Time to set my post NaNoWriMo goals.
First: Finish the novel. I'm at the 76K maker and just coming to the end of Act 2. But I hit a little snag. My story was originally planned out as a potential TV series with 5 years and cliffhangers spread out over the life of the series. It has since been changed to a trilogy and during NaNoWriMo 2014 I have started Book 1.
But the first book shouldn't have a cliffhanger. I am writing it to be a self-contained book; however, since it has a thick mythology (like LOST) everything won't be explained. In fact, Book 1 will sprinkle in the mysteries of the town and each book will delve deeper. So there will be some things left untold, but the main issue will be resolved.
In order to resolve it, I want all my main characters to come together. But one character was a little harder to play with. So I had to pause and start to plan a bit and change up what would work in a season finale but not for a Book 1 ending. And the light is starting to shine!
Second: Edit, Edit, Edit! Did I mention I need to edit? Thank goodness for Scrivener and all the little keywords and labels I have set up.
- Make sure there are no plot holes
- No subplots left hanging (so I will probably need to add a couple of scenes).
- I wrote so plainly to get everything down fast. Better known as vomiting out words. So I need better sentences. Dissect every sentence and make them better.
- Make sure I don't head-hop. 5 MCs and I am using 3rd person multiple. Make sure each scene has one POV. If it really needs 2 then I will be doing a hand-off. Start with POV 1, go to POV 2 and not return to POV 1
- Dialogue. I need to go through every person's dialogue, character by character and make sure they have a distinctive voice. Really hard when I have 5 MCs.
Third: Peer reviews. I will be going to Scribophile to get some critiques
A lot of work to do... #AmWriting
