Writing has bcome stuck to dialogue only!!

[mixa]

Eeeek Help!!

After finishing my book. It's of two halves, the first half is quite good if I say so myself but the second half is awful...I've bludgeoned my way through it as the collective opinion is to try and finish and then go back edit and correct and change for the better....

The problem is, the level of writing in the second is so poor compared to the first, and I'm stuck to writing dialogue when making changes or advancing the story line.

What's happened to my writing ability???

The key difference I can think of, is that in the first half there are only three characters that I juggle with, but in the second half I have five and two separate story lines going.

From a word count point of view, the first half is at 28000, the second is at 21000.

 

[Precise Calibre]

This might shed some light if you find that your characters truly are speaking more in the second half than the first.

What you may have done is accidentally stuck yourself in "point-of-view" mode, wherein you are so used to speaking as your characters and from their shoes that you have now effectively suffocated your descriptive prose because "that's not how my characters would describe something".

This is a problem that I often run across in my own writing. If there's too much dialogue, well maybe not too much, but a lot, I'll find that I have to back up and go over it again, adding bits of description and other non-dialogue elements into it, usually after I've been away from it for a bit. It slows the process down, yes, but I find that I write in descriptive mode or dialogue mode better if I do them at different times and not all in one sitting.

 

[The Judge]

Did you write the two halves at different times or under different conditions? Is it that the sparkle has gone and you've lost interest in it, and this is showing in the writing?

Have you analysed why the second half seems poor by comparison to the first? Is there a change in the way you have approached it, ie the first is very descriptive and the second not, or vice versa? What do you think has let you down in the second half?

Have you shown the two halves to anyone else to get a second opinion? It might be worth your while putting a short extract onto the Critiques section, and see if others agree with you as to its merits/demerits (do check out the rules and guidelines first, though).

I think if you analyse it in depth, you may see where you have gone wrong and that will help you correct it. Or it may be that in fact the writing in both is the same, but it's the plotting which has gone askew -- perhaps because you can't control so many characters. You would then have to sit and work out whether there's a way of changing the plot so you can handle the two story lines effectively.

Incidentally, at less than 50,000 words it is very short for a complete novel, so it may be that you'll have to think hard about what to do with it -- expand it to full publishable length or leave it at this size and move to the next project.

 

[mixa]

This might shed some light if you find that your characters truly are speaking more in the second half than the first.

What you may have done is accidentally stuck yourself in "point-of-view" mode, wherein you are so used to speaking as your characters and from their shoes that you have now effectively suffocated your descriptive prose because "that's not how my characters would describe something".

This is a problem that I often run across in my own writing. If there's too much dialogue, well maybe not too much, but a lot, I'll find that I have to back up and go over it again, adding bits of description and other non-dialogue elements into it, usually after I've been away from it for a bit. It slows the process down, yes, but I find that I write in descriptive mode or dialogue mode better if I do them at different times and not all in one sitting.

How interesting. Hmm, you might be right in that my characters are talking more. I like your suggestion of revisiting for descriptive prose, will try that tomorrow!

 

[mixa]

To the Judge!

Did you write the two halves at different times or under different conditions? Is it that the sparkle has gone and you've lost interest in it, and this is showing in the writing?

I certainly did. I would say a one year timeframe. The interest is still there, but the magic has gone a little. The ending of my second half and sections are the same level as first half, but overall not as good. Really doesn't flow well.

Have you analysed why the second half seems poor by comparison to the first? Is there a change in the way you have approached it, ie the first is very descriptive and the second not, or vice versa? What do you think has let you down in the second half?

Largely the descrptive prose, proportionly just lots more dialogue, not that the dialogue is bad, I think the dialogue is better! Just missing all the other stuff!!

Have you shown the two halves to anyone else to get a second opinion? It might be worth your while putting a short extract onto the Critiques section, and see if others agree with you as to its merits/demerits (do check out the rules and guidelines first, though).

No I have not, mainly because I know it's inferior to the first half. Been baging my head against it for the last month, and it has improved but very slow.

I think if you analyse it in depth, you may see where you have gone wrong and that will help you correct it. Or it may be that in fact the writing in both is the same, but it's the plotting which has gone askew -- perhaps because you can't control so many characters. You would then have to sit and work out whether there's a way of changing the plot so you can handle the two story lines effectively.

Due to the timeframe lapse, I am struggling with consistency on the plotline and constantly flicking back to match changes. Example, John was in a large room and stayed there happily - 10 pages later. John comes back to his matchbox of a room....I would say I am struggling with so many characters being introduced at the same time as well, but it's quite key to my plot. They all have to be there.

Incidentally, at less than 50,000 words it is very short for a complete novel, so it may be that you'll have to think hard about what to do with it -- expand it to full publishable length or leave it at this size and move to the next project.

It's a YA novel, and I would expect to hit 60,000 words when fully edited and finished. Incidently, I've written 15,000 words on Book2 and that's pretty good stuff....compared to the second half of my book1!!

 

[Anne Lyle]

Hi Mixa

I find that my first drafts tend to be mainly dialogue and action - I just want to get the story out of my head and onto the paper/screen, without worrying about scene-setting. The next draft is where I work it up into "real" prose, adding description, dialogue beats, transition scenes, and so on, and the word count can easily double. The first draft of my first novel was 50k (I wrote it for NaNoWriMo), the second draft was 104k (after some very drastic revisions) and the final submitted draft, after filling in some plot holes and expanding the ending that my beta-readers complained was rushed, is 128k.

As for why your second half is so sparse, maybe you were just so desperate to get to the end that you no longer had patience with writing good prose and, like me, just vomited it onto the computer. Really, I wouldn't sweat it - as Hemingway said, all first drafts are ****, so you just have to go back and make the second half as good as the first

 

[The Judge]

I think it is the year's delay which is making the difference, and I suspect that you were pushing yourself to finish the second half so you could say it was finished, as opposed to the joy of writing in the first instance.

I don't know how feasible this is, but instead of simply going over and over the second half editing, and always being conscious that it's different from the first, have you thought about writing the whole thing from scratch, ie from chapter 1? You're back in your writing groove now, with the new stuff in WIP2 being of good quality, you know the plot and what happens when, so why not just start over? In that way it will all be written at the same time, at the same level, and without those consistency errors.

 

[mixa]

Hi Anne,

Thanks for your tip! You are spot on about wanting to finish. The end of October this year marked a two year timeframe on my book, and I couldn't stand the thought of having had two years of my life gone by and my book still wasn't finished.

The link to dialogue beats was very helpful!

 

[mixa]

Hello The Judge,

I think you're right on the one year gap it has messed about with my tempo and all sorts. I had a read again on WIP2, and it reads well like 1st half of book1, and they were written back to back.

So I wrote 1st half of book1, then 1st half of book2, then recently the concluding half of book1.

I like your advice on re-writing the whole piece. I'm going to finish editing the second half, and then I will re-write the whole book starting from the beginning. I am going to Sharm-El Sheikh in December, I will use that time wisely!!

 

[Yog-Sothoth]

Don't underestimate the effect one year off can have on your state of mind, and your persepective about a particular story your working on. This is one of the reasons why people always advice others to detach themselves from 'first drafts' for a few months before they revise it and start editing. The euphoria surrounding the story, after this period of detachment will have lessened to a certain degree, allowing the writer to see their stories with a different mindset.

This is why I always force myself to finish a story, because your mind can be your worst enemy, it will compare your work as if one is Windows 96 and the other Windows 7. This might be nice when your current work is the latter software, but majority of the times it's the other way around, and that little voice in your head will simply rip you to shreds.

Best to start from the beginning.