Preemptive Retaliation

So I’ve just finished the first draft of my latest novel, which sounds like a pretentious thing to say despite the fact it is true. It clocks in at a modest fifty-five thousand words, and roughly thirteen chapters. I think in the redrafts it’ll actually gain more than it loses as I flesh out characters and locations and motivations etc, but for now it’s done. As done as done can be.

Which is to say, of course, that it’s a right fucking mess.

This is the first novel that I’ve really ever plotted. Or, more like this is the most plotting I’ve done for a novel. I have my little green notebook beside me, and when I was starting out I’d put down my thoughts and worries and ambitions, and then I plotted it all out – chapter by chapter. On the left page I had rough notes and brainstorms, questions that I wanted to answer, things I wanted to include. On the right, I would have a flowing breakdown of what would happen in the chapter.

I mostly followed this, to my merit and detriment. I’ve always been a discovery type writer, where I just start and see what ideas I come up with along the way. This post is no exception – when beginning I didn’t know where I would go with it. The strange anti-climactic emptiness of finishing the draft? My woes and internal cringe at wanting to celebrate my draft? My inability to capitalise on social media to promote it? This could have done anywhere, but we’ve ended up here.

So I’m a discovery writer, and even though I plotted this time round I still found I was discovering things. Themes would pop up where I didn’t expect them, characters would change their mind on anything I found more interesting, whole chapters rearranged into different structures. Even my ending, the ending I had vaguely imagined from the beginning, even that changed. The message of the book, the thesis I wanted to present and comment on, that changed too. But it’s still about robots, and imposter syndrome, and not knowing if you fit in.

There’s a lot I love about this book. I love its bones, and I love its soul, and I love its voice.

It’s just the rest of it that I need to fix.