Fearing the word-monster
18 Dec 2009 Leave a Comment
by Silbena in Creative writing Tags: editing, stories, writing
Before I start talking about anything else, I would have liked to flaunt the greatness of having a quiet house, specifically when my parents have taken the family that’s visiting here to see the Great Ocean Road and thus they’re not here, but then my sister started booming music I don’t like, and, well, somehow the flaunt seems empty now.
Anyway, I did some writing yesterday. *gasp* It’s always fun to get back working on a novel that I’ve put so much effort into (though I am just writing and worrying about the quality later), and seeing the words pile up. Well, actually that’s incorrect – I enjoy seeing the chapters on that list Scrivener gives me pile up, but I don’t exactly enjoy seeing my word count, because when I do, I become entirely too aware of the fact that it is now, in the middle of chapter 29, 196,000. This would mean, of course, that having 45 chapters (since I cut the outline for chapter 28 into two, seeing as the chapter was becoming too long) would end me with an approximate word count of 312k.
It’s freaking me out – and not just the fact that there are still so many words to write, but the fact that something that long is entirely too monstrous for anyone to properly enjoy/publish/what ever. That means that if I want to make Following the Gay Umbrella into a proper novel, either I have to cut it into two (something I don’t know how I could accomplish, because the beginning doesn’t really stand alone, unless I make some major modifications), or then mercilessly cut things down from it.
I don’t like this as a thought. So what, first I go through all this trouble to think of these characters and these scenes and situations, only to end up cutting most of them? And then there’s always the thing that how many of them should I cut, and what of them does the story really need. I’ve never been very good at this editing business, since I just prefer to create and if I’m not happy with it, create something I am happy with.
Oh the throes of creation~
