Still Learning - a Series Twelve Years in the Making

Hello!
Welcome to 2020. I'm working on something I started earlier in this millennium, the craft of writing a novel.

These days I am revising the fifth book in my first novel series, Journey to Chaos. This is the second rewrite of the fourth draft. If I were to fully disclose, then it would be the second rewrite of the fourth draft of the third version. I started the first version maybe eight years ago, before publishing even book #1 but then I decided to rewrite book #2 which then spilled over all the way to this one, book #5. What I'm working on now has been a long time in coming, and I am still learning.

That is both good and bad. Obviously, it is good to always learn. To always learn is to always improve, and to perpetually expand one's knowledge and skills. However, it is also bad because it is frustrating. After twelve years I feel that I should be beyond the basics. When I learn something new I reflect "duh! that's obvious". Except it wasn't, and isn't, or I would already know it.

The most recent thing I learned is about narrative concentration, and that is why it is frustrating. Like in formal, academic writing, one needs to be focused on what one is writing about. To find a clear subject and write exclusively on that subject so that it can be developed over the course of the work, sounds like something that should be obvious. But I wasn't doing it.  As a result, my most recent book (Transcending Limitations) did not live up to its full potential. Its themes were shallow, its events lacked build-up, and its magical mechanics were confusing (to someone other than me, anyway).

I thought this was because a novel is not formal academic writing. I did not want to follow the rules of formal academic writing because I was not writing an essay. I was writing a novel. There are different rules for writing a novel.

Characters are not rational. They do not make clear and logical arguments. They do not always act based on reasonable premise or a concise thesis statement. They certainly don't talk like an essay (unless, of course, a character's personality is based on being formal and academic). That is why what now appears to be obvious now was most hidden from me indeed.

Now I understand that writing a novel is more similar to writing an essay than I thought (or perhaps wanted to think). One has to write formally for the structure and build up of the story itself, but also informally to catch the emotion and life of characters and for reasons that I likely do not know yet.

  This is the seventh paragraph,but it was the fourth one in my first draft of this article. I added more content during the revision process because I realized a need to concentrate its themes. So now it is no longer the last paragraph before the conclusion in a standard essay.

I realized this when I was wondering where to end this post, or if it was too long. TL;DR, you know? That phrase would never appear in a formal piece, not without a paragraph defining it and its purpose, and within an essay where it would be relevant. As there, and here and in a novel, a writer should only include what is relevant. This aids the quest of subject clarity because there is less clutter.

I'm working on that. It's an on-going process of learning. I want to continue learning and improving as I continue writing for the next twelve years and beyond (ideally, it would be more like ten thousand years, but I'll take what I can get).

Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration). His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.