Last year I started working on a scifi-western focused on a marshal who investigates a series of crimes in the wasteland committed by an unknown sniper. I wrote about 40,000 words before putting it aside to work on something else. At the time, I really didn’t think too much of it, the story just felt a bit strained and I got burned out on it.
But, in going back through it, I’ve found that I actually like the story quite a bit. There’s good interplay between the characters and each has their own little backstory that comes out through the course of the story. It’s actually better than I remember! On the other hand, I’ve come across a serious problem that I had from a number of things I wrote during that time: conversations are just one block of dialog after another, there’s almost nothing in between. I did the same thing with another book that I wrote and it’s really annoying to have to go back and fix all these conversations, but I think I’ve managed to get most of them taken care of. I’ve also done some other fixes and additions through the rest of the story, enough to give me a good base for my next round of revisions.
I’m pleased with how the story is coming along, but it’s going to need a lot more work before it’s complete. I’ll probably end up getting the story to at least 75,000 words, maybe as high at 80,000, before I’m done, but I don’t foresee that being too much of an issue. Hopefully I can get that taken care of in about two weeks. I’ll start over from the beginning of the book and read through it again after that, with my goal for “finishing” the book being tentatively slated for the end of October.
The Trials of the Amateur Writer 