April 10, 2008: So THAT is what's wrong with the novel!
While organizing the completed sections of the novel today, I discovered that I have a good 25,000 words of stuff to contrive out of thin air--stuff I haven't planned or considered or even figured out. A 25,000-word black hole.
While discovering this, I figured out what's wrong with me as a novel writer: I am a simplifier, and the act of novel-writing is one of complication.
I'm a person of bulleted lists and index cards. It is almost physically painful to write a story of a bloated, top-heavy, tiresome clot of 5,000 words, much less a novel essentially comprised of sixteen of them.
As a writer who prides himself on efficiently kicking people in the 'nads with his short fiction, I'm filled with dread to think of kicking and kicking and kicking like that. I'm sure you are, too.
Sigh. Bring on the subplots!
Comments
I can't imagine attempting such a task. I had to write a 20 page paper once, 12 pages we're filler, BS.
Posted by: Richard | April 14, 2008 8:13 AM