Monday, January 29, 2007

How do I know when I'm done?

I was up until midnight working on my novel. I'm getting pretty tired of the first three chapters, but I need to get them perfect. There's a lot of stuff that happens later on in the story that needs to be introduced in the beginning, but because I was writing it during NaNoWriMo, I didn't get it in there before. Now I have to go back and add it.

And then there's the question of how graphic do I want to be. There's a violent scene in chapter 3, but I'm considering editing it heavily to just get the general idea across. I mean, it becomes very obvious later exactly what happened, so do I really need to spell it out?

Being a romance, I'm also wondering how much description of the main characters should I go into? I want the reader to get a general idea of what they look like, but I don't want to get into ridiculous detail. It's important for me that the reader fall in love with the guy, too, but at the same time, he has ulterior motives for what he does that are going to surprise everyone.

Maybe I'm being too much of a perfectionist. I don't know. I think I'll post the first chapter tomorrow and get some non-biased opinions. The first chapter is the only one I feel is pretty much finished, so I could use some critiques. Watch this space!

4 comments:

  1. Oh, cool. Will look forward to reading it!

    And go you! for keeping up with your writing!

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  2. Yeah - keeping up with your writing.

    I am now just starting to edit my Nanobook. oh boy - there is a lot of stuff I need to fix.

    My best suggestion is to have someone else read the book (who is in no way related to you). That way - they can give you ideas on what they like or don't like or can't understand, etc....

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  3. I can't wait to read it :-)

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  4. I think more is better...get out what's in your head. You can always edit it down later if necessary.

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