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WriMoNoMo: Mystery Edition
Aug. 26th, 2015 05:12 pmAbout the middle of August I picked up a Victorian novel from a list I'd saved on Google Books. It might have been in a 'If you liked this book (probably The Moonstone) try this' originally. I started reading, due to a page glitch, in the second chapter which gave it a very modern in media res hook. (Then went back to the first and caught up with the taxi race across London to sign the lease on the castle. Not bad, but less intriguing.) It had some intriguing plot set-ups but everyone except the main character came across as cads and bounders and you wondered what he was doing with these people except that he's far to polite to bow out of the acquaintance. Certain points were harped on to the exclusion of other questions which might have been more interesting and made more sense to include as well...
I was a third of the way in when I had the questionably brilliant idea of rewriting the set-up with more sympathetic characters. I'd also found Quoll Writer and wanted to try its features out.
August 17
I was just going to race through the general impression of what happened and who did what to whom, but instead got sucked into 'I really liked the opening with the "Hey, I just rented a castle," statement so lets recreate that sequence and its pacing' and ended up with almost 3,000 words in one go. Also the character list has a lot of characters already. o_O
August 20
This is looking like I Can Write A Novel in Two Weeks AND I'm happy with it. #too good to be true???
Also, since I started writing before finishing the book... my top pic for the villain just dropped dead in the original. That means it's probably an outside job that hasn't been properly foreshadowed. XD
August 23
The tiny changes at the beginning are snowballing and I've fallen off the roadmap. Not that I mind (because my story should be better!), but, the pace has dropped off.
August 24
Okay, didn't quite hit 25,000 at the one week mark.
August 25
In fact, let's just remove about 10,000 words and rework what we had there... #still above par for 50,000 in a month
August 29
Finished the original. Okay, so the answers weren't totally left-field, but introducing the detective in the last sixth of the book is uncool, even if she was pretty decent. ish. maybe. (having her already on the case for the other side made it less of a "how did she figure it all out before we ran out of pages" and explained her presence but...) It would have worked a lot better if most of the who-did-what wasn't dumped all at once. We could have been told mysterious beach man is actually awful divorced husband of the accused love interest (shouldn't he be in Australia for numerous crimes unspecified??? wonder why he's heeeeeeeeere) and that might have smoothed things a lot? I wasn't all that far from the mark on the housekeeper's role in things, so that was either properly foreshadowed or yay! for guessing. Now I want to read Red House Mystery and Death in Zanzibar and maybe that one mystery by Georgette Heyer...
Also I finished an outline of my version to keep me on track for an ending. ^_^ #feeling the flaws though; it just like...jumps to the just desserts after all the setup
August 31
28,084 words in two weeks #still above par for 50,000 in a month
Red House Mystery was just as good as I remember. Funnier, even.
September 7
It was too hot to write this week so I've still got two half-done chapters and an outline over the halfway point. #lazy
September 14
I totally shelved the project. Probably because I actually wrote the outline so I know what'll happen when I get back to it? #lazy
I was a third of the way in when I had the questionably brilliant idea of rewriting the set-up with more sympathetic characters. I'd also found Quoll Writer and wanted to try its features out.
August 17
I was just going to race through the general impression of what happened and who did what to whom, but instead got sucked into 'I really liked the opening with the "Hey, I just rented a castle," statement so lets recreate that sequence and its pacing' and ended up with almost 3,000 words in one go. Also the character list has a lot of characters already. o_O
August 20
This is looking like I Can Write A Novel in Two Weeks AND I'm happy with it. #too good to be true???
Also, since I started writing before finishing the book... my top pic for the villain just dropped dead in the original. That means it's probably an outside job that hasn't been properly foreshadowed. XD
August 23
The tiny changes at the beginning are snowballing and I've fallen off the roadmap. Not that I mind (because my story should be better!), but, the pace has dropped off.
August 24
Okay, didn't quite hit 25,000 at the one week mark.
August 25
In fact, let's just remove about 10,000 words and rework what we had there... #still above par for 50,000 in a month
August 29
Finished the original. Okay, so the answers weren't totally left-field, but introducing the detective in the last sixth of the book is uncool, even if she was pretty decent. ish. maybe. (having her already on the case for the other side made it less of a "how did she figure it all out before we ran out of pages" and explained her presence but...) It would have worked a lot better if most of the who-did-what wasn't dumped all at once. We could have been told mysterious beach man is actually awful divorced husband of the accused love interest (shouldn't he be in Australia for numerous crimes unspecified??? wonder why he's heeeeeeeeere) and that might have smoothed things a lot? I wasn't all that far from the mark on the housekeeper's role in things, so that was either properly foreshadowed or yay! for guessing. Now I want to read Red House Mystery and Death in Zanzibar and maybe that one mystery by Georgette Heyer...
Also I finished an outline of my version to keep me on track for an ending. ^_^ #feeling the flaws though; it just like...jumps to the just desserts after all the setup
August 31
28,084 words in two weeks #still above par for 50,000 in a month
Red House Mystery was just as good as I remember. Funnier, even.
September 7
It was too hot to write this week so I've still got two half-done chapters and an outline over the halfway point. #lazy
September 14
I totally shelved the project. Probably because I actually wrote the outline so I know what'll happen when I get back to it? #lazy
The Play Actor King
So basically, I finished NaNo'12 with the feeling that I hadn't really wrapped up the story, I'd only arrived at a stopping place. Since then, there hasn't been much progress on the 'completeing the story arc' front.
