90k and still kicking

Well, I just hit my goal of 90,000 words for this book. At work, on my lunch break. After giving myself a silent cheer so as not to draw the eyes of more composed individuals in the office, I return to the writing. Because, although the goal I set for myself has been reached, this book is far from over.

In fact, I've just realized that, come revision time, probably a good chunk of what I've written is going to go out the window. Because it just doesn't work with the turn the book took in, oh, just the last thousand words.

Now, mind you, this is not some major plot twist. I haven't changed whodunit or why. I haven't changed the ending. I haven't changed the story in and of itself. But the route to get to the ending has just taken a very large--and hopefully rather interesting--detour. I'm going to say I've probably still got at least 20,000 words to go.

Which, again, means that I won't feel so horrible cutting entire scenes, entire chapters, when I sit down with my red pen. Because, let's face it, for most of us, taking out large chunks of our hard-won words is really quite painful. I'm still not going to like it but knowing that there's a lot of the story left may be able to soothe me.

Maybe.

It's funny. I know I've blogged about this before. But anyway. We talk about characters running away with us, doing their own thing. In my case, and not for the first time, the story has done that. I was writing one simple scene, one key scene that's intended to be the sort of turning point, the point at which the protagonist finally turns down the road toward finding the truth. And then it just popped into my head that this was the perfect opportunity for . . . well, I'm not going to elaborate. But it was just the perfect opportunity and I couldn't resist but it's making me really take it in a different direction from this point forward.

I also strongly suspect that my protagonist has just shifted from one character to another. But that's a change that's been a long time coming, I think, so I'm not too bothered. I'm just a bit worried about how to make that mesh with the beginning of the book, where the guy who just became the protag can't be included. Unless... hmm. Perhaps. Yes, that might work nicely. Massive changes though.

But that's what revision's all about, isn't it?

Plotting

There seems to be an everlasting ... discourse on how people approach writing. Some fly completely by the seat of their pants with only the barest sketch of where the book is going to go -- or nothing but an idea. Some spend weeks writing a complete, detailed outline to guide them through the writing process. Some write linearly, everything in order, and some write whichever scenes their muses take them to in whichever order they happen to pop up.

I wonder if the people who swear by one particular approach have been doing it that way from day 1 or if they've grown into it over time. Because I don't have a particular method yet. Everything I write, I approach differently and my method is usually some mish-mash of everything.

There are times I start out with an outline. Then I get bored after I've reached chapter 4 (and mind you, my outline is the barest of bare: "opening scene is Sue being stalked through the cave by the mystery man. second scene is Greg in class.") and just start writing. With the book I just finished the rough draft of, I had no idea who the killer was or what their motivation might be until I was halfway through. And even once I had a killer, I changed it twice in the span of a week.

For my current book, though -- the one that was teasing me oh so much -- I had a pretty good idea of what was going on before I got started. I felt like I have an adequate grasp of the main character, at least. I knew the impetus for the novel and the underlying plot; I know what the protag is going to discover when she starts digging. I know who the supporting characters are -- bare-bones, at least -- and the basic roles they're going to play. I don't know the exact ending but I know where it's supposed to go. This is new for me.

I wonder if this will be my approach from now on. Perhaps limiting myself to planning a new book while I'm still writing a previous one will be good for my plotting and help me grasp my stories better before I start writing them.

So far, I'm sticking to the plan. But I'm only a couple chapters in and throwing all my plotting out the nearest window is definitely not outside the realm of possibility.

I'll keep you posted.