UPdate 24 THE END
The Rough is DONE!!
That’s the intro… finished, done… thank god!
The rough is finished, 8 days early… for some reason I miscounted and thought I had 16 weeks… this is the end of week 14… but I kind of forgot that week 16 is where I’m supposed to be revising. Either way, I’m taking a day or two before I turn around and start revising. In an ideal world I would actually take a month off and start outlining the next novel, but since Thesis 3 starts next Monday, I need to be revising the book.
Word Count:
This was a beast; I still feel that I rushed a lot of parts and I feel like my ending is a little abrupt. A lot happens, and we start to move on to other things, while not really answering all of the questions. But all of the questions are getting answered in later books.
I’m sure that in revision I will clarify a lot and perhaps let the dialogue cover a lot more pages. Anyway, last week I did three power sessions totaling 15581 words… yes that is three days of 5000 words each. The rough draft comes in at 193,068 words.
While I will be cutting a lot of words during the revision stages… some of my revisions are going to be additive… so expect the final draft to top 200K.
Chapters
So, last week I wrote 6 chapters and an epilogue.
The end of the book was written in an interesting manner, all five povs were in the same place at the same time and they are all going through the same hour (or so) of action. So, what I did was have each chapter over lap and change the pov.
For example, chap 42 is the first 20 minutes of the scene from 1 pov, then chapter 43 changes pov and pics up around minute 15-30, then 44 is minute 25-40, etc. I use some dialogue or some other sound cue to sync up when the overlap happens.
The whole end of the book is a running battle through the streets of the “Lost City” and then a denouement in a semi-safe place. Surrounded by enemies and with a new ally the surviving characters have a bunch of their questions answered, but are left with more questions as well. Their new Ally leads them away from the City and what happens after that is for other books to tell.
I’m pretty sure I’ll have to rework the ending to be a little more satisfying. Plus, I might have to slow down that whole 10 chapters taking place over a single hour and fill it with a little more closure for each of the story lines. I know I have a ton of more work to do. But for now, rejoice.
Revision Plans:
Step one I plan on cutting the manuscript into each POV and reading just the single POV storyline. Each of these single povs will then be edited for voice, continuity, and pacing. Once that’s done, I’ll put all the chapters back in order and fix the tension across the entire book.
Make sure every chapter has a goal and enough conflict.
I unfortunately do not have a lot of feedback from peers or teachers. My teacher only gave me feedback about 20 chapters in the middle of the book, and I have undergrad feedback on the first 5 chapters of the book. So, I will address the few issues I’m aware of now, and hope for the best in the long run.
This Week
This week is a week off between terms in school and is also thanksgiving week. Obviously, I’m super happy about finishing the manuscript. But I will be spending my holiday reading and revising the book. I also have the problem that my coworker is out of work for the next 2 weeks, meaning I’m stepping up hours in work. So, this is going to be tough getting a good jump start on the book.
As usual I’ll keep doing these diary entries as I work through the final thesis class. I have a LOT of work to do for that class as well. Luckily most of it appears to be revising my previous work (Query Letter, Synopsis, Novel, Outline, Pitch, a Short Story, and a few other essays that I need to compile into a full portfolio. But I also have to do a few work shops and papers while I’m at it.
Wish me luck!
