Friday, June 5, 2009

Lesson Learned

Until now, whenever I've hit a blank in my novel, I've jumped ahead to another scene and written that instead. That's how I keep myself interested in what I'm writing.

I've now discovered a flaw in this.

For the last week, I've had only about 4,000 words to go on my wip. I've been writing about 1,500 per day all week, and I still have 4,000 words to go. Why?

Because as I write, subtle elements change and suddenly whole scenes I'd written previously just don't work anymore. I've deleted just as much this past week as I've actually written. The story feels stronger, but I'd have saved a great deal of effort if I'd written this in a linear fashion.

From now on I'm taking Jackie Ashenden's advice. If I get stuck or bored with a story, I'm going to 'jump' to a completely different manuscript instead of jumping around inside the same one.

It's just been a demoralising way to learn the lesson.

4 comments:

  1. Ooooh, thanks Romy. I used to jump scenes within a wip too but you're right, you can lose the thread of what you were doing. Jumping whole manuscripts is much better! I don't know if it works for everyone but it's a godsend for me.

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  2. Jumping definitely works for me too when I'm feeling blocked. Good luck, the end is nigh but in a good way :-)

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  3. Hey Romy

    I've contemplated jumping ahead in my wips a LOT lately cos I seem to be getting stuck at whole lot more than I used too :) I guess the joys of being unpublished is that we have the luxury to work on whatever we feel like, so I say... go for it!!

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