It might sound kind of crazy, but now that I’m almost finished with this novel, I’m starting to figure out what it’s really about…
I went out to dinner with my sister yesterday, and she asked me how my novel was coming along. I told her I’m on the last chapter, and she asked me what the story was about.
I think I may have told her once, but whatever I’d told her then, it wasn’t very memorable. Also, a lot of things have changed since I started this novel. I had a vague idea of the world and a lot of other stuff, but it really has evolved a lot since I first started writing it back in August.
When she asked, I surprised myself by summing up the entire book in one sentence:
“It’s about people making contact with aliens and finding out that they aren’t that different.”
Now, I’m sure that this in itself isn’t a very original idea. In fact, there is a lot in my novel that isn’t all that original. Interplanetary empires falling apart and then the successors rediscovering all the lost worlds that have fallen out of contact, hostile AI that tries to wipe out humanity, a fleet of refugees that thinks it’s the last surviving remnant of humanity, etc.
However, I’m hoping that my take on things will be original. And to really work on that, I need to know what my take actually is. When I was in the middle of this novel, I didn’t know which direction it was heading, so I dabbled in a little bit of everything. Then I started to get to know the characters, and they started forming relationships, and then things started to take off and I realized that it was heading in a clear direction, though I had no idea what that was…
…and now, at the end, I realize that what I really want to focus on is how this bunch of characters helps humanity to make peaceful contact with a friendly alien race, even in the face of so much war and uncertainty. It’s about realizing that the boundaries between your tribe and the other tribe aren’t as big as they seem to be, and that you can become a member of the other tribe and that’s ok.
Now I realize how I need to change the beginning of this story, and how to rewrite it. At least, I know a little bit better. With this new central idea in mind, I’m going to change a lot. The rewrite may actually take as much effort and thought as the first draft did.
However, I can really see this novel taking shape in the rewrite–moving beyond what I have now in rough draft form, and becoming something much stronger and tighter.
One advantage of knowing what I want to say in this thing is that I know what to cut, and that’s definitely going to come in handy–as the novel stands right now, it’s about 150k. A little too long for a break-in novel in a genre that’s struggling somewhat.
I don’t mind the fact that I’ve got to rewrite this thing. I was planning on it. I’ll work on my other novels too–I’ll probably start that other one before the year is up (or come up with a completely different idea). Believe it or not, I enjoy editing a lot more than I enjoy writing the first draft. And hopefully I can write something a lot stronger.
Anyways, those are my thoughts for now. Tomorrow is one of the last days of class, and I’m excited to have so many projects and papers behind me. I haven’t been writing a lot these past few days, and I’m going to have to crunch at the last minute to get it all finished by this deadline.
But in two weeks, I’m going to be in Cairo! It’s going to be awesome!
