Hello, dreamers. I’ve had another busy week, and I’m in the middle of yet another. The work of an aspiring novelist is never done, after all. There have been a lot of big changes, so without further ado, let’s get right to my current work-in-progress, which I’m now calling…

Aquarius 1

When writing a novel, rule one is that all things are subject to change. That even includes the title. I explained my title change in this week’s “Writer’s Desk”, so I won’t get into that here. Suffice to say, that’s far from the only change I’ve made.

As my longtime readers will remember, my last serious novel project was Dawn of the Pioneers, the original intended sequel to the Pioneer series. And, as my longtime readers will remember, it was a disaster.

During my post mortem of DotP, I realized there were many glaring problems that led to the novel completely falling apart. But one of them was the simple fact that I kept writing even when I realized the story was veering off-course. Initially, I told myself that the important thing was just to keep writing; any problems would be handled in editing. First thing’s first, I thought: I need to finish this novel. Well, I tried, but I only made it to the end of Phase 3 before I realized it was hopeless. The story had veered so far away from the initial premise that I was no longer able to draw it all together for the finale. There just wasn’t enough real estate left to tie all the loose threads together and craft the ending I needed. In the end, I gave up in disgust, and trashed most of what I’d written.

To my credit, I do learn from my mistakes. Thus far, there have been several points in Aquarius 1 where I’ve begun to veer away from the central plot. I began adding needless subplots, which necessitated the addition of numerous characters, none of whom could receive the necessary development to be useful additions to the story. Thus far, I’ve already completely removed one subplot from this novel, resulting in the removal of two entire chapters. Recently, I’ve reached another such point.

In the end, all of this amounts to trimming the fat of the story. First and foremost, a story must revolve around its protagonist, the main character (MC in writer shorthand). As in The Expanse by James S.A. Corey and my previous novel Pioneers, a story can absolutely work when built around two or three major characters, but in the end, one must take center stage over the others. Thus, much of what I’ve done has involved scaling back the growing multitude of named characters to refocus the plot on Karen Hernandez.

At the moment, I am completely reworking the recent chapters. Most likely I’m not done with this process: even now, I still feel the need for additional background for one or two characters. However, I believe I’m back on the right track. My current hope is to finish Phase 2 of the novel before the end of the week. Given my work today, that still feels ambitious. But, once that happens, I plan to take another week or so off writing for additional research. That will be followed by another editing pass, which will give me the opportunity to again fine-tune the progression of the plot, and hopefully provide additional development for a few characters who need it. For now, the work continues. So keep reading, and as always, dare to dream. – MK