Wow, 350k and your third draft is incredible! Your advice about following character I'm definitely going to follow. You're absolutely right on that, it's incredibly important. I'm hoping I can do a good job with it. This is the first time I've had a real cast of characters, and they've all felt significantly different to me from the outset, so I'm taking that as a good sign. Just got to keep unconvering more about who they are. Thanks for your thoughts, definitely the kind of advice that can set a writer back on course, I appreciate it!

That's tough; I wrote a zero draft that could've, by estimation, reach that word count, although they were mostly skeleton scenes with minimal narration, focusing on dialogue, character thoughts, and action (lacking description). My suggestion would be (from my experience) with each subsequent draft, focus on developing plot point scenes that truly matter to the characters (and, by extension, their voice). While I pantsed my way through several drafts already (5), none were able to reach completion because scenes lack structure due to writing what I'd call habitual “inconcise writing”, lacking clarity. If you discovery write, you're bound to run into these structural problems, and my best suggestion to you, would be to return to the drawing board, list plot points, and start outlining what you have. Use Save The Cat or The Three Act Story Structure to place “key tent poles scenes” that point a general backbone to your novel, so you don't meander (exposition, info dumps, long stretches of introspection), and end up leading breadcrumb trails of plot points (they don't go anywhere). Use “focal points” of a scene to draw the narrative focus in. The key is to trim and have all elements interweave as a scene plays out uniformly together. At the very least, discovery writing identified key character traits.

That sounds really useful, I'm going to check it out. Thank you for pointing it out!

Thank you so much! 😊

That's what I'm going to try and do to! I'd rather write in to be a bit of a misfit than change it into something I don't like as much 😊 Thanks Joey, feels good to be back to it.

Thank you so much Brittany 😊 The tips certainly won't be going anywhere since I think I'm going to have to refresh myself/learn more as I'm writing this thing! I appreciate that so much though 😊

😊😊😊😊😊

Thanks mate, this one seems to have been well received so I'll definitely do more 😊 Thanks for sticking with me for over a year! 👊

Thanks! Haha yeah, I'm purposefully not wearing them until Vans sponsor me! (not really).

Absolutely. I'm with you on that. I'm at the stage where I'm enjoying telling myself this story and I don't want that to change. If I can sustain that feeling the entire way through, I think I'll have something well worth keeping at the end. Write what you feel is some of the best writing advice there is, thank you 😊

You got this. As it sounds like writing's in your blood. So you can't ignore it. Cheers

So, pretty much how I'd approach the starting process. However, you should really be writing the story **you** want to tell first. Then second. Then third. Then fourth. There's no right or wrong answer, but the way you feel about your novel(s) will change overtime as you find the writing process quite the discipline. It's not about writing what you feel, it's actually writing about what you want to share. What you feel will end up being trimmed down to a bare minimum, anyway (even if I'm guilty myself of long, immersive descriptions in real time of a scene). But those parts won't service a completed story in the end, unless you're willing to axe the wood in your story.

Awesome mate, it's always good to feel a story growing into something even bigger! Since you've spent the time writing shorter stuff too, did that help you identify that the idea felt bigger and could be a novel? I think you're right on questions, they do give you something to write about and also keep a reader's interest I find. Always good to have that. I've got two of those lamps, that one and a bigger one on my desk. I don't honestly know if they have any influence on my state of mind really, I pretty much bought them because they're a softer light source and they look nice!

Great analogy, you’re absolutely right.

Thanks Josh! Likewise and I wish you all the best for your writing as well 🙂

Definitely sounds like you've got plenty of material and ideas for multiple books!

@@KierenWestwoodWriting literally soooo many books. I'm kinda daunted by the whole thing. Excited, but daunted.

Thanks so much! I really appreciate it and I hope you enjoy it :)

That sounds like a good system. Is that in your main manuscript document, underneath your story? Or do you have separate one for it?

@@KierenWestwoodWriting The document starts of as just the bullet points as my loose plan. I will then start writing and deleting the bullet points as I go. Once I have finished the story the bullet points will have been deleted then. Sorry, yes it is all in one document.

Thanks Steve, I'll take a look, it's another one I somehow haven't heard of! My requirements for writing short fiction and novels are a lot different, I'm discovering.

Hi Bernard, that's a really good point about making comparisons to other authors when querying. I've sort of done that before, but I've always felt like I was just naming authors I liked rathrr than ones my work was actually comparable to, so could be my error. It's definitely something I'll try to do again if I reach that stage and I already feel more confident about that aspect of this book. In terms of drafting, I haven't typically re-drafted multiple times in my past novels. I think that's because I've felt some of my books weren't fundamentally strong enough to merit the work it would take. That's definitely an area for development for me - my own outlook on what I've written and learning to accept imperfection and work on it. Writing more slowly, which I'm doing, I think will also help with this. I'm thinking more, instead of forging blindly ahead just so that I get something written. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, these kinds of comments are really valuable to me as I find my way with a novel again!

Sounds like we're both writing pretty great books then! 😆

There's absolutely nothing wrong with writing short fiction and not novels. I've loved spending the last couple of years on it, and a lot of time before that too. Writing will always be at it's most fun and rewarding when you follow the stories that you're excited by, in my opinion. That goes for genre too. My advice (for whatever that's worth!) would be to write the story first and worry about what genre it is later. That's what I'm going to try to do anyway. Best of luck with your stories!