I'm trying to just get a rough draft down without looking back, as last time I scuppered a book to death by endless tinkering. But this time, urgh, the tone seems so glib, not my voice at all. Should I press on for the sake of the story, and trust that once it's down, the actual sequence of events, I can work it through carefully and get it right tonally. or shudl I slow down now and try and find the tone to work with.

I'm getting to understand a little how a composer must feel trying to hold all the different strands of a symphony in the head at one time. I concentrate on the big picture and everything else seems skewed.

Any suggestions, advice or comments on how others handle this or perceive/conceive first draft?

Thanks
C

<Added>

Excuse appalling typos please. Written in as much haste as my very rough first draft.

Press on. I didn't hit the tone I wanted on my current wip until I was 60k into it, and was more than ready to trash the whole thing at 40k. Once the first draft is finished I can go back through it and tweek it into the tone I want, (or I may just trash the beginning and keep the bits I like )

- NaomiM

Press on. Get it finished then tinker.

I'd agree - press on. You may be able to judge it and see what - if anything - is wrong about the tone much better once you've got to the end.

Rosy

Thanks. That's what I was telling myself. But it's nerve wracking, coming from short fiction where every comma is pondered within hours of getting the first draft down. Seems like sailing off and losing sight of land. i really do admire the novelists on here. It terrifies me.

This is probably just your inner critic giving you a hard time. And I suspect this is a common problem with first time novelists or at least those trying to complete their first book. It certainly is with me, as I had the same problems with thinking the tone is all out of kilter (as well as thinking the characters are rubbish, the plot awful, the dialogue contrived etc etc)

It's also tough making the transition from short stories to novels. Using your analogy short stories are the string quartets, compared with the symphony. No less capable of conveying emotion and ideas, but easier to manage, easier to see the light at the end of the tunnel, easier to feel that you haven't wasted months and months to produce something that's not great.

What I've found helpful is realising that very few writers produce a finely crafted novel first time out. A lot of the novelists here and in the wider world have already written and half-written a number of books before they publish their 'first' one.

So I look at my first novel as a learning exercise as much as anything else. It's the best I can do at the moment, but I also know the experience of writing it will make the next one better.

Sibelius that is a wonderful post. Thank you. Especially for pointing out that many novelists here wrote several books before they wrote one that worked. This book is certainly teaching me how to shape and sustain a longer, more complex narrative, even if the words on the page aren't what i'd wish.

Short stories suit the impatient and perfectionist streaks in one's character. But I really yearn to manage and shape a bigger narrative now. Just plough on I suppose.

It's the best I can do at the moment, but I also know the experience of writing it will make the next one better.

This is so true, and one reason why it's often worth persevering with something that doesn't seem right yet - you'll learn a lot.

I would also say that many writers find it's much easier to change the tone later than it is to change the structure. And it's easier to keep a feel for the structure - how the skeleton fits togther, whether the different bits are all the right size and joined together the right way - if you don't get distracted by the detail. I think what I'm saying is that that you can't get all the elements right first go, and the structure should probably take priority, as it were.

Having said that, there's nothing to say you have to keep the tone from now on consistent with what's gone before. You could just let it change, or nudge it towards changing, as it wants to. Or you could even take a break and think out a short story whose demands would push you towards the tone you want. When you've pinned it down - even if you don't bother to polish the story, even if it's just a first draft more like free-writing - you could go on with the novel with that ringing in your ears. By the time you've worked it through to the end, you'll probably know exactly how you need to revise the tone of the early stages to make it match.

Emma

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Crossed with you, Cherys. Novels are long haul, all right. The comfort is that in some ways they're more forgiving...

That's extremely encouraging Emma, thanks. I'm hoping the tone can be dealt with and that structure should take precedence for now, so it's good to hear that method has worked for others.

Concentraing on structure in a first draft can be terribly boring, where you feel you are writing by rote, but as Emma says, it is very important, and something that Agents often find is the main fault in otherwise well written mss.


- NaomiM

Actually i rather love working on the structure. i love the architectural aspect of it. But don't understand why the writing suddenly sucks. I suppose because I haven't yet learned to marry the two.It is exciting though.

Oi Naomi, what are you doing on the threads - write yer book....

But don't understand why the writing suddenly sucks.

Cherys, it's not partly just an attack of the third-of-the-way-through wobbles, is it? As discussed on other threads, about when the doubts creep in, as do certain kinds of boredom, or a passion to write something else, or a bout of procrastination?...

Emma

I'm having third-of-the-way wobbles. Have been reading through the entire WIP because I felt I'd lost my thread a bit, and while some of it I'm quite pleased with, other bits are just so rubbish that I wonder why I'm bothering!!

But thanks Emma, Sibelius and others here, since I've found the comments in this thread very encouraging, and thanks to cherys for raising the question!

Deb

I think 'third-of -the-way-through wobbles' should become a medical term.
Symptoms - wishing you'd spent the last six months writing that other, much better, idea, hating your MC to such an extent you consider an alternative ending to kill them off, doing anything ( including, in severe cases, ironing )rather than write.
HB x

doing anything ( including, in severe cases, ironing )

Mild cases can be treated successfully by your GP, but if you find yourself ironing you should PHONE AN AMBULANCE AT ONCE



just practising the new smilies

Emma