The lengths I go to

[pjthompson]

Nice discussion of desired book lengths from editorialass and friends here.

The fantasy novel I am reslogging through is now tipping the scales at just over 121k (SMF). That will come down, but I just finished going over the horrific travelogue known as chapter 5 trying to make it work. I came up with a better frame to hang the travelogue on, cut a couple of pages of infoage, but added scenes which replaced the pages cut plus another.

And it's still a damned travelogue! ::sigh::

I need to rethink the entire thing, but I'm fresh out of ideas at the moment, so I'm pushing forward, hoping something will rattle loose as I go. I just hope I don't do my usual trick of "It's out of my sight so I don't have to think about it anymore!"

Comments

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

In the midst of my own travelogue at the moment. It sucks doesn't it? You have to get the info across (in my case, because it's a new culture and the character [and reader] are just being exposed to it) but how the hell do you make it interesting? I'm just plowing through it now since it's first draft and I need to figure out how the culture works in the first place, but DAMN it's boring!

[pjthompson]

Yeah, it's horrible! I plowed through it in the first draft and here in the second draft it's plowing into me. ;-/ I'm holding out for a miracle somewhere down the line. Good luck with your own!

[merebrillante.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry for you that your book is so long.

meep

I really am.

eep

And to think how I've bemoaned the shortness of my own mss.

...


...


...


BWAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

::hrmph::

I'm really very, very sorry.

[pjthompson]

You are an EEEvile woman.

(I'm sorry it's so long, too.)

[windsong5.livejournal.com]

I feel for you. :) I'm going through one of my own. I look at what I've written on the screen and get nauseated just thinking about all the work that's a head of me.

I hope something rattles loose for you soon. Good luck!

[pjthompson]

I know the nausea! The thing is, I don't think it's a bad piece of work, it just needs a lot of fixing and, as you say, it gets daunting. Then everything I look at starts to look like c**p...

[windsong5.livejournal.com]

I totally understand. It's not the work that's bad, just the reworking that's hard. *sigh* Wouldn't it be nice if everything came out clean the first time?

But as hard as this process is, at least you can see where you need to make changes. It's difficult, but seeing is winning half the battle. And for the other half of the battle, if those words would all just sit still for a moment... :)

[pjthompson]

But as hard as this process is, at least you can see where you need to make changes.

True. I don't always see how, but definitely see the need. I have to have faith that the solution will present itself in time. That's how these things usually go for me.