And Now, For My Next Trick...

I've been going back over my novel, Old Blood's Fate, reading it again completely through for the first time since just after Christmas. I've been looking at it critically, treating it just as if it were a novel I picked up in the store. I've been reading it through the eyes of the reader, as opposed to the guy who wrote it.

I finished this morning.

It's broken and it's unpublishable.

Simple as that.

There's too much telling and not enough showing.

There are too few grounding details, making it read like a script, not a novel.

The magic system, such as it is, is a confused mess.

The narrative is choppy and the transitions rough.

There are more characters than I have the ability to manage.

There's not enough tension.

The main concept and conceit of the story is flawed.

The blended mythologies are a muddle.

There is no compelling reason to care about any of these characters.

The main plot is confused and full of holes.

The major sub-plots are in even worse shape.

*side note: who the hell told me I could write a complex main plot and multiple sub-plots concerning almost a dozen characters in a 120,000 word novel? I can barely manage one bare plot in a 7,500 short story.*

I could continue listing the problems, but I think you get the idea.

The unfortunate fact is, the scope and complexity of the story the writer was trying to tell was simply beyond his abilities at this particular point in his career to execute.

In short, I was too ambitious.

It is a good thing I made a sale recently to help bolster me a bit, because there is a part of me right now that wants to curl up in a little ball of misery. I've put a ton of work and effort, including multiple rewrites, into this novel, but in the end it is deeply flawed and has been found wanting, and that's a hard thing to swallow, especially since I've been struggling with a lot of self-doubt recently.

But there is another part of me, the cold, clear-eyes, pragmatic part, that understands this was a first novel attempt, and that 99% of all first novel attempts fail. I know in my head that the thing to do is go on to the next attempt. There is a part of me that knows most novelists write three, four, seven novels before they manage to write a sellable one.

And looking at it, there are things I did well (the dialogue, for instance, is sharp and rings true to the ear). You can see the improvement in skill and ability the deeper you go into the piece. It is not a complete and utter disaster.

But it is broken and unpublishable.

Now I have to decide whether to set aside almost two years of work and move on, taking the lessons learned to my next project, or continue trying to fix this one. And yes, I realize there is nothing stopping me from coming back to this first novel two, three, ten years from now when I am (hopefully) a better writer with a stronger skill set, if I think the story is worth telling.

It's just...

What I really want right now is a Guinness or ten, not that it would make anything better in the long-term.

---Insert Colorful, Yet Vulgar, Language Here---

In Peace
Michael

And Now, For My Next Trick...

I've been going back over my novel, Old Blood's Fate, reading it again completely through for the first time since just after Christmas. I've been looking at it critically, treating it just as if it were a novel I picked up in the store. I've been reading it through the eyes of the reader, as opposed to the guy who wrote it.

I finished this morning.

It's broken and it's unpublishable.

Simple as that.

There's too much telling and not enough showing.

There are too few grounding details, making it read like a script, not a novel.

The magic system, such as it is, is a confused mess.

The narrative is choppy and the transitions rough.

There are more characters than I have the ability to manage.

There's not enough tension.

The main concept and conceit of the story is flawed.

The blended mythologies are a muddle.

There is no compelling reason to care about any of these characters.

The main plot is confused and full of holes.

The major sub-plots are in even worse shape.

*side note: who the hell told me I could write a complex main plot and multiple sub-plots concerning almost a dozen characters in a 120,000 word novel? I can barely manage one bare plot in a 7,500 short story.*

I could continue listing the problems, but I think you get the idea.

The unfortunate fact is, the scope and complexity of the story the writer was trying to tell was simply beyond his abilities at this particular point in his career to execute.

In short, I was too ambitious.

It is a good thing I made a sale recently to help bolster me a bit, because there is a part of me right now that wants to curl up in a little ball of misery. I've put a ton of work and effort, including multiple rewrites, into this novel, but in the end it is deeply flawed and has been found wanting, and that's a hard thing to swallow, especially since I've been struggling with a lot of self-doubt recently.

But there is another part of me, the cold, clear-eyes, pragmatic part, that understands this was a first novel attempt, and that 99% of all first novel attempts fail. I know in my head that the thing to do is go on to the next attempt. There is a part of me that knows most novelists write three, four, seven novels before they manage to write a sellable one.

And looking at it, there are things I did well (the dialogue, for instance, is sharp and rings true to the ear). You can see the improvement in skill and ability the deeper you go into the piece. It is not a complete and utter disaster.

But it is broken and unpublishable.

Now I have to decide whether to set aside almost two years of work and move on, taking the lessons learned to my next project, or continue trying to fix this one. And yes, I realize there is nothing stopping me from coming back to this first novel two, three, ten years from now when I am (hopefully) a better writer with a stronger skill set, if I think the story is worth telling.

It's just...

What I really want right now is a Guinness or ten, not that it would make anything better in the long-term.

---Insert Colorful, Yet Vulgar, Language Here---

In Peace
Michael