So after panicking about having 350,000 words in the original draft of the story, I now have the exact opposite problem. Now that I’ve divided into three novels, the first story is only at 49,000. And that’s after doing really promising work yesterday (nearly nine hours straight–I had bread pudding for lunch because it was the only thing in the fridge I didn’t have to cook).
Should I worry? Should I steal more from novel #2 and hope that it can still stand on its own? Clearly I don’t have a problem coming up with words though…maybe I should just write the thing out and then see where I stand. I’m always having to “thicken” anyway. God. If I had heard that word one more time from my college creative writing professor, I think I may not have lasted through senior year. How do I “thicken” but not use too many words? And I know that “thickening” doesn’t mean just sticking in more adjectives and adverbs. Wow. And I know how not to thicken–I think that Khalindaine taught us all that very valuable lesson–but I guess I’m not really clear on what I should be doing. Or how I should be doing it.
I’ve been re-reading favorite authors to see how they manage to provide good descriptions and plot and characters, yet still maintain my interest, but with little positive results. Problem is, when I’m reading a good book, I never notice the author or what it is they’re doing. Which is the point. It’s only when I’m reading a poorly written book that I squirm and pray that I don’t do the same thing. So I suppose the lesson there is to pay more attention to what I’m reading. I mean, really. I’m an English major. I know how to read, don’t I? So I suppose I just need to work harder at it. And then I’ll get better at the writing. I hope.
My writing group (of one) was dismayed by how many useless scenes I had in the first draft, and then how other scenes that she thought were important were dismissed in a paragraph or two.