in his novels and they were a success.

New Hard Deadline: April 19th

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have an event on April 19th that I would like to have a version of the manuscript of the novel good enough to hand to people in person. As such, that’s my new hard deadline — April 19th.

I hope to write a heroine as interesting as Lisbeth Salander.

Now, the version that I want to hand to people is still going to be pretty rough relative to, say, a literary agent, but it’s going to be good enough, coherent enough, that I won’t embarrass myself by physically handing a copy of the novel to people.

As such, I have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. Things are kind of falling apart in the second half of this novel at the moment because I’m reusing a lot of copy from previous versions that don’t quite make any sense unless you’re, well, me.

My heroine has a sleeve tattoo same same, but different to the one that Megan Fox now sports — even though I thought of the idea first!

So the first step is for me to finish SOMETHING. That is going to require me to sprint in the next few days. Once I finish A Draft, I can use what time I have left to go through and rewrite scenes to give the story some consistency. Having such a tight deadline forces me to not only focus but to make some decisions that maybe I wouldn’t have made otherwise.

After the April 19th draft is handed out, I can go back to work improving the novel with a lot more time to sort out nit-picky shit that I might have ignored simply to get something into people’s hands.