I am participating in National Novel Writing Month this year. I have never in my life written so much of a single story. Although I am supposed to tell my inner editor to shut up this month, she is constantly nagging at me about my structure.
I seem to vary wildly between description/narrative ...
@KitFox I'm not a published author, but I read a great deal. In that regard, I can tell you what I've observed and what I like. I think it comes down to the author and how they best express the story. When reading a "good" story, I don't notice if there's heavy dialogue or heavy exposition.
I tend to prefer exposition for setting the scene, action and transitions. When it comes to character development and plot development, I prefer dialogue, even inner dialogue. That said, if a writer is great at writing gorgeous descriptions and gripping narrations (sans a speaker), I enjoy that as much as someone who writes excellent banter and "talkative" characters.
I don't know of any loose rules in the "how-to-write-a-novel" books
Mostly I judge it on "is this conversation running out of steam?" and "where did the characters go?"
@Zairja @Mussri @MattЭллен thanks! The story is called The Suffragette's Election, and i've been working on it for four years trying to get the ending right
again, since this is your first novel, you may find it fun and useful to just plow ahead and write random crap and see what happens
let me reinterpret what you said above: you could have compressed the story into about 7500 words if you had stuck with the original villain. but now that you've killed him off, you have to discover who the real villain is, which provides you with a bunch more plot
There was a whole new love interest, and some ethical reflection, etc.
I wouldn't think I could write this way, but I don't have options at this point. I'm behind the pace, and even though I said I wouldn't finish, now that I'm at the halfway point, I want to finish.
And Thanksgiving is next week.
And my codez aren't writing themselves. Stoopid codez!
I'll check it out. I don't have any NaNo events/meet-ups near me. I am part of a writing group that is this motley crew of a couple dozen people around the world. I was leery of it being a circle-jerk, but they do critiques and don't pat each other on the back too hard. I just don't engage with it very often.
I am participating in National Novel Writing Month this year. I have never in my life written so much of a single story. Although I am supposed to tell my inner editor to shut up this month, she is constantly nagging at me about my structure.
I seem to vary wildly between description/narrative ...
The Overlook Hotel
The Overlook Hotel