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Character, Pacing and Everything Else (First Draft Issues)
I'm slowly getting there with my first draft of my novel (51,227 at present), and for that I'm extremely proud of myself. This is the first time I have written anything this long and persevered with it. However, as I continue to write, I know there are massive issues with characters and their arcs, which will need to be worked on in my second draft. I'm even tempted to change a huge part of my hero, as I don't feel like a part of him is working, especially after recent events in the press. I also feel that the pacing is all over the place. I think my issue is that because I have been writing this in short bursts whenever I get the chance, that some things have changed along the way. Perhaps I should have planned more before I started to write, but I found myself getting impatient and thought my rough plan for each chapter was enough to get me started. A lot of what I had planned is still in this draft, but there's lots more that came to me as I started to write. I went with these ideas. I also still need to do a significant amount of research in order to make certain aspects of the story feel more real and fleshed out.
I suppose my question is this: can all this be rectified in significant redrafts? I want to finish it because for me that's a great feat, but part of me feels there are so many things wrong with it right now. It also doesn't help that I have two new ideas that have sparked my interest. Two new stories that seem to have more potential (in my opinion right now) than what I'm currently writing. I don't want to give up on my current story, as I have been working on the idea in some form for over thirteen years, but I don't know what to do instead.
Comments
I've learnt that any thoughts which occur to me when I'm writing, or reviewing the previous day's writing- that could be fifty words or one hundred and twenty- I quickly make a brief note of it, and then I get on with the draft. Then I can consider those thoughts and insights on the next draft.
And we'll well done for reaching such a significant word count,
For my last children's book (yet to make an appearance), as Gerald suggests, I made a chart; this was partway through writing. I used it to denote the days/times of day covered in each chapter, etc so that the passing of time all made sense and was evenly paced. I also noted down what happened to characters when. Colour coding was a great visual cue to spot where gaps were.
I also used the boxes to write notes/questions to myself and, as these were addressed, I could cross them off.
My chart was very big!!
I usually do this on a smaller scale in a notebook where I summarise the content of each chapter under a chapter heading and write notes around my notes. It's much easier to get an overview if you can scale your book down like this. It's virtually impossible to get insight if you try to retain what's in the entire document.
Which is just as well - the book I'm working on right now has been in hibernation for SEVEN years!!