After I retired more than a year ago, I committed myself to write a novel. I figured I had the time and drew inspiration from my previous career in community journalism as well as experiences off the job.
I wrote about a laid-off newspaper reporter who takes a job at a smaller paper in a remote desert town called Backwater in the aftermath of the Great Recession. I tentatively titled it Cut Loose. I had visions of publishing a critically acclaimed—if not bestselling—book and of making a name for myself. In short, I would earn what the late Andy Warhol called “15 minutes of fame”—and perhaps more.
However, reality soon set in. I submitted my first draft of 219 pages, double-spaced, to a local playwright who reads manuscripts. She critiqued the first 90 pages and said in person and in a two-page, single-spaced typewritten notes that my novel needed a lot of work. She said I needed to develop the main character as well as a plot. In fact, she could not see the making of a plot in the first 57 pages.
“The book largely reads like an activities log—like one might write in a journal, listing people met, news one has covered, and so on,” she wrote in the second sentence.
She advised me to take a creative writing class or join a critique group. I did the latter. I’ve attended two sessions so far. Its members include two men who are older than I am and the group host, who started writing her novel for young adults 10 years ago, put it aside and has resumed her novel; it starts with a 15-year-old girl and a boy rescuing a pit bull named Killer from a neighbor who is a drug dealer. One member of the group has published historical fiction. His novel in the works starts with a battle in the Mediterranean Sea in 1570 fought between European and Turkish forces. The other man in the group is writing about a middle-aged man, a fry cook, who dreams about meeting a beautiful woman.
For the first session, participants were assigned to submit as many as 20 pages, double spaced, to be critiqued by the others. My first submission consisted of revisions for my first and second chapters. I received mostly strong criticism and some praise.
“Some of your commentary is funny, and I know you are capable of writing humor,” the host said in a hand-written statement. “But my main concern is that we need to know more about the central character, his view of life, his reasons for wanting to be a journalist and his dreams versus the reality,” the host wrote.
The historical fiction writer told me after the session that my novel so far was “boring.” He advised me to order horror writer Stephen King’s book On Writing, so I could learn how to hone my craft.
I returned to the next session two weeks later with a revised and expanded first chapter at 10 pages. While the other writers in the group said it showed signs of improvement, they indicated I needed to make more revisions. “Still too slow,” the historical fiction writer wrote. “My suggestion would be to add more details and emotion,” the aspiring young-adult novelist wrote.
They are all valid suggestions. In fact, others in the group have more to offer me than I do for them. I’ve mostly recommended minor style changes, like lowercasing capital words.
Before I sought professional opinions, I spent perhaps a total of eight months working on the novel, usually no more than an hour on any day. I had a beginning and ending in mind. The challenge, I thought, was filling the pages in between. I did not have it all outlined. It was a work in progress from the start.
The experiment in novel writing so far as taught me that a journalistic background by itself does not qualify me to write novels. I learned to write concisely, to get to the point and have a feel for dialogue. However, fiction does not follow the inverted pyramid approach to writing news stories, with the most important information on top. In fiction, the story builds, ebbs and flows. Moreover, I’ve rarely written news stories or features of 1,000 words or longer. The first draft for my novel exceeded 50,000 words.
The criticism I have received so far is enough to discourage a writer who is less determined. I’m not ready to give up. My novel idea remains a work in progress.
I admire your persistence and willingness to learn and grow. Thanks for sharing this through Substack. The reality authors face is daunting.