Miscellaneous

A reflection post

Writing Sparkle

This year I am writing a novel.

There are a couple things that I have considered in some way or another over the last few months. The first thing is that chapter one has been the hardest chapter to write to date. I know as I write this post today that I am not happy with chapter one and that it is either going to need extensive revisions or to be re-written completely. The chapters that after it have all flowed and left me feeling pleased. So, I suppose in that way chapter one is a success since that is where the following chapters stem from. All that said, I am somewhat curious about how the final chapter will go. Will it flow or will I struggle with is like I did with chapter one?

Interestingly chapter eleven seemed to take me along time to write. There wasn’t any struggle with the content, I knew what was needed in the chapter and where I wanted it to go. Maybe there were just more distractions. I wrote it in chunks and pieced it together. It will be interesting to see how it holds up when I do a full book read!

Anyway, my second reflection is about my research/background notes. When I first set out on this novel writing journey I did a lot of notes from character profiles, setting, background history that is important but will never be in the novel itself, and there has research on things that popped into the story along the way I needed to be authentic but that I didn’t know much about… So, I have two 200 page spiral notebooks almost full of notes. There have been times, especially near the beginning, when I questioned if it was necessary but as I have moved further into the writing and less in the way of notes I really came to appreciate it. It has saved me time at this backend. It has been great for referencing and building off of in some cases. If I forget something I don’t have to find it in the pages of the novel I can quickly find it in the notebooks which I have marked with coloured pens and sticky notes. I think I may even have material for additional writing later! I really am glad that I held the course with the notes even when I questioned their worth and I was simply itching to write. They have been an amazing tool on this writing journey. The notebooks feel symbolic of my journey too!

Do you have any writing reflection to share?

By Shari Marshall – 2021

5 thoughts on “A reflection post”

  1. It sounds like you need a good, professional Editor. I have one, and at first, I thought she was crazy! She told me I was missing a good HOOK at the beginning of chapter-1, and she took a dramatic paragraph from the end of that chapter, moving it to the first paragraph. Later in the process, she moved my chapter-7 to chapter-2. In both cases, after reading it her way, I was amazed at how well it improved my story. Same words, same story, but arranged in a different order.

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    1. Yes, I will likely need a good editor after I get finished writing. Its interesting how that fresh set of eyes on a piece of writing can see things we, as the writer, can’t.

      Thanks for stopping in.

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  2. Thanks for sharing a little bit about your process! I have come to the realization that I need to outline as I write. I don’t do well following an outline, but I need to keep one and create character profiles as my characters develop, otherwise I get lost.

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