Sweet Beans - I Did It!!!

My very rough draft is complete! Please note that 'very' is italisized. There's a reason for that, trust me.

There are still a lot of words to be found & written. One, possibly two, subplots waiting to be woven. And boney characters that need some meat on their personalities. Not to mention the multiple rewrites that authors do to their manuscripts.

But I've discovered some things about my author self.

1. I have to be able to hear the main character's voice before I can begin writing. There are a couple of ways I have done this in the past- character interviews and freewrites. In crazy author lingo - I have to be able to feel the main character.

2. I need to have come up with three main scenes. One for the opening, one for the messy middle, and one for the end. However, if the character decides that they don't want to go down the path that would lead them to the next oultined scene I don't force them.

3. I write very short and bare in my rough draft. As I was writing I had scenes where I knew I needed deeper exploration. But I let it be. Instead, leaving myself notes of thoughts I had.

Writing the climax of my novel was fun and surprising for me. Because of my vague outline I thought I knew who my bad guy was and who my good guy was. But - SURPRISE! - my bad guy was actually the good guy and the good guy was actually the bad guy. It was a fun twist that I hadn't expected.

Do your characters ever surprise you? Do you like it when they do or would you rather they just did what you'd outlined?

Weekly Word Goal was - 4800
Words I Wrote - 5211

This post feels lame to me. I'm chalking it up to brain deadness and sleep deprivation. Sorry.