by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Things are going pretty well with the scifi dramedy novel I’m working on. Even though at least one of the AIs I’m using balks at the term “dramedy” for the novel. But that is the general goal of the work — I want it to be very much in the same vein as “Her.” Though, admittedly, the Megan Fox vehicle “Subservience” is, in a way, a better comp movie. But my novel is more like if Subservience met The Enteral Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (in my dreams.)
I’m currently in the third act and hope to wrap up this draft in a few weeks if I can stop drifting towards my goal and get my ass in gear. I have something pretty special in play here and it’s just a matter of doing it.
Once I get this draft of the novel finished, I’m going to take a VERY DEEP BREATH and do some structural open heart surgery on it. It’s going to be a serious fucking pain, but it has to be done.
I keep getting nagged by the AIs that I use that my hero is too “passive.” And there are some other issues that simply have to be addressed.
I am a bit annoyed that in the second half of this draft my scenes just are too short. That, too, is going to be something I’m going to really give a lot of thought to. Your scenes are supposed to be, in general, on average 1,000 words.
Though, I will note, that that’s just a rule of thumb. I feel a little uneasy that my scenes in general seem shorter than what they should be. But I think my style on a structural basis is closer to Stieg Larsson than anything else.
Anyway, today I hope to knock out a few scenes and wrap up an complete chapter. That’s the goal, at least. I keep worrying about what literary agents will think of me as a person when they do due diligence on me.
Are they going to think I’m too nuts to take on as a client? I really worry about that. I’m the first to admit that I have some pretty gaping character flaws, but, in general, I mean well.
Or, as the late Annie Shapiro would say, I’m a “delusional jerk with a good heart.”
This novel is very cinematic, if nothing else. Too bad I would be nearly 60 if the absolute best happened and I sold this novel, it became a success and then was adapted into a movie.
That fact continues to give me something to mull.
