The Good (and not so good) About My Novel So Far
- priscillawrites
- May 2, 2017
- 3 min read
Hello everyone, and happy first day of May!
April was quite the interesting month. We’ve gotten a bit of cool weather here in Texas, something that doesn’t happen much even during our winters. I’ve been loving it, but also dreading the heat waves that are sure to come in the next few months.
Of course, April also meant Camp Nanowrimo. And I’m happy to report that I met my goal and won Camp Nano this month (finally)!
Though my word goal was quite modest (20,000 words was so easy I didn’t write for a full week and a half and still made it), I’m proud of myself for sticking to it anyway. In celebration of that, I thought I’d give you guys an inside look at how my novel is looking 20,000 words later. It’s far from perfect, but that’s kind of the whole point. So here’s the good and the bad about my writing project so far:
The Good
I have 16 consecutive chapters, none of which are perfect. But I’m so proud of the fact that I managed to avoid skipping scenes more than usual. Yay to consecutive writing and trudging through even when the writing doesn’t flow!
I wrote some great scenes this month. My best scenes are usually the ones I start writing spontaneously. So naturally, connecting those scenes to the rest of my novel takes a lot of work. But once I get there, it’ll be so worth it.
My main plot points – as in the inciting incident, main climaxes and resolution – are all set and my novel finally taste like it’s got some real life in it.
I’m starting to really like the romance in my story, which is only part of the overall plot. I think one of the best tests for whether romance works is whether or not you’d root for if you hadn’t written it. And so far, I think I would. Here’s hoping my readers will too.
I am on the verge of reaching 60,000 words, which means my novel is getting pretty close to being a full first draft!
My Camp Nano novel stats (you can tell when I got lazy and took a break lol)
The Not So Good
Despite the fact that I did write a lot of chapters consecutively, I still have a lot of gaps! Those gaps are often hard for me to fill, because my brain categorizes them as scenes I have to write instead of scenes I wantto write. But I’m learning the value of making each scene its own little story, full of its own excitement and purpose. Good writing is what really does that, so it’s what I”m going to be focusing on that a lot more as I start piecing my novel together.
I only have two character names that I’m sure I want to stick with – the rest are pretty much all placeholders. My MC’s love interest literally switches back and forth between two names because I changed my mind on his placeholder name halfway through lol.
Everything else that is wrong with my story, including hurried writing, cliché descriptions and unrealistic dialogue. But hey, that’s the nature of a first draft. It’s flawed and imperfect and needs some serious work. But I’m one step closer to having that first manuscript finally in my hands. And I couldn’t be more excited.
So that’s what Camp Nano looked like for me this month. If there’s anything I’d change next time, I think I’d maybe shoot for a slightly bigger word count like 25K because 20,000 was so easy that it made me a little lazy haha.
But I’m still so excited about the fact that I got to validate my win!
If you participated in Camp Nano this year, let me know how it turned out for you in the comments. And also let me know if you have any advice on how to finally finish that audacious first draft.
Happy writing (and editing) friends!