My latest manuscript, my NaNoWriMo novel, "Forever My Song" was a rough draft outline of 80,000+ words. With 71 chapters. That's a bit much for a non-epic novel. Sadly. And I've been stuck for weeks on this one…been trying desperately to make some progress, and though "writer's block" has not been the issue, finding the next place to go with the manuscript has been because of feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of it. Well, last night, I managed to figure out what my problem was (as you guessed by the number of chapters), I had too much info in this for one book, one story, one set of characters.
"But I can't cut that! It's too important!" Yeah, yeah. You've heard that in your own head as you've edited, too, haven't you? "Well, tough toe-nails, Juanita! Cut it anyway!" And that's what I did. I sat down with the original 71 chapter outline and this is what I did.
I turned off my emotions…and separated myself from my beautiful characters–this step is key, my friends!
And I ended up with only 49 chapters of the original 71 (that's 22 chapters cut!).
This entry was posted in Forever My Song, NaNoWriMo, writing, writing tips and tagged books about rock bands, fiction, Forever My Song, Manuscript, novels, writing, writing tips.