Writing a Book Reflection Part 1

I’ve been working on a book on Wattpad for a while, that I’ve been updating every Monday. The journey has been tough, but I’ve learned a lot along the way. And I’m proud to say that a quarter of my first draft is complete! I didn’t even think that I’d get this far. Honestly, a lot of my writing life, when it comes it writing novels, would usually just be a few pages and then I’d give up. But what I’m writing now, sometimes I wish it will never end. The nicer weather now has me more motivated than ever to get this novel finished and hopefully more to come. Now, with that being said, here’s a list of questions I’ve asked myself after finishing this part of the rough draft. The goals I think I’m reaching and the ones I think I can work on.

1) Does the story show and not tell?

I think it does for the most part, but then again this is only the first draft and I will be looking over it a few more times just to make sure I’m showing as much as I can. However, I do think that due to the length of the story, having to tell in some parts will be inevitable. But that doesn’t mean I don’t plan on making the story as interesting as possible!

2) Does it have good dialogue?

This story probably has too much dialogue. After I completely finish the first draft I will be adding in more details on the setting, the characters and probably some more of Creek’s internal dialogue. It might be weird, but when I write, the story basically starts out as a script and then I fill in the rest later. 

3) Does the novel describe the setting and characters well?

I think that at first it does, but later on not so much. I have revised the first few parts more than I have revised the later ones, but that will change once I complete the first rough draft. 

4) Will it be easy for the readers to understand the plot or does it need more work?

It needs work for sure, but the prologue helps keep me on track with the main idea. What really needs work is all the other plots in between and just making sure everything flows nicely. 

5) Are the characters well rounded or are they still too flat?

I think my biggest mistake when I wrote this at first, is that I haven’t really realized until just now that I have I lot of characters I want to put into this story. I do think that Sage and Creek’s personalities are coming along pretty well as are a few others, but I’m worried that some are still too flat and a few might be confusing. I might need to either cut out some characters or make the story longer than I planned. 

6) Will the first part of the story evoke emotion in the readers?

I think that Creek has a lot of emotion when it comes to her family and keeping them safe. Especially when it comes to her sister. However, I do think certain scenes will need some more work so readers can really feel the emotion. 

7) Does it seem consistent? 

I think the main plot is going as planned, I just have to make sure that all the information about their world that I created in the first part doesn’t become irrelevant. I don’t want my readers to read something that means nothing later on in the story. 

8) What has been the hardest part of writing this story? And what has been the easiest? 

I think the hardest part is making sure that everything goes together and that things don’t become confusing or hard to follow along. I think something that’s almost too easy for me to do is to write the dialogue. 

 

If you’re interested in the story I’m working on you can follow the link here. If you want tips on writing a novel or a story feel free to ask questions in the comment below.