So, I finished my NaNoWriMo novel with no trouble. Well, with a little trouble; I lost a lot of ground during our Thanksgiving trip to visit the in-laws. Thankfully, with the help of one 5000-word day (on my birthday, no less!), I was able to get back on track. Finished my 50K shortly before midnight on the 30th.
I’m actually quite satisfied with how it turned out. My spouse is reading it now and she says I’ve got the science down, and the plot, while slow at first, is interesting. But I really need to work on characterization. I agree; that’s always been my weakest point, and this book was no different. With one exception, everything said by the characters was there to advance the plot. Lots of telling rather than showing.
But there’s quite a lot of reason for hope. Part of it is that one exception. This book has one character, a ship captain, who entered the story halfway through (after being mentioned several times beforehand), and who quickly became possibly my first fully developed character. There’s a speech she gives early on, about her career, where she actually managed to surprise me. I wasn’t sure where it came from when I was writing it, and it felt like it hadn’t really come from me, but from her.
In other words, she came to life. At least briefly. And I was shocked, and very pleased, when I was done writing it. We’ll see what my sweetie has to say about what happens to her at the end, but I think she’ll like it.
So, where from here? I took a week off from writing after finishing NaNoWriMo, but I’ve started again now. I’m hoping to be able to keep up the momentum, and especially to learn to create more living characters so that it becomes second nature. We’ll see where it goes.
Ray Bradbury said once that you need to be prepared to write, and discard, a million words, before you can succeed as a writer. I’m well on my way toward that, although I’d hope to publish something well before then. But I’m beginning to see his point. Slowly but surely, I’m learning.
