Where do I go from here!

Hi All
I am new to this forum and to writing. I have always felt I have a story in me ever since I read War of the Worlds when I was about 14.

I have always been fascinated by books and movies about humans survival after a Nuclear War or Alien invasion and such like. I have always wanted to write a book from my view point but without the Hollywood glamour of being a gun toting martial arts warrior. I also wanted to base it in the UK, in areas I actually know.

The novel is based on Brett (my character) and his family flying into the UK after a holiday in the states. During the flight a mysterious green mist came down over the world killing everyone other than people who were flying or underground.

Brett and his group start by surviving in Hastings but due to a set to with a military style group that is forming in the South, they move on North.

Some weeks later the Aliens land and it is discovered they are mining our world for copper. Electronics have been disabled and only old vehicles without electronics, are usable.

The story them moves on to the group travelling to a safe haven in Scotland, having various adventures with bad people and Aliens.

I basically just wrote and wrote my story. At about 40,000 words, my wife read it as she is my biggest critic and she loved it.

Trouble is, I am now 100,000 words in and I have lots to write. I have not even started our fight back against the Aliens and I am worried the novell will be too long. However, I don't want to rush to an ending!

So, what do I do? Just write from the heart and carry on, letting the book make its own legnth or do I need to have a re-think?

By the way. I am not too worried about publishing. I intend binding around 10 books as gifts for my family but I want them to enjoy the book.

I would be grateful for just 1 reply. I really would.

Many Thanks

 

You story sounds a bit like The Day of the Triffids. Not that that is a bad thing.

If having gone through what you have already written and don't see any need for drastic pruning, then perhaps you may want to consider splitting the book. The first dealing with the basic need to survive the first encounters with the aliens, and the second volume the fight back.

 

I agree with Bryan. If your book seems too long, split it in two. It's what I've done with my stories.

I also did the opposite, when a story seemed too short I put it in a book with multiple stories.

 

This is your first, rough draft, so I wouldn't worry about length. Just write to your heart's content and let the story take its shape. And after you're finished, reread it, edit it, and rewrite it. That's when the hard work actually begins. A member of the forum on here had a 400,000 word novel that he finally cut down to 100,000 after editing. Others, even after editing, find their novels too long and decide to split it into 2 or more books instead. Both of these are possibilities, but you won't know which one your book will end up being until you're done writing.

So finish your draft first without worries - sounds like you're doing well so far - and once it's finished, you'll know what your story is actually about, and what is actually important to have in the story. You'll know what needs cutting, or adding, as the case may be. You'll know whether the pacing of the novel is good and according to that, whether you need to delete chapters or expand on scenes.

Since you say you're only intending to give it away as gifts to friends anyway, I don't think you need to worry too much about it being "too long". Simply worry about finishing it, and once it's finished, worry about whether it's written well

In other words, keep writing, and keep enjoying it!

 

I think the problem with "too long" books, independent of their publish-ability, is that they may drag. That's if they're too long because they weren't properly edited.

Some books have a big story to tell, and even with good editing they'll still be long. Other books have a regular-length story but can get bloated b/c the author doesn't know how to keep the writing tight.

It's hard to know which of these we're looking at, based on your description. But it might be something for you to think about as you go. What's the point of the scene you're currently writing, and is it absolutely necessary to the story you want to tell? Are you telling it in the most concise way possible, while still getting across the details you need included? If so, keep going. If not, you're probably going to want to do some cutting, either now or later.

 

Thank you all so much.
What's great about your replies is you have pretty much confirmed what I have been thinking.

1. To carry on as I am.
2, To consider two books (although I would rather just one).

Your replies have given me the confidence to carry on writing and I must admit, I was worried about writing more with the doubts I was having.

Yes, it is a bit Day of the Triffid's Bryan, which was also one of my favourite books after War of the Worlds! Hopefully it is different enough not to look copy cat

 

I'm on the fence. I'm totally with Mcck to keep going but I'm also with Baywrite to maybe be aware of what you're writing as you continue on. A lot of my novels have been big behemoths. One I'm working on now is over 2,000 pages on paper ( approximate ) - but actually about half that when worked out accurately. Too many characters too much going on but I'm having an easier time editing it and figuring stuff out than another story I wrote called Crimson Waters which was 800 pages ( and no ending in site ) and yet it only had 3 main characters. My problem with that story was everything was described. Every thought, action, article of clothing, everything. It was hard to look at and decide what, at that point, was relevant and how to sift through the irrelevance to find the relevance.

I'd suggest maybe posting a piece and getting some feedback - maybe it's as everyone says it could be a book that's expanding into sequels or it could be that some brevity is needed.

 

It sounds like you have a decision on your hands. Either this story is either a 100,000 word story that can be its own stand-alone novel, or a 300,000 word story that requires a trilogy.

Take chapters and objectively look at what is really happening. If you're someone who routinely writes blocks of 5,000 words where nothing is happening, then you know you have to prune. Look at chapters and see what they accomplish. If all it does is "This character is no longer mad at that character" - that's a problem. Things like that are important, but you can't drag them out. Make sure you're not writing as though you're paid by the word.

If there is significant plot movement - characters are in progress, they have a clear objective, or are in the process of figuring out the next objective, and are working toward meeting it. Character development, exploration of themes, exposition, should be woven with plot advancement so that they progress more or less in parallel.

So a character interaction advancement like "This character is no longer mad at that character" can take multiple chapters to resolve, but because it's threaded with the rest of the story, doesn't actually take too many words while still feeling like it was done in depth.

If you are writing and meaningful things are consistently happening, then you should consider splitting it into a duology.

 

Thanks again.
I have read what I have written from the begining and I do belive the story moved forward with each chapter. For example.

Chapter one, they land from holiday and find something terrible has happened
Chapter two, they find transport and travel to their home town.
Chapter three, individual characters go to their own homes to check on family and friends (all dead).
Chapter four, group finds a large house to settle together in.
and so on.

I am not sure there is a trilogy but maybe two books but as I have said I would rather one book at around 175 words. Is that too long?

 

175 k words? That's about what, close to 600 pages? Is that the length your shooting for? Some publishers don't want books that long from newbies but given your genre who knows. You could read up on some of the publishers you'd like to approach when you're done, see if they have any guidelines. When I was writing a children's book years ago I checked into Scholastic's guidelines and tried to keep my book under a certain page count/ word count.

 

I didn't set out to write any length but just to write the book that I have had in me for years, It just happens it will be about that length.

 

Sounds like sound advice... though, for myself, I know, cutting is difficult, because some things actually aren't necessary for the end/goal of the story, but look like they are because they fit into the flow of how I wrote it... But, having reread through it all, you probably have a better idea of where you want all this to go? Sure, you're writing the story without a conscious motive of publishing or getting out a message, but can you analyze it and yourself for your potential latent motive? What makes you write this? What sort of theme brings it all together? Or are there significantly different themes?
You mentioned your love of writing stemming particularly from War of the Worlds (and for this, The Day of the Triffids)... I can understand writing something like what you admire as kind of like playing a piece of music is a more enjoyable (and difficult!) experience than just listening to it...
But getting fresh eyes on it, (even just parts), is probably your best bet, (coming from a bat who knows that rereading your own story for the umpteenth time doesn't actually tell you if it drags/gets hard to follow...
Best of luck to you with your writing!

 

Though not so much to incite you to rip off Wyndham, I strongly suggest you read The Day Of The Triffids for the following reasons:

1) it's set in the UK
2) it's not a lengthy book, quite thin, in fact, which makes it no less epic or full of action.
3) it deals with a similar kind of phenomena
4) the language is dispassionate, factual, matter-of-factly just like it should be.


With your word count and no explicit encounter with the aliens, your story might get a bit tedious. Postponing the grand opening until the very end might be off-putting.

 

I say carry on without worrying about the length. Most writers' first novels undergo a huge word count change during the editing process--either a very sparse first draft gets fleshed out, or an inflated first draft gets streamlined--so it's too early to worry about it. The important thing at this stage is to get the story finished.

 

Okay, I am back here. I have to admit, I had completely forgotten about this post. Sorry to those of you that replied and I did not acknowledge.

Well, I am a year on and still have the same sort of issues going on.

I am now at 135000 words. I have read back through the book and don't see much I could take out but nor do I see two books. I am also concerned that I started writing before I really did any research on 'how' to write. I worry now that I have done a rubbish job and should have done more research before I started.

So, I am here to read threads, pick up ideas and then, I think, I am going to read through again and re-write using what I learn.

I am reading 'Creative Writing' by Adele Ramet, is there any other material people can advise?

I am also reading some UK based Apocalypse type novels and yes, will try Day of the Triffids, I have read that before I think. Also watched the series many years back (laughable now).

I am determined to do this. Even if it turns out what I have written is not good, I will do my best to get it right!

 

This is the post I would have done, so, I will just second it. Write your story as it emerges until you finish the story. At that point, you have turned air into gold and you have a wealth of material to mine from.
Godspeed!

 

I didn't even realise this was a two-year old thread when I posted. I'm guessing this wasn't the writing problem you referenced in your intro post, steve?

135,000 words is definitely not a disaster. 110,000 is comfortable but you can probably push it to 120,000 if it's really good. Has anyone else read it? If you find some beta readers and ask them to identify areas they felt dragged, or had too much info, or whatever, you might find you can cut 15k. I got my first novel down from 113k to 97k.

 

Yep, the first draft of Under the Knife clocked in at a whopping 147,000 words, which is quite long for contemporary romance. With my editor's help I was able to drop it to 95,000 words. After writing another book that was admittedly thin on building the story and romance, I had to create a lot of new material after the fact. I found it's a lot easier to cut things out than add things in during the editorial process.

 

Back again,

I had a couple of reads back through my novel and despite the fact I have written some more of it, I have reduced the word count down to 129k words. I then left it for a year! Lockdown should have been a great oppurtunity to write more or even complete it but well, it didnt happen.

I would say its is finished now and by that I mean, it has the begining, middle and an end. I have written everything I wanted to get in the book and the story has been told. It feels like that is just the easy bit as now I need to make it a 'really good read' and make it flow! There are bits I dont like and even a character that I want to write out of the novel as, I feel he is pointless and add little, if anything to the story. I ended up killing him off just because I couldnt think of where to go with him.

I have had two friends and my daughter read it and had good feedback by all. Its okay, I know that feedback from three people that care about you does not make a book publishable but I did choose people that wouldnt just tell me its great and would give me some negative as well as positive feedback and they did. The good thing was that a couple of points, one positive and one negative, they ALL came back with and btw. none of them know each other, so they had not discussed it.

So, I have just started another read through and this time, I will be re-writing and polishing up. I will not move on from a chapter until I am completely happy with it.

One question. Is it worth putting a chapter or two on here? Is it okay to do that?

I think over the coming weeks I will be using this site a lot and hopefully may get to know a couple of you. I hope I dont fade away again. I just noticed that I first started writing this back in 2014 (may have been 2013) so, there has been a lot of time invested in it. I have to get it done, even if it is only ever read by family and friends.

 

Even if you write in a kind of "stream of consciousness" way, you need to structure what you're doing into a beginning, middle and end or you will start going off on tangents or get stuck at a dead end. Also, "you" aren't going anywhere--it's your characters that drive the story, and "plot" is only the stage things happen on.

 

It's perfectly fine to do that, but if you want to put chapters on the site, you need to put it the writing workshop section. You also need to give critiques for other users on their writing workshop posts before you are allowed to request feedback on your own work. I believe you must give constructive feedback for at least two other posts for every chapter you would like critiqued, if I recall correctly.

 

Okay, thanks for that. I feel a little inexperienced to offer feedback on other peoples work but I can give feedback 'as a reader' of course.

 

This is something I have tried to do. It has been made easier because my book is based on a journey, so I have tried to keep the group moving from place to place and their 'final goal' at the end. Great advice though and as I do my read throough, I will try to ensure I have not 'stagnated anywhere' for too long.