Journey Of A Novel

Menu

reality

The ugly lights

Tanya V 29 October 2022

The ugly lights is what my friends and I call the house lights that are turned on at the end of the night when the party is over and it’s time to get going. A ‘good night’ is when you stay as long as you can but leave before the ugly lights come on; it’s all in the timing.

I’m not confident that I can apply the same sort of timing to my writing, I think that perhaps the ugly lights have already come on and that I need to just step away from the keyboard. BUT! It doesn’t feel done to me. I’m tinkering and tweaking and walking away to give some space then returning with a sigh and a head scratch at the state of the final chapter.

A friend gave me a writing book that details the process; I skipped to the end hoping for some insight about my final chapter only to be met with an overview of the incongruousness of fiction and reality. The author talked about suspension of disbelief versus reality, and how life doesn’t have tidy endings so it can be challenging for a writer to end their story.

It was a good point and I take it.

Within the game plan that I’ve made for myself the state of this chapter is the most incomplete that I have left any chapter to date, but I am going to suck it up and move on. I promised myself at least 3 drafts so reluctantly I will move forward. In starting over from the beginning again with fresh eyes I hope to find the right ending.

From telling to showing and beyond

Tanya V 22 August 2021

My original outline of chapters was nine in total, I now expect to write eleven at least, perhaps more. The extra breathing space that I was looking for in the process of writing and the clearer vision of the story that I’m telling, I have found in doing the work. More time and focus would be even better but hey, I’m just learning when it comes to writing a book.

Chapter eight is coming into view along with strengthening themes. With the conclusion of the novel coming into sight the story ground that has been covered is marked with the imprints of themes that have emerged in the wake of the protagonist’s movement throughout. Factoring in the themes that over arc the narrative was one of the considerations that I circled over in my mind for years. I wanted to figure out how to do justice to the themes and how to capture these ideas with imagery; when sitting down to write I’d get hung up on an idealised version of the outcome. Working through each chapter in turn, as I have for this first draft, has taken away the frozen moments where I sat awaiting the perfect words that would serve the story on every level from telling to showing and beyond.

The closer I get to the end the more I think about the earlier chapters. I want to revisit them and bring them into line with the story that my novel has become. Even with this though I still don’t have a clear vision of how it will end, or even the lead up to the end. The bones of the story are there but the details will be revealed to me when I write them.

For most of the story the protagonist has travelled into the unknown with little direction and few people met along the way. The last chapters veer from this course driven by a new found certainty that the protagonist has connected with. The journey through the pages has no extra information on the path that should be followed but the experiences from preceding chapters have brought to light things previously hidden as choices available. There is still a way to go but I am coming full circle in my thinking about the narrative and again wanting to make it funny, make it fun, make it real.

The story type is the hero’s journey formula which brings together the beginning and end as it circles back on itself.

At the beginning I wondered how I could add humour.

At the beginning the story was about someone who knew themselves and their world, or thought that they did. Nearing the end, they have begun to recognise themselves again. The humour that I want to use is to capture the sense of fun that comes with knowing who you are and laughing because something is funny even when no-one else thinks so.

Creating reality one question at a time

Tanya V 5 April 2021

The narrative in the part of chapter four that I’m writing is sparse. The section is based on a folklore tale that has lots of sketchy detail and imagery that is far from reality. How much weight in reality my novel has is something that I have struggled with in the past. It has previously tripped me up and stopped me from getting into writing. What is reality anyway? How “real” does a story need to be? Is truth stranger than fiction? In reality people believe in ghosts, some cultures honour their ancestors as if they still live, and people build their beliefs and values on things that they cannot see, touch or experience. When is something far-fetched? Does it matter? Can I write questions forever without ever answering any of them? All these questions and more plagued me for a long time but then I came to accept that none of the questions have to matter.

The world is made up of individuals who have unique experiences and are able to identify with others based on the shared experience of the human condition. That is my understanding and logic of what reality is, and based on it I no longer struggled over the idea of reality within the context of my novel and writing my novel began. I need to be clear about what I’m writing and not lost in the peripheral variables of the unknown.

So, I decided to skirt along the edge of reality making things questionable with the use of language and imagery. Just like life it may be hard to determine at times what is real or what is a vision. There are points where reality shifts through personal realisations and the world looks different. Characters will grow and change and transform in ways they could not foresee. People will face challenges that provoke a response in them that they would not otherwise have had causing transformation in both inner and outer worlds.

I’m still chugging through chapter four making progress but not at the speed I want. There’s been demands on my time and distractions taking my focus away from my novel but I am still writing regularly. That’s my resolve; even if I don’t have the blocks of time that I want to apply to writing I will still write with regularity, and I am doing this. I’ve added another 200 words which is not as many a I’d like but they read well for first draft work. The last few days I have been off track from my list so I’m back onto it with at least an hour writing each day at the top of my list. Research is up to date with this section so the writing of it is what needs to be done. Time for me to get real and get writing.