final draft

Final Draft? Patience is the key…

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

Last Friday I finally finished the final draft of my YA novel The Tree Of Rebels. Yes, yes, yes, it is done! It is finished at last! Or is it? I’ve lost count of how many drafts and rewrites it has been through now. I’ve blogged about a fair few of them! I decided to change the tense from present to past, and I also added some new scenes. Then I went through it all again, with what felt like a very gentle and enjoyable edit. Correcting typos here and there.Small corrections. Nothing major. And I finally liked it!

As I may have mentioned once or twice before, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with this novel since I first got the idea for it. I ignored the idea for a while because it would mean writing a book way out of my comfort zone. When I finally started it, I suddenly got another really good and important idea for another book, which wanted to interrupt this one. I didn’t let it, and forced myself on, which in hindsight, was probably the wrong thing to do. I do wonder if I ought to have listened to the loudest voice, put Tree of Rebels to one side and gone with Elliot Pie when he was at his most demanding…

But anyway, I didn’t. I wrote this book, and then started a second draft, sent to beta-readers, drafted again, hated it, drafted again, loved it, left it for ages while I wrote Elliot Pie…drafted it again, hated it even more and so on, and so on. It was like having a constant argument with myself. This book is brilliant! No, it’s not, it’s a total waste of time!

I’m pleased to report that during this last, final, never to be messed with again, draft, I really and truly fell in love with this book. I got the feeling I had been waiting for. Everything clicked. I knew what it was and I was proud of it. Changing the tense worked wonders, and the extra scenes I added seem to work really well too. I was so into this book by the time I finished it, I even carried on and drafted the synopsis of the sequel, and wrote the first two chapters of this!

So when will I be releasing it then?

Hmm, not yet. Because I still don’t think it is finished! I decided that after so much doubt, it would be worth sending it back to my top beta reader/editor for a final read through. I know she will be honest and scathing if she needs to be. I am curious to see what she thinks of the change in tense and the extra scenes. Waiting for her to read it will give me some head space from it, and a chance for the book to breathe. I thought this was a sensible idea. If there are any lingering typos or things that don’t make sense, they will be picked up and sorted and being patient will help me decide if it really is finished.

The problem is, I am already getting more ideas. Just little bits here and there. Just bits of dialogue, and brief scenes or moments that have suddenly popped into my head. I really didn’t think this would happen! I really did think I was done…

But I’m glad that it has, even if this does mean once it comes back, it will be getting another going over by me. You see, it’s all too easy these days to write something, do a few more drafts and then self-publish it and move onto the next one. Believe me, it is very, very tempting to do this. I have so many other books to write, but I have to resist the temptation to rush things. Patience is the key. A book is done when it is done, and not a moment before. I could release this book now and see if you like it, or I could wait to see what my favourite critic says first. I could release it after that, after any last lingering mistakes have been mopped up, or I could wait a bit longer, see if it can be any better. It’s surprising how you feel about a piece of writing if you leave it alone for a while. You might think its the best it can be, but give it a few months, during which hopefully your writing skills would have improved even more, and quite often you can already see that it can be made better. And if it can, then it should.

So, apologies folks. The Tree Of Rebels is done…but not done.

The really good news is that I have finally fallen in love with it, which is how it should be in my opinion. I’ve had a strange relationship with this book, and I’ve nearly given up on it several times. It never felt quite the same as my other books, like the connection was not quite right. But this feeling has well and truly gone now. I’m even writing some more of the sequel tonight!

 

 

Final Draft Struggles

~ ChanAtkins ~ 6 Comments

Last week I blogged about the difficulties I had experienced writing my YA novel The Tree Of Rebels. I was just about to dive into what I hoped would be the final edit of the book, and I was looking back on the struggles I’d had so far. There was more than one issue, but in last week’s post I was examining the difficulties of getting to know your characters. I was trying to figure out what had been bothering me about this particular novel, which had not bothered me so much in my others. At least I now felt like I knew my main character Lissie Turner better, properly, finally. So I could begin…

I’m a few days in now, and I have to report that the struggles remain. Not necessarily with the character, but with something just not being right. I have tried to think back to the final drafts of my other books. Did I feel the same about them? Is this all completely normal? It begs the question, how do you even know if it is the final draft? I guess I feel I have already done so many drafts and sent the book out to beta readers, amended it, let it sit and stew, and now know, or at least think I know, how to finally make it work. So it feels like the final draft…or is it more like the last chance?

Because over the last few days I have been plagued by the feeling that something is just not right. I thought it was the characters, and not knowing them as well as I wanted to, but now I think it is more than that. The most frustrating thing is not being able to quite put my finger on whatever it is! And how do I know if this is the book telling me something is wrong, something does not work here, or if it is simply, normal writers self doubt? Because lets face it, writers are swimming in self doubt the majority of the time! You kind of get used to it. You learn to shut it up, push it aside and keep going.

My question is; how do you know whether you are meant to keep going? How do you know whether the doubts you are feeling are justified? I mean, that it really is a massive turd of a book that no one in the world will ever want to read?

I think my issue with this book is how different it has always felt to the other books, and there are several reasons for this. So it might do me some good to clarify them right here.

1) Firstly it’s set in a dystopian future, and I have never set a book in the future before. I have used the past and the present, but never a future made up by yours truly. I guess this means I am winging it a lot more than I would be ordinarily. I have had to make up an entire world, a civilisation, a back story as to what has led to this, and so on. In theory, this was not a problem, because for the first time ever, I got the idea for the plot before I heard the characters talk to me. Which leads me neatly to my second issue.

2) I got the idea for the plot first. And that never happens to me. Ever. Like I have said before, it’s the people that fill my head. They come with stories, so it is easy for me. I just do what they say. I just offload for them. But this time, I got an idea. What if in the future Nature is banned? What if everything you need to survive is kept under massive domes and delivered to you when you need it? What if, after endless wars, a tiny amount of humans inhabit the earth, and because there is no more war, and no more fear, they are very, very grateful for the lives they have…What if a young girl who was born into this world one day finds an apple tree outside of the domes? Anyway, without giving too much away, the idea stuck and grew and grew and eventually I had to start writing it. But I didn’t really want to. I will explain why in point 3.

3)I wanted to write a book that would impress my daughters. This has never happened to me before either, because I have always written for me, myself and I. That was how it all began. I wrote the stories I wanted to read. I created the characters I wished were real. This was different, and very new, and scary. I have two daughters. One is an avid reader, who devours YA and dystopia at an impossible rate. The other is a reluctant reader unless it is Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I wanted to lure them in, force them to turn the pages and show them what I could do. I now think this was a big, big mistake! They like the book, what they have read of it anyway, but I don’t think they love it. And I think knowing I was writing for an audience has haunted me all the way through. I’ve felt like someone has been watching over my shoulder. This is the first time I have decided upon the audience before writing the book…and I am not sure it works for me.

4) There was another reason I didn’t want to write the book. Well, a few. It was outside of my comfort zone, I knew I would have to research a lot of stuff, which I am happy to admit is not my strong point or my favourite part of writing, and I already had another book chomping at the bit, wanting to jump the queue. That book was Elliot Pie, which, if you follow this blog, you will know I finished the first draft of just a few weeks ago. I had only just started The Tree Of Rebels when Elliot tried to jump the queue. Now, as tempting as it is, I don’t let them do this. They all have to wait their turn, although they do get note books and they do get little bits written down and they do get thought about constantly! So, Elliot. Once I had him, I wanted to write his story. And I think that made things harder with this book.

5)Well, point 5 kind of sums up all the above. This book was a challenge. This book happened in a very different way to all of my others. This book scared me. This book confused me. I felt impatient with it, reluctant to do it, and constantly had this niggling little voice telling me that it was not right. It’s a fantasy, right? Almost a sci-fi, and that’s not my genre, that’s not my niche. My thing is realism, down to earth, gritty, edgy, a bit dark, that kind of thing.

Now that I know all of this and can admit it here to you, the question remains, what do I do about it? Keep going with the final draft and see what happens? Hope the self-doubts will pass, and some genuine love and appreciation will return for this novel? It has happened before. As with all my books, when I am writing them I tend to think they are rubbish, and it is only when I am re-reading bits that I smile and think hey, this isn’t too bad! This is better than I thought it was! And that has definitely happened enough with this book…even in the last few days!

Luckily for me I was talking to my 13 year old avid reader about it this morning and she made several wonderful points. She reminded me that the beginning of the book cannot be as dark and edgy as I intend to make it this time around, as in the beginning Lissie does not know anything is wrong with her world. Sure, things are suggested to the reader, but on the surface, for the reader and for Lissie, this really is a perfect, easy to live in society. Things do start to get darker very quickly, as things start to unravel and there is a fast pace, as this is by far my shortest book. I had forgotten this, and she was right. She also reminded me that my other books are concerned with ‘real-life’ problems ie eating disorders, bullies, evil step-fathers and missing mothers. The Tree Of Rebels does have some family drama, of course it does. In fact you could also describe it as coming of age as Lissie makes her journey, but it does not contain the same gritty subjects I usually handle. Again, she was right. It’s just different.

I’ve made a few decisions and I will blog again when I have them clearer in my head. Hopefully by the time I post again I will be feeling better about this book. I will have listened to the doubts, dealt with them and recognised that there is nothing wrong with The Tree Of rebels…it’s just different. At least for me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting To Know Your Characters

~ ChanAtkins ~ 7 Comments

For me, writing is all about the characters. It is the characters who come to me first, with their lives and their problems. I let them set up camp in my head for a bit, try to ignore them while I am busy with other things, and then, inevitably I can’t drown them out and they get the attention they demand. They get to tell their story. By the time I start jotting down notes about them and their story, I already feel like I know them quite well. In fact I usually feel quite smug about it. I do like character led fiction, you see, and it would not be unfair to assert that The Catcher In The Rye is probably my favourite book of all time.

I’ve read it tons of times, and never get bored, yet my husband couldn’t even manage it once. Boring, he said. Nothing really happens, except he moans and worries a lot. He does concede that there is a plot of sorts, one where the character goes on a bit of a jaunt, escapes his reality for a while and goes a little bit crazy in the process, but it was not enough of a plot to hold his interest.

For me, it was a case of falling in love. Feeling like I knew Holden, because Holden was so like me, and if he was real and we met in real life, we would really get along, and he would stop thinking everyone was phony. Anyway…off on a tangent there slightly, but I was trying to explain how important character is to me in fiction. I love it. Can’t get enough of it. Action, drama, suspense and thrills are all great, don’t get me wrong, but they all fall flat without great characters. Give me a few good characters doing not much, over a page turner with unlikable and unbelieveable ones, any day.

Developing characters, making them speak and act and think, is one of the best things about writing. It’s probably my favourite part of the whole thing. Yes I appreciate descriptive prose and beautiful narratives, and yes I have respect for a page-turning plot, and action that peaks and troughs at all the right times, but the characters are everything to me. Stories come from people, without people, there would be no stories.

With me, it is the people, and the stories that come first, and everything else evolves from there. But even so, I have had to admit to myself lately that I don’t know them as well as I think I do when I get started.

I often stumble along in the first draft, making notes, hitting walls, having great writing days followed by abysmal ones, and sometimes it is really hard to pinpoint what it is I’m struggling with. This happened a lot when I was writing the very first draft of what will be my next release, The Tree Of Rebels. You see, for the first time, I had the plot idea first. Weird. Luckily for me I already had a character in my head, and a name, and she had been lingering for a while, maybe wondering where she could slot in. So I used her and got started. I had most of it planned out, but obviously there were surprises along the way as well. My main aim was impressing my daughters and writing something dystopian in nature that would hold their attention and keep them gripped.

Maybe I focused too much on this. Maybe the waiting character I slotted in was not loud enough in my head. Whatever it was, I struggled. Then I realised something. I looked back on all of my novels, even the ones where the voice of the character had come to me before any kind of plot took place, and I realised that this was normal. Of course I didn’t know Lissie Turner that well yet. That was what I was struggling with. I’d gone into it assuming I knew her, assuming I understood her, and oh how wrong I was.

The first draft, no matter how intricately you have planned and described your precious characters, no matter how many lengthy bio’s you have scripted, no matter how many images of them you have found and pinned on Pinterest; the first draft is all about getting to know them. It’s like meeting a stranger for the first time and going on a little, somewhat awkward journey with them. Do they take sugar in tea? You don’t know, so you ask. Which way to they tend to lean politically? You’d like to know, but you’re scared to ask. Do they swear? Do they have a loud, or annoying laugh? How are they going to react when you start throwing hurdles and dilemmas at them?  You think you know, but you don’t.

Realising this really helped me to relax with that awkward first draft. I decided to just get it written, because I had the plot all in place, and that was the main thing to get done. All the themes and ideas and images and so on would work themselves out, would pop up and blend in, and tie up as they often tend to do naturally. And the same would happen with Lissie, and the other characters. By the end of the first draft, I knew them better. We had formed a friendship and would definitely be travelling together again soon. But things were still a tad tense, a tad clumsy.

I jumped into the second draft and saw it for what it was. It was going deeper, getting under the skin, revealing the flaws and the fears and the motives. I had to accept that Lissie was really a stranger to me, and then allow the following drafts to entice her to become known. I had to have faith that this process would happen, and that I would feel I knew her better with every draft I completed. Looking back, this is also what happened with my other books, although admittedly it was definitely easier because the characters started shouting at me before I thought up stories for them… but more and more of them became revealed to me with each draft, edit and rewrite. Now I could easily tell you exactly how any of those characters would react in any situation. I could tell you what they would do, say, think, what their facial expressions would be and so on. To me, they are real people. That is what needs to happen before characters can make the reader believe in them too.

I am just about to dive into the final draft of The Tree Of Rebels, and I cannot tell you how excited I am. It has been a challenge, this book, for many reasons, not least the issue I just explained. I have decided to make some major changes, so the final draft may actually become more of a rewrite, than a last edit.

I am wary of the process and scared I will fail. But one thing I do feel better about. One thing I do feel confident about now. I know Lissie Turner. Finally, truly, I know her inside and out, and that is going to help make this thing work more than anything else!