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I don't know why it didn't write it this way to begin with. His dreams play a big role in the story, and I hope it helps to clarify a few things before I get into the action. Also what his dream showed him will come later, when it’s more relevant. Well here it is; I hope it is better! If not I’ll do it again... until it is.
This is the way it felt right to me, I just couldn't see it before. Thx Steph and others your help has brought me light years further than I would have gotten alone.
I am certain there are a lot of punctuation mistakes, but my wife or daughter won't do it until I am positive this is the last revision... well at lest the last one until I finish the book. plz don't spare my feelings, I know Steph won't and I count on it...
Removed.... thx for the help all.
It's more like a page and a half, but i wanted to end in the same place.
ReplyDeleteThe pace is good and the tension or suspense are good, in other words you've got me curious. This little taste make me want to know more...
ReplyDeleteLet me make a suggestion. You like it this way; it gets you started on the path you want to take.
ReplyDeleteSo, leave it this way and go down the path. There's nothing wrong with this page you couldn't change later and you like it. It's working for you. Perhaps that's because it goes with the rest of the story.
The thing is, it's very hard to effectively evaluate a page in isolation and have it mean anything. If I told you it felt like too much exposition on the first page, I might very well feel different if I read the first chapter.
But, say, in the long run, I don't. So what? When a way of starting a story works for you, you should go with it. When you've put the whole thing together, you might change your mind and can tweak it then, probably with a good idea of what you want to do differently. Or you might write the story with this beginning as just what you need to jump start the story and write it accordingly.
Truth is, you can make yourself crazy trying to make a perfect beginning only to get mired in trivialities. Write forward for a while. Keep writing. If the writing makes you go back and go - gotta fix that, fix it then, otherwise leave it in place and start plugging forward. At worst, I see nothing on this page that couldn't be improved with some tweaking.
I do like the plan ahead of time, much better. It goes with the character as you explained him. The action part of this page worked for me much better.
I think You're off to a good start.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone... this is a great start.
ReplyDeleteI think Stephanie's onto something, to a point. I am reminded of two writers, Thomas Mann and Gustav Flaubert. Thomas Mann mulled over his writing a bit before he set it down, and several biographers note that once it was on paper, he made very few changes. His writing was swift, and he finished novels, once he started them, rapidlly.
Flaubert, on the other hand, wrote painstakingly, revising constantly, spending months sometimes on a single passage, phrase, or even word. His surviving letters show how he stressed over his writing, achingly trying various passages until he found the one that worked.
Do what works for you. For my first novel, I perfected the climax first, then wrote the entire book with that in mind. Once I reached the climax, I ended up scrapping the scene entirely, but it carried me through writing it, and that is all that mattered. In other words, whatever you need to do to keep going, do that. We are all different, and what makes me write my best work may not work for others. I'll keep checking out the page to see how you progress!
Thx all, no doubt it will need a final tweaking. But I wanted a page that I could emulate, so I could learn from; allow me to compare my future pages to. I got 57k words of this story complete. The first four chapters were the weak part of the story. But now I think I have a clear way to tie it all together. Thx for all your help. Hopefully one day my grammar will match my desires to be a writer. Until then the march goes on….
ReplyDeleteVery cool that you are writing a novel! Have you participated in NaNoWriMo?
ReplyDeleteNo, this is my first attempt at writing anything.
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I really like this revision. I want to read more!
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