by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
After making what feels like every possible mistake one can make when working no a novel, I’ve finally figured out how I, personally, develop and write a novel.
As such, things are beginning to move a lot quicker. The only thing stopping this novel from being, say, something along the lines of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl is I, well, I’m not as good a writer as she is. That and I’m simply not as dark and twisted as she is. Getting as dark and serious as this thing needs to be to fit the genre is going to be a second draft struggle.
But, in general, for the moment, at least, things are moving swiftly. I’m plotting things out in a very methodical manner so when I actually sit down to write, there isn’t a lot of work to do. All I have to do is just follow the summary for that individual scene I’ve written and that’s it.
It helps a lot that I know the universe of this story very, very well. Really, all I have to do is just tell a subset of the massive universe I’ve come up with via the plot.
One thing I do need to work on is character. I have several books on character development that I need to read and re-read. But, in general, I’m pleased with how things are going, even though there remain some pretty big holes in the plot I have to figure out.
