by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m trying to be as careful with my scene count as possible. I’ve finally gotten the scene counts for each segment of the novel down to just about where I want them to be.
But there is the issue of the length of the individual scenes. I’m worried that even though the actual scene count is where I need it to be, because as I improve as a storyteller my individual scenes are getting longer that in the end, lulz. My fear is I’ll STILL blow past the 100,000 wordcount sweetspot.
With that in mind, I continue to dwell on a second creative tract. I have two strong scifi novel concepts that I need to work out so, if all else fails, I’ll have a novel or two that is just about 100,000 words. That is a lot of work, of course, but the hope is that once I finish my first novel that I will understand the dynamics of how to write a novel well enough that the process of developing and writing a second and third novel will come to me a lot easier.
At least, that’s the dream.
I feel a mixture of terror and excitement over what is going to happen I start to not only the beta reader process, but I also begin to — gulp — querying agents. That’s really going to fill me with a great deal of existential dread because I can’t help who I am. I can be a rather…colorful…character and my fear is that I could write the fucking Bible and agents will lulz representing me once they do a quick due diligence on me via social media.
But the story I’ve come up with is getting darker and spicier. The biggest change between the first and second draft so far is I’m making great pains to establish stakes, so the question of, “Why should I care?” is answered clearly. I’m really trying to make my villians, villainous to the point the Good Guys are Good and the Bad Guys are Bad.
And, yet, of course, I am doing all of this in a vacuum, so, lulz, I don’t know what to tell you. It could be that the beta reader process could be a lot — A LOT — more bumpy than I’d prefer. Who knows, though.
