What even IS this novel?

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lunasspecto

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I'm writing the first draft of my first novel. I've started novels before, but this is the first time I've written nor than two chapters and still felt that the narrative had enough direction and momentum to continue. I'm making very slow progress, but I'm okay with that.

Right now my problem is that I don't know who I'm writing for. I haven't regularly written poetry for a while, but when I did, there was no question who I was doing it for. It was for me. The poems mostly just showed up out of the blue and I wrote them down because it felt right. So far, writing my first novel has been a much more deliberate exercise. So I often find myself asking who I'm writing for.

A lot of the novel's events come from my own life or the lives of people I know. I've written about the experience of having to drop out of college because of an undocumented and unaccommodated disability. I've written about the experience of becoming acutely aware of global imperialism, and of developing a politicized worldview because of that. And I am beginning to wrote about the uncertainty of coming of age in a society where most emerging adults don't know how they will secure the means to house and feed themselves independently. So am I writing for myself, to make more sense of my own life? Or am I writing for other people who have had experiences like mine, to validate and encourage them? Maybe I'm writing for people who haven't had these experiences, to promote understanding.

Maybe I'm approaching this all the wrong way. While the first few chapters follow the trajectory of my own early adulthood, the subsequent plot developments I have planned involve an imagined political movement centered in current-day New York that mirrors events in May 1968 in Paris that led to one-third of France's labor force joining a general wildcat strike and to President Charles de Gaulle fleeing to Germany. So am I writing a political novel?

But 5,000 words or more of the initial chapters of my first draft has been devoted to building an awkward romance between two of my characters, so maybe I'm writing a novel for people who want to read about that.

I think I'm worried that all these elements are just going to add up to something that no-one would enjoy reading. (The specter of the word pretentious rears its head.) Or at least something for which there is no market. I self-published some poetry before, but I quickly realized that I am incapable of marketing my self-published work such that a significant number of people even know it exists. (And I don't have any money I can spend on making other people do that.) On one level, I'd be happy if even one person was entertained or comforted by my novel, or found that it enhanced their understanding of the world on some way, but I think it's not entirely reasonable to want more.

But so far I'm writing it anyway. Is all this normal?
 

Brightdreamer

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I think you're overthinking it at this point.

This is a first draft, and you sound like an improviser/pantser. I'd suggest just going along with it until you reach the ending. When you've finished, look back at what you wrote. Odds are, you'll see a theme emerging, one that you'll strengthen in rewrites by lopping off whatever doesn't support it and emphasizing what does. Then you'll want to find a few trusted beta-readers, and probably write another draft or two. Or you may decide that the whole thing was a personal project, a way to examine your own experiences, and trunk it.

Right now, though, it's a first draft. By definition, a first draft is for you - the author - alone. You may have a target audience in mind for the final story, you may not, but right now you're writing for you.

JMHO...
 

Dennis E. Taylor

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What brightdreamer said. If nothing else, your writing sounds like it's therapeutic. On top of that, it will be an education on the practice of writing. And if you pull a salable story out of it, that's just bonus.
 

BethS

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Just write it. Figure out what it is later.
 

pandaponies

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I think the best writing advice I've ever heard is "Write what you like to read." Ultimately if you're intending to write for publication, no, you're not writing for just yourself, but you should still be writing for yourself because if it's good and you like it, chances are there is a group of people similar to yourself who will as well. (I would read the shit out of anything dealing with 'coming of age in a society where most emerging adults don't know how they will secure the means to house and feed themselves independently' because that is my exact predicament, for example! I have a degree from a very highly-regarded university and I work for minimum wage [fast food] because it's the only job I could get).

If you don't really care that much about romance or if writing it is awkward and laborious for you, then don't write romance, because your indifference will come across in the writing. On the contrary, if you like reading about awkward people falling in awkward love and being adorably awkward together, write it! I firmly believe that the emotion behind a text (a correctish one with a solid basic structure, of course) is what sets it apart as good.
 
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dondomat

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Sounds like literary fiction, which is 'pretentious' from the POV of many genre lovers, but from within its own framework, is simply 'adult'.
Write it, keep asking beta readers to tell you what other writers your style reminds them of, and little by little you'll be ready to objectively position your MS.

Try "Emma Who Saved My Life" by Wilton Barnhardt, or "High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby
 
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Reziac

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Right now my problem is that I don't know who I'm writing for. I haven't regularly written poetry for a while, but when I did, there was no question who I was doing it for. It was for me. The poems mostly just showed up out of the blue and I wrote them down because it felt right. So far, writing my first novel has been a much more deliberate exercise. So I often find myself asking who I'm writing for.

You're writing for yourself. After all, if you don't want to read it, why would anyone else? So write what feels right, and don't worry about it.

Besides, you're not chiseling it on stone tablets. If you later decide you don't like something, you can always change it!
 

spikeman4444

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It's no different from a poem, really. You are obviously writing for you, unless someone has requested you to write a novel for them to read, in which case you should have slapped them upside the head. For now, you are the only reader so that's all you can think about. That will take a lot of the pressure off and keep you sane as you go along.
 

WeaselFire

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Figure out what you're writing when you're 50,000-70,000 words in. Until then, it's just a story. Let it flow.

Jeff
 

lunasspecto

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I was not expecting so much encouragement and advice from my first thread here. Than you all a bunch. The most-repeated advice was that I should keep writing for myself and consider any questions about its wider audience after I've completed the first draft. I might have said this was what I intended to do at the time I wrote the first post, but I was finding it hard to calm down and actually do it until a bunch of you encouraged me to trust myself for now and go for it.

This is a first draft, and you sound like an improviser/pantser. I'd suggest just going along with it until you reach the ending.
I guess this is how I write, more out of necessity than by choice. The more I outline something before writing it, the more it seems to fall apart before I get anywhere.

If nothing else, your writing sounds like it's therapeutic. On top of that, it will be an education on the practice of writing.
I've never stuck with a story this long, so it has already been educational. As for it being therapeutic... Not long ago I wrote a piece of narration that brought up so much emotion I felt physically ill afterward, so I think there's a certain amount of catharsis involved already.

... if you like reading about awkward people falling in awkward love and being adorably awkward together, write it!
That's where I'm going with the romantic element of the plot, I think. But I was kinda momentarily wondering if that element of the plot would end up defining the story from a genre standpoint, and now I'm pretty sure it won't.

Write it, keep asking beta readers to tell you what other writers your style reminds them of, and little by little you'll be ready to objectively position your MS.
Right now, of all the books I've read, the one that comes closest to what I'm trying to write is Amber Dermont's The Starboard Sea. So in the later stages of writing I guess I can use that as a starting point.

You are obviously writing for you, unless someone has requested you to write a novel for them to read, in which case you should have slapped them upside the head.
:D I'll keep that in mind.

Figure out what you're writing when you're 50,000-70,000 words in. Until then, it's just a story. Let it flow.
Funnily enough, I started out thinking it could be just about any length, but as I got a better idea of the story's trajectory I realized it was bound to be novel-length.
 
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Laer Carroll

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Think of this as part of building your writerly muscles. Even if you never finish THIS book, you will become a better writer merely by writing it.

Also, you can never know what will happen months or even years after you've gone onto some other project. One day (as I did) you may for some strange reason pull out and read your incomplete or bad work and become excited once again by your basic inspiration. And this time you will finish your book and realize it is really good.
 

gingerwoman

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A lot of the novel's events come from my own life or the lives of people I know. I've written about the experience of having to drop out of college because of an undocumented and unaccommodated disability. I've written about the experience of becoming acutely aware of global imperialism, and of developing a politicized worldview because of that. And I am beginning to wrote about the uncertainty of coming of age in a society where most emerging adults don't know how they will secure the means to house and feed themselves independently.

But 5,000 words or more of the initial chapters of my first draft has been devoted to building an awkward romance between two of my characters,


Honestly these two elements together could be very marketable if done correctly. You would be writing a new adult novel. But you would need the romance to be quite solid. The other issues are issues of importance to a great many people so it could work. Just be careful not to descend into too much meandering, and telling not showing.
 
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