Journey Of A Novel

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tense

Tense about tense

Tanya V 10 March 2021

I’ve managed to delete about 500 words to bring the chapter one word count below 5,000 words. It feels good to have done it, it was easier to delete words than I thought it would be and it highlighted the story by removing what served only as fluff. Reading through to cull words and sentences as a task though is a challenging exercise because it’s difficult to be mindful of the flow at the same time. There are sections that need more attention regarding the flow of the story. Less is more is a great rule that serves to bring what’s important into the foreground. I want the story to speak to the imagination and carry the reader along effortlessly. Whether I can do this or not will be in the reading of it by another which is the next step when I put this first draft of chapter one aside.

Time has been eaten away so easily when I read back through my work. It was a worthwhile exercise; I have rewritten some sentences to better convey the story and without these read-throughs I wouldn’t have managed to do that.

There are so many things that I could continue to fuss over that would keep my attention fixed on chapter one for another week to a month. There is character, symbolism, doubling up of language, and the tense. The tense has been doing my head in. The story passes through a large stretch of time already. The whole story is told in the past, and it begins in the past, but steps into focused points of time for some parts, which are still in the past, but more immediate… So many pasts in one story. This shifting of time does serve the purpose of relaying a time lost, a questionable time, a timelessness that is part of this tale. Keeping track of the tenses has made me tense in real time, it eats up a lot of my focus.

For now I’m more interested in getting the story onto the page than making it perfect. Chapter one is ready for some fresh eyes to read it, so I’ll pass it onto a friend who has volunteered to read for me. I’m very lucky to have had this offer, I only expect to get another’s insight and feedback. If feedback includes editing, tense and/or story notes then that is even more of a bonus for me. Really, whatever my friend wants to contribute re: reading I’m grateful for their input. A new perspective on my work will be very welcome.

I’m ready to move on to chapter two.

Making progress

Tanya V 4 March 2021

It’s turned out to be really fun writing today taking an adventure back through ground already covered. I had the sensation of reminiscing through an old photo album with memories coming alive and new insights with what I know now. I covered a lot of ground connecting words written at different times in different places from prompts over the years. The outcome was good, the work I’ve put in previously is useful and I’m pleased. When I read back over this writing in the past the disconnection between pieces had bothered me, I wondered if I wasted a lot of time on words that don’t matter. The tone is different in some parts, others have a different narrative POV, some was written in a different tense. Over the years I’ve written whatever I felt like writing at the time, or with whatever method I was teaching for the session with no regard for the larger piece coming together. Of course I can’t use all these as they were written but I have been surprised how I can marry together words written in very different pieces.

Restructuring sections into new writing creates a depth that I would’ve had to contemplate for longer if writing only fresh words now. There are parts that I had forgotten that I’d written and other parts that I’d written more than once, which provide a variety of perspectives on scenes, reactions, motivations and story.

The word count for the chapter one document is nearly 10,000 words. I’m depositing sections of writing at the end of the document by copying and pasting them their as I pick through and scavenge from my past work. Some parts I’ve already flagged to consider for other chapters because they work better with the development that I’ve done this past month restructuring the narrative. Other parts I’ve slotted at the end because I have taken what I need, I’m just keeping them there in case I have use for them while I work on the chapter. The writing to keep as chapter one is nearing 5,000 words which is too many, more words will have to be culled before I can move on beyond chapter one.

There’s a real sense of being on the home stretch for this chapter, what that means in terms of how many days, I don’t know. What I do know is that the end is in sight for chapter one – first draft. Chapter two is on my mind. The focus remains on chapter one though, I’m only allowing details of chapter two to creep into my mind with regards to where I am going to connect the chapters together.