My young adult novel is coming along very nicely. I started with an interesting scenario featuring a boy and his grandfather facing monsters in an alley, and the story has progressed well in my mind. I’ve written this as I have all of my previous longer works over the past few years–a first draft of a chapter and the LOTS of polishing before moving on to the next chapter.
I had already decided to stop doing this after I had written chapter two, but my recent experience at my writer’s group confirmed this was a good idea. Chapter two features a lot of violent explosions of a similar nature, and I was so focused on making them different and compelling that in the process of rewriting I lost sight of pace and style. In short, I overwrote the chapter with adverbs and unecessary elements.
I had a simple idea of a calm surrounded by storm, and I lost sight of it in the rewriting process.
I’ve always wanted to write straight through and do one whole draft at a time, but I guess I’m a bit of a perfectionist and can’t stand moving on from a chapter if I’m not happy with it. That changed for sure when I saw how poorly my draft changes were and how they affected the pace of the story. So now I’m going to just keep writing and save the rewrites for when I’m finished.
A few days ago I finished the next chapter, and I immediately began on another one. I didn’t have any problem doing that at all, so I think I’m ready to follow the advice of many others and keep moving forward.
Although that problematic second chapter keeps calling to me. “Fix me! Fix me!” it cries. But I cruelly am ignoring it. Fixing can come when the novel is over.
