Writing Report April 15, 2022

Progress proceeds on the current WIP at a moderate pace.  

While I got off to a good start in January, my writing pace slowed quite a bit for February and march.

I managed to crest the 60K word mark last week, which makes me happy, but figure I have another 15-20K to go before being able to finish the first draft.

I’m predicting at least three full drafts for this story.  This first draft is going to be loose and shaggy; it will need a lot of trims and possibly some small additions to fill in gaps I’m not noticing right now.

There’s also the issue of character dialog.  I’ve got a fairly large cast for this one, and several are from different regional and class backgrounds, so dialog will take a lot of work to get it to sound right.

Right now they’re saying what needs to be said in order to get vital information across, but often it’s too clinical, too flat, too emotionless.

It needs some zing and pep to make it sound like living dialog, and it especially needs attention to detail to make sure each character sounds right for their background.

But I’m having fun with this and the writers group I belong to seems to be enjoying it as I read a couple of new chapters each week.

(To be honest, I’m eager to get this first draft done and out of the way so I can do revisions on a play I’m working on as well as a couple of short stories and blog posts, but I won’t feel comfortable doing so until I can clear my decks of this project.)

© Buzz Dixon