Pre-Writing Complete – The Climb #786

Sunday 18^th April 2021

So the first draft of the pre-writing is done. It feels a bit weird to stop there and go back and edit what I’ve done, especially as the story feels like it is still coming together.

One of the things I’ve noticed is how bare bones the novel feels. I’ve put this together over a short time and as such there’s not the depth that comes from having had the characters and their situations simmer away in the back of my head. Thankfully, that’s coming out in the pre-writing but the synopsis feels its lacking that gestation period I usually need. At least the depth is there, even if it’s coming out in a later stage than normal. I feel I’m still discovering things as I write but it feels like additional layers rather than a huge right turn in the story.

I wrote an interesting character yesterday. He fits in with the whole plot of the book, plus I already know some secrets of his that aren’t going to be on the page for some time. But he came from nowhere, and was born out of a subconscious need for a few more subplots in this novel.

Whilst I feel I’ve been working on this for much longer than I have, and hence feel behind, I am actually on schedule with this. However, this week I need to get two things done.

First I need to edit the pre-writing. I had planned to use a mix of tense, past tense for the flashbacks, present tense for the current storyline. I may still do that. There are secret reasons to this. But I might just leave it all as past tense for the pre-writing. I can always change it later.

At the same time I need to write up the synopsis. I’ve done a little work on this already, but with a lot of characters and a few subplots yet to be drawn out of the narrative, this work is proving hard. I know some people find the mere act of writing synopsises difficult, but I’m lucky in that the way I plot and plan my novels feeds into this. I’m not saying I’ve got it totally sorted, but squeezing the story isn’t really a problem, and if anything when it there are difficulties, it’s a bit of a red flag to me.

Importantly here, the issue my synopsis is highlighting here is that the secondary plots need pulling out. They’re there (as evidenced by this new character who came out of nowhere) and I suspect would reveal themselves in the writing, but I’ve not got them all mapped out right now.

I want to get this all done by mid-week as I have another project that needs my attention I need to start by the end of the week.

It’s busy, busy.