I’ve been working on my debut fantasy novel for too long. This will be my seventh and last draft. There will be beta reading and editing, but I’m never writing this thing from scratch again. Seven drafts are enough, even if a couple of them were not complete.
I’ve written 40,000 words on this latest draft. That’s half what the experts recommend for a first novel. But I’m only a quarter of the way through the story. So my novel will be twice the length the experts recommend, unless I cut a lot, and even then, what remains will exceed 80,000 words. It will be what it is, and I won’t cut so much the story suffers for it, regardless. I plan to self publish this sucker, so it’s not like I have to adhere to someone else’s ideas of what’s best.
I’d thought about breaking the book into two or three books, but some people don’t like reading a book, even one that’s part of a series, that can’t stand on its own. I’m not that way, as long as all the books in the series are available to me. If I can’t find one or if the author stops writing the series partway through, then that irks me. With that in mind, I think it best to make this novel a standalone story, even if it’s 120,000 to 160,000 words. I intend this to be the first book in a series, but I want it to be a complete story in itself.
The previous draft of the story was meant to be the one I’d edit for publication. But after it went to beta readers, I discovered they all agreed on one thing: Alonso, the male human protagonist, was not a good viewpoint character. I’d been shooting for an antihero, and that’s what I produced. He was just such an antihero that the readers couldn’t relate to him or, worse yet, root for him.
The problem I face with not using Alonso as the point-of-view character is that he’s so central to the story, whatever viewpoint character(s) I use need to know about Alonso and be able to observe his actions in so many different venues. To sufficiently cover all significant aspects of his tale, I determined that I needed three viewpoint characters: Ngozi, the shadow elf woman married to Alonso; Locket, a nearly-twenty-year-old dream walking human gal who’s been told to spy on Alonso in his dreams to help facilitate his death; and Gabriel, a teen-aged human girl with a secret or two and a grudge against Alonso from her previous life as a jackal. The tale will be told without either the protagonist or antagonist being used as a viewpoint character. Other authors have pulled off this type of story. The tales of Sherlock Holmes comes to mind, those narrated by Dr. Watson.
I’m staggering the chapters, writing one from one character’s viewpoint, the next from the second character’s viewpoint, and the next from the third character’s viewpoint. Repeat to the end. I like this approach in that it gives the reader information from different perspectives, and the reader comes to understand all that’s going on before any of the individual characters. I think this helps with the suspense, because it’s questionable whether each character will discover what they need to know in time to save themselves and those they love. Before, with only Alonso as viewpoint character, it was unclear exactly what the threat was against him — or if there was any threat — until late in the story. Without knowledge of the threat, it was difficult to root for Alonso, especially with his being such an antihero. The way the story is written now, the reader will have other characters to root for, and whether they root for Alonso or not won’t matter much.
It will now be clear to the reader from the outset that someone wants Alonso dead and for him to endure a lot of physical and emotional pain in the dying. Not all of the characters, especially Alonso and Ngozi, will know this. The reader will understand why Alonso is being treated so nicely by certain people he interacts with, whereas the beta readers of the previous draft had confessed to wondering at Alonso’s great luck in certain situations. One beta reader had even admitted to feeling a bit jealous of Alonso’s luck. That shouldn’t be the case now.
Initially I’d thought that using a single viewpoint character would be the only way I’d want to tell this story. The reader could delve deep into one character’s psyche and get to know the character well. That’s cool if the character has a psyche you want to visit for an entire novel. Alonso wasn’t like that. All of the three viewpoint characters I’m using now are likable in their own ways and more likable than Alonso. Gabriel was singled out by one of the beta readers as a favorite character. Another beta reader singled out Ngozi. Locket is one of my personal favorite characters from the story, and is suitable in the role of main character. So there you have it. Three viewpoint characters.
In writing the story from these different viewpoints, I’m finding the need to fill in some details that I hadn’t bothered with before, partly because Alonso had paid them no mind. I’m also finding that using these characters is invoking a better understanding in me of events that before had transpired in the background, but which now make sense to flesh out to further the stories of the viewpoint characters. There are times while writing this new material when I feel a flush of excitement as I realize that I am coming to understand these characters better and loving the cool new stuff I get to write because I’m using their viewpoints. There is a whole side to Gabriel that never came out in previous drafts, because Alonso wasn’t privy to it. This secret aspect of her had colored how she acted in those previous drafts, and I think it was because of this that a beta reader liked her the best, even though he didn’t know her complete backstory.
When will I be done writing this book? I think I’ll finish writing this last draft by the end of 2015. But the beta reading and editing will go into 2016. So I’m setting a goal of mid-2016 to publish. I will have to stay focused, which is difficult at times. I’m easily distracted by the lure of doing something new.
I love receiving words of encouragment from others. They really help motivate me. Got any such words for me?
Sounds like you are using third-person subjective. I use third-person omniscient myself. Probably because I’m just nosey and want to know what everyone’s thinking. I like how you say it gives you a better understanding and that will help your readers, as well.
Hi, Yelle, thanks for stopping by. I’ve read a number of novels written in third-person omniscient and other viewpoints, and enjoyed a lot of them, but my style of choice is definitely third-person subjective. I think my tale might benefit in some ways from being told in third-person omniscient, but if I did that, the book would be two or three times as long, since I’d be getting into so many people’s heads. In fact, the sixth draft of the novel has a ton of material written from the viewpoints of several other characters. It’s basically third-person subjective with one character as the focal character in any given chapter, but with several characters getting their own chapters. There were at least nine characters who had chapters written from their viewpoints. And I felt like it was too much. I didn’t mention that in the post, that I had gone from a single viewpoint character to nine and then back to three.
Mike, this sounds like an amazing tale, and I haven’t read any of the beta versions. Offhand, I think you should include Alonzo’s viewpoint, too, but minimize it. For example, you could include what he was thinking any any given situation by doing parenthesis & italics to indicate intrusive information/thoughts. Oh well, do what you want, but don’t let word count limit you. The first thing I ever read by Stephen King was The Stand, and you know what a monster of a book that is. And now that you’re such an accomplished renderer, there’s nothing to keep you from deepening the story with your own illustrations. Perhaps they could be Alonzo’s viewpoint.
Best, Ken
Hey, Ken. Thanks for visiting my humble abode on the web. There are indeed certain aspects to the story that are lost if I don’t include some material from Alonso’s point of view. Maybe I will add his viewpoint back in at certain spots in the story. If I do, it will be by giving him his own chapters, but they won’t have to be long. There’s another character I might ought to do the same thing for. You’ve got me thinking. See my reply to Yelle above — I have some material written for a number of other characters that I’d thought at this point I’d leave out, but maybe I will add some of that back in too.
So many “experts” say that a first novel shouldn’t be much longer than 80,000 – 100,000 words. So I’m trying to cut what I can and still get the story across. But maybe I just shouldn’t worry about the total word count, especially since this will be independently published. If I were going with a traditional publisher, the need to keep it down to a certain size would be more important.
As for illustrations, I do plan to have at least half a dozen.Would like more, so we’ll see how it goes.
Thanks for your feedback. It means a lot to me and has given me a good deal to think about.
Hi, looks like a very exciting book project! I am intrigued by the many ways that authors write books, the different strategies to tackle it. My novels are either in first or third person; and they focus very strongly on that single character. That makes my life as an author very simple, as I can simply identify with that person directly.So my books are very much autobiographic (for instance, my heroes would never do anything that I wouldn’t do myself). In contrast, your approach allows you to add more depth (through many layers) into your work, which will provide a very interestin read in the end. I checked your blog shortly – do you perhaps have any snippets for a pre-read? Naturally, an author matures over time, so you may want to consider initially to simplify the structure somewhat (just as a thought); the complexity can increase as you move along in your series.
By the way, as I started writing my first book, I counted the words in some of the novels of my favorite author Jack Vance, and noticed that his best books had ~120,000 words, so that was what I aimed for 🙂 My second and third novels are at 110k and 97k words; I actuially keep on cutting text – once I start writing, I somtimes fear that I could easily fill 200k.
Thanks for the kind words, Clemens. In all my previous stories, I invariably go with a single person as viewpoint character. It just doesn’t work for this story. Even in this story, I stick to a single person viewpoint in each delineated section of each chapter, and usually for an entire chapter at a time.
I agree about the complexity, and I’ve been working on that. It is so easy for me to make things complex really fast. It’s how my mind works. I have to make an effort to scale things back.
I’m set with the decision now to break this work into multiple works. I have other books in the same series already in my head, so it’s not like I was just going to write one and that be it. I’ve also decided to end the first book at the 80,000 word mark. That will allow me to get the first book out the door quicker. For my own sanity, I need to get the first book out there sooner than later.
I will consider posting the first chapter online once I have it in decent shape, but before it’s edited. That will allow me to get some feedback. So stay tuned…