As Bon Jovi once said, “Woahhhh, we’re halfway there!”
If you’re new to my content, welcome; I’ve been working on a novel for the past year. A literary fiction novel, it provides a snapshot into the lives of four bandmates from a [fictional] 90s alternative band. I’m a huge music buff, and fan culture surrounding musicians has been a large part of my life. I've witnessed my favorites go through an array of things, from abusive relationships to body dysmorphia to alcoholism. And while
bands such as 5 Seconds of Summer have been incredibly vocal and real about these experiences, it's still a carefully crafted snapshot given to the public. My novel serves to explore the expectations of fame, but primarily focuses on the harsh realities the culture we’ve created around it has on individuals. It’s been an incredible journey, and I’m currently sitting at the 63k word mark. For those that don’t know, the average literary fiction novel for a first time author falls between 80-100k words. And although I could technically be near that, as any writer knows, there’s a long journey ahead.
There’s a reason I opened this blog post with a cheesy Bon Jovi reference. Because although I’m 63k words in, and have been working on Project TSoB (this is what I refer to my novel as) for a year, I’m halfway done. And, as we learned above, 63k words should probablyyyy mean I’ve made it farther along than the novel's midpoint. Yet, here we are.
With that said, I’m actually elated at the process so far. I’ve always been a perpetual outliner. The last book I attempted to write during COVID, while the characters still live in my very bones, didn’t work out because I over outlined. By the time it came to writing the actual novel, I didn’t want to do it because it felt like I already had. In August of last year, I began a Creative Writing graduate certification, which finished this past May. This novel, the one I outlined too much, was the one I initially planned to work on during this program. But, in a typical chaotic writer fashion, I ditched that idea two weeks before the program began and settled on a new idea that seemingly landed on my lap during a family trip to Martha’s Vineyard with the release of Luke Hemming’s single, “Starting Line.”
Why am I telling you this? Well, because it’s important to understand I didn’t go into Project TSoB with an outline, or really a plan at all. Just four vague protagonists and the cumulation of this fictional band I’d created. It’s why this project has been taking me a while to work through, but you know what? I wouldn’t change it for the world. Here’s why:
For starters, when you have an outline, it leaves little room for exploratory writing. This is the method I primarily used throughout my program –– just me, a blank page, and the character’s voice channeling through me into scenes. As I go through what I’ve already written, it’s apparent a lot of the scenes I wrote for a grade will be chopped. But I don’t think this makes them any less important. Without them, I wouldn’t have figured out the direction each protagonist needs to take, their individual voices (perhaps the most important component when writing a multi-POV book), or the way they interact with each other and others.
I’m a better writer for having taken an intensive certificate program. My mentor didn’t baby me and tell me my work was the stuff of legends: she pushed me past my prior limits by raising questions, pointing out erroneous timelines or characterizations, and taught me new, albeit sometimes painfully boring, techniques. Going through it, there were times I was discouraged. As a writer, I want my work to be of publishable quality, and too often it's easy to forget it's a long process to get there. Hearing anything but praise isn’t always easy, but I’m beyond grateful for it. One of the last things my mentor told me during our final meeting was that I should pursue publishing my short stories, and eventually my novel, because she was confident I had finally reached that level in skill. Her methods made me stronger as a writer and person, and my novel is as well, particularly as I revise it, taking into consideration all that she taught me.
Revising doesn’t always mean rewriting. I refined the first two chapters (the growth is astronomical – my sentimentalism is all that is keeping me from burning those first drafts) but stopped after that, because I realized even though I had a story down, I didn’t truly know where it was going. To prevent myself from writing aimlessly, I went back to my roots and began an outline.
This was three days ago. Since then, I’ve heavily detailed the chapters and scenes within them, all the way until the midpoint. On top of what my mentor taught me, this article which breaks down the Save the Cat method became my lifesaver. Putting into perspective roughly the percentage of the story each scene should be occurring at and understanding the midpoint falls near the 28th scene (mine is the 29th) are immeasurable tools. Only time has prevented me from delving into the second half, but as I sit here writing this, I’m certain I’ll have the entirety of my novel outlined by the end of September. Who knows, maybe I’ll be writing to you by the end of the year to inform you I’ve officially completed the first draft of my novel, a goal that sometimes seems unreachable, but is much closer and tangible than I often realize.
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