22 November 2010

The Death-Point Of Plot

I know this is a rather late announcement, but I thought I'd mention to you, dear readers, that despite my lack of good writing music, despite having to write exclusively on a time-shared computer (supplemented only by Lila), and despite having to do the better part of my writing between the hours of 9 AM and 3 PM (the hours when I most want to curl up and sleep), I finally reached 50 000 words on the novel!
I officially crossed the threshold on the evening of 20 November. I haven't reached the end of the plot yet (which was my goal, so that's nice), but I haven't got as much left in the plot as I thought.
Last night I was forced to introduce a rather impromptu flood (which wasn't supposed to happen until the sequel), simply for the sake of staving off the final climax. I was hoping to at least come close to 75 000 words this year, but unfortunately my brain has completely checked out and it appears that I'll finish off the novel in a similar fashion to an Olympic speedskater -- race around the ice at speeds that reach 60 kilometres an hour, then at the end stop almost on the proverbial dime and then practically collapse with exhaustion.
This has been my ending for the previous three novels, and I was so determined that it would not be the case this time. This time I was going to keep writing after 50 000 and actually have a nicely-sized novel at the month's close, since I've discovered that revising my previous novels usually means they go from 51 000 words to 45 000. Not the direction one wants to go when they're writing a novel they want others to take seriously.
I've found that my main problem is detailing. I hate writing details, not because the details don't interest me (the setting I often have in my head is usually slightly eccentric and thus rather fascinating), but because I get so bored just typing out anything resembling detail, I tend to skip right past all of it. I've tried so hard to make my writing fast and interesting that instead of simply keeping the details to a minimum I've completely obliterated them.
Which is why I'm so frustrated now.
I can think of at least five scenes off of the top of my head that could easily have a little more detail infused in them, but when I go back to try to add some so I can get more words, my brain completely freezes and I get bored before I even type one word.
However, this flood I've arbitrarily injected into it is aggravating me to no end. The flood simply does not belong in this story. There is no way I can twist it or bend it to make it fit nicely. However, I've completely run out of more feasible stalling techniques, so flood it has to be I suppose...

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