I occasionally look around the web for other literary sci/fi writer blogs. I suppose saying that indicates I believe myself in that category; well, I at least attempt to emulate them. Today I came upon a blog named Deep Genre, which I quite liked. One of the contributors David Louis Edelman, a literary sci/fi writer http://www.davidlouisedelman.com/writing/how-to-write-a-novel-part-1/ has written a couple of great articles on “How to Write a Novel”, parts 1 & 2. I would highly recommend them to anyone contemplating taking on a novel. He covers the subject in enough detail that you know he put some thought into it and not so much that you give up on it and say you’ll read it at another time and, of course, never get back to it.
On the much debated subject of whether or not to use an outline, Edelman is an advocate of using them. Having come through an MFA program, for a long time I was above the use of them–citing their supposed limitation of strait-straitjacketing one’s creativity. Well, I’ve changed my mind about this after struggling through my second novel, feeling as if it was flopping all over the place, knowing things weren’t working, but unable to say just how. Each part has to be written with the whole in mind, especially in a novel and there’s no way to do this in my mind until you’ve written that entire first draft and then go back and plot it out. Then go back even further and ask yourself the questions how does this chapter work with the whole in mind, how does this paragraph work with the chapter in mind, how does this sentence work with the paragraph in mind. In other words its something of a working backwards at that point. Pacing is a real challenge for me in a novel–my tendency is to rush through a scene, when just the opposite is required, especially during the peak moments of crisis, or action or highly charged scenes.