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A Second Novel
It's funny. As I was plowing through the Hogwarts story and the Changeling stuff, I kept saying that it wasn't like real writing, that the reason my daily word counts were so high was because it was SO much easier than actual writing, and people seemed to kind of doubt that.
Two days in to my second original actual novel, and I feel very vindicated. Starting on an actual page one, with only a vague sense of where things are going? Much harder. Infinitely harder, then writing up events I half remember, stories for which know the end. I don't know how many words I've written, either, because I've been really slaving over my notes, unlike last time. I'm determined not to have the muddle I had in my first novel. ;)
(here's my plot: "over the course of a very long war, both countries have used mercenaries to fight for them so much that this has become a serious problem. Mercenaries are bad." My device: "relate how mercenaries are bad and what will be done about them in a series of entwining stories where elements and characters from earlier stories grow involved in later stories." That's everything I know.)
Two days in to my second original actual novel, and I feel very vindicated. Starting on an actual page one, with only a vague sense of where things are going? Much harder. Infinitely harder, then writing up events I half remember, stories for which know the end. I don't know how many words I've written, either, because I've been really slaving over my notes, unlike last time. I'm determined not to have the muddle I had in my first novel. ;)
(here's my plot: "over the course of a very long war, both countries have used mercenaries to fight for them so much that this has become a serious problem. Mercenaries are bad." My device: "relate how mercenaries are bad and what will be done about them in a series of entwining stories where elements and characters from earlier stories grow involved in later stories." That's everything I know.)
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Your word counts were so high for a lot of reasons. One is that you already knew where the story was going. Some of the highest-output writers I know? Work from detailed outlines. Also, your mental stance toward those projects was different: you didn't let yourself be intimidated by them, because they weren't novels (regardless of word count); they were "just game writing." Etc.
These have nothing to do with whether it's "like real writing" or not.
Real writing is writing that results in words on the page. In this specific context, it's writing fiction of a certain length. Beyond that, you're just playing mind games with yourself.
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It takes a lot more energy and creativity to write not just characters, but original descriptions and plots, then it does to write something that is all layed out before me.
And anyway, I feel like it'd be lame to call the Hogwarts story a novel, even though it's technically long enough, because of how relatively little original work it constitutes - it's
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I find it interesting that you keep trying to tackle the plot device you've described, rather than going with something that would probably feel more natural (a first-person single-narrator story, frex). Nothing wrong with doing that, but when you couple it with the newness of the idea itself, then yes -- it's to be expected that you'll go slower.
Kind of like MNC went faster partly because I knew more of my major plot points in advance than I usually do.
But anyway, don't freak out just because you're going slower. Take some time, if you can, to chew on the story -- while you're showering or walking somewhere or otherwise not needing your brain -- because the more you chew on it, the better a grip you'll have on it, and then the writing will come more easily and cleanly.
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