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The three act structure, pacing it against required length for book
I've hit a snag. I seem to have got quite far advanced in my plot. I have reached the Rug P ulling Moment but only have 41thousand words. I'm writing science fiction and the commercially acceptable minimum is 70 thousand (I believe).
That means I have 30 thousand words left (!) for the Climax and Resolution.
That can't be right. I had one hundred thousand words before the rewrite.
I must have tightened up the saggy middle too much.
Does anyone have any suggestions (other than choose another career which might reveal your competencies).
That means I have 30 thousand words left (!) for the Climax and Resolution.
That can't be right. I had one hundred thousand words before the rewrite.
I must have tightened up the saggy middle too much.
Does anyone have any suggestions (other than choose another career which might reveal your competencies).
Comments
I have got another theme which can run through the whole novel, although there is some technical stuff I have to research and check first. It might do the trick.
Your idea is interesting Rosalie. It depends how good my imagination is, I guess. I will let you know.
I can't believe it. There I was, luxurating in the knowledge of being able to cut 30k words with impunity, but I've fallen short.
I know why it's happened. I've had to cut out the authorial stuff to tell the story through the characters. Still, at least all the padding has gone.
Peirs Antony did a series, Simon R Green too. That chappy -whatsisname- Isimov! Zelazny, Macaffery...
Rather than padding it out.. go with it!
Science Fiction is the only genre where you can throw the number of words rule out completely. Novellas are just as popular as the great 120,000 word harback doorstops!
If you have reached the end of the story and anything else will wither weaken or slow it down I'd reconsider what it is.
I've decided not to worry, but to see what draft 4 brings!
[quote=Rosalie]The SF novel I'm currently writing is also causing me word count problems.[/quote]
Yes SL, I should say, it really does fit the speculative fiction genre much better. It is near-future and firmly based on Planet Earth.
Rosalie, your tale is comforting. I was worried I had done something so unusual as to be badly wrong, but if it happens to other people that's ok.
[quote=SilentTony]If you have reached the end of the story and anything else will wither weaken or slow it down I'd reconsider what it is.[/quote]
and yes, I think I'll do that. I'm pleased with the pace it has at the moment and I don't want to pad it out again with authorial narrative as it had before.
The Climax & Resolution will be 5k - 10k. Any longer and the reader will be going 'enuffalreddy' and get pissed off. If it works well as a novella, that's okay and I am expecting to self publish now, anyway but I do plan to pass it through Cornerstones one more time to make sure I have it tip-top.
I have a technical issue which I can add which will be fun, and it runs through Part Two and into the start of Part Three. That will add about 2k words.
So I reckon I'm looking at 55k if I keep it paced the way it is now. So be it, it's a novella.
The trouble is I've done three twelve hour days on it and I've got too tired with it now, so gonna put it away for tonight. If rest and the subconscious produces another sub plot that would be great.
a) how fluid your chapters are
b) do they have continuity, do they make sense
c) any subplots
d) flashback - excellent for nailing 5 - 7K straight away
e) Backstory (not to be confused with flashbacks), as these snippets are like little pockets of gems dotted throughout the narrative and feed the reader
f) Is there enough build up to the end game? If not, change it.
Reading through the summary will help you gain a better understanding of where you are with the whole project. When you read each numbered summary, the story SHOULD make perfect sense. If it doesn't, then you know you need to act on it until it does make absolute perfect sense. And you can update it as you go along.
I'm not confident with flashback - never used it. Not sure I could justify it. How do you lead into it?
Backstory. I hate backstory. I am now paranoid that editors hate back story so much it's a mistake punishable by Unpublishment. However, I am trying to add it in.
Sub plots...now I'm glad you mentioned those. I have one small sub plot which is good for 2k and will run really well and today I thought of a humdinger of a sub plot - oh wow - and it could go on in the sequel too. But I only thought of it today so I have to work out how it goes in.
I'll apply your method first.
I say it again, 'Plot Schmlot'.
Any ole scribbler can give ya quantity. What I am offering here is pure gold, top quality fiction. C'mon you agents! Please do all rush at once.
So there, put THAT in ya plot hole and make a bonfire out of it. :D
We all need mini-dips before mini-climaxes in the three act structure, so that's a positive.
Red - I'm copying and pasting your post. Don't ask me why - I've no intention of writing a novel...
You never know Claudia!
Howwwwweeeeeeeverrrr, I had a humdinger of an idea for another layer of plot to widen the scope. Up till now I had two scopes: I had the domain of the protagonists, running between their work and home and the impact of their workplaces on them , so two workplaces one small company, one big company. All pretty straightforward, but now I've had the idea in which one of the protagonists discovers what the company is REALLY doing in the big bad world, so our guys will have to act to SAVE THE PLANET. Actually not all of it, but they have to act to save a big chunk of society. If I can weave that in it will make the whole story much more exciting.
The reason for this is I'm reading "Writing the Breakout Novel" by Donald Maass (Google it or get it from Amazon) which has given me more than one epiphany moment, so I have been having a massive rethink. Donald Maass is my AOYD (for those of you not familiar - Agent of My Dreams) but tragically I've blown it with him because I have already submitted to them in a rush of naive debut-novelist enthusiasm before I realised my work was not ready. I have read this book several times already, and been using it to raise the standard of my work but every time I go back to it, I find another angle to exploit.
My challenge now is to shape my work (which is fundamentally sound) into a finished work which meets his standards.
Does anybody know, if, in a year's time, I could approach them again, with a completely rewritten work, if I owned up that I had submitted an early draft that was not ready? Is that allowed?
Excuse me whilst I go and open a new document 'Post-Edit One, Rewrite Three, Version1' (yes, really).
It did they same to me when I read it PB. One of the best nuts and bolts 'How To' books.