by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’ve decided to give myself a few days to ponder the characters in my novel before I start to write again. Now that I realize I just won’t make my first hard deadline of April 19th, I have some wiggle room to reflect on how to take this novel to the next level by leaning into character.
Lisbeth Salander is a great character.
As such, I think I’m going to do some character studies. This will probably cause the novel to change some, but hopefully nothing structural. I have a very stable plot and scene outline, all I have to at this point is go through and fill it out (again.)
I may rewrite a lot more scenes than I originally expected, for no other reason than I know I can do better by my characters if given another chance. My fear is that all this rewriting will lead the novel to grow longer. I’m already allotting myself no more than 140,000 words — the same general length as The Girl On The Train.
I also hope to think about the next book in the series as well as a totally unrelated scifi novel.
