Well, I intended on publishing the dribble I wrote when I was eight years old. I was an arrogant child and was certain it could be published. (Only reason I didn't send anything out was because my parents wouldn't let me. I had the habit even then of writing about tough subjects, including abuse.)
The 20k "novel" I wrote was intended to be sold as a children's novel. It was ... bad. And made worse by my father, whose critique I trusted, as he wrote himself. He read the first three chapters and said, "You're hinting at too much here. You need to explain everything about the world in the first few chapters or no one will understand anything."
I'd been very carefully disseminating information in the proper places, and looking back, the draft I wrote before the one he butchered wasn't all that bad.
I still like the base story that developed in draft three of that novel, and I do want to return to it someday. It, like with Sanctuary, the other novel I mentioned, will take a complete and total rewrite for selling it to be feasible. By that point, it will probably no longer be recognizable from the original.
But, that's something that can happen in rewriting ... :)
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branchandroot
Re: On first novels ...
Date: 2004-08-20 10:56 am (UTC)The 20k "novel" I wrote was intended to be sold as a children's novel. It was ... bad. And made worse by my father, whose critique I trusted, as he wrote himself. He read the first three chapters and said, "You're hinting at too much here. You need to explain everything about the world in the first few chapters or no one will understand anything."
I'd been very carefully disseminating information in the proper places, and looking back, the draft I wrote before the one he butchered wasn't all that bad.
I still like the base story that developed in draft three of that novel, and I do want to return to it someday. It, like with Sanctuary, the other novel I mentioned, will take a complete and total rewrite for selling it to be feasible. By that point, it will probably no longer be recognizable from the original.
But, that's something that can happen in rewriting ... :)