On 7th April last week, I finished draft 2 of Hero.
It was a quiet thing. I’d given myself a vague June deadline, but after realising I could comfortably up the daily word goal from 600 to 1000 words, things sped up considerably and suddenly it was done. I had the typical “post-draft blues” for a few days, in which I couldn’t bear to write and spent my evenings alternating between playing God of War: Ragnarok and Stardew Valley. (If you’re unfamiliar, these are as opposite in tone as the titles suggest.)
I haven’t posted much here in a little while – because there hasn’t been much to post about. Nearly every day I spend a few hours on Hero, update my spreadsheets and climb towards completing another draft. Hero has been a constant in my life for nearly ten years, and it’s been my main project for maybe seven of those years (back when I was at uni!). The plot has shifted around with each re-working, so that each draft is more like a new version than an improvement on the previous. Recently however, the project finally reached a turning point.
When I reached the end of draft 8 of Hero, something seemed to click. I suddenly had a new title, one that fit the central theme and the main protagonist. Finally, the story seemed to know where it was going. It made sense then, to rename draft 8 to draft 1 with this new title. Subsequent drafts would be improvements and not large re-workings. The plot was settling, though the novel was in a very messy state despite its many revisions.
I put draft 8/draft 1 aside for a while, as all the writing advice websites tell you to. Then I took it out again, said to myself “oh god this is awful” and set about writing notes as I read it. I colour-coded them and everything. I also drew a few maps of important places; I needed to know the flow direction of an underground river in act one, amongst other things. Writing the notes took about two months, and in September 2023 work began on draft 2.
Seven months later, and draft 2 is all done and waiting patiently for me to resume the work. It’s nice to feel that the novel is moving at last, rather than just being reimagined once again. During draft 2, I read a lot of traditional fantasy since the story subverts and plays with a lot of those tropes. In nearly everything I read, I found a way to improve a character or scene; Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames made me realise that the protagonist and a couple of side characters should have a much bigger history. I then realised that those characters have enough back story for a prequel. That document grows steadily. We shall see.
It’ll take some time to read through draft 2 and make notes before draft 3 can begin, and until then I have to (gulp) work on a project that isn’t Hero. The next project’s working title is Green, and it also examines tropes and tries to bend and break them, but takes more inspiration from children’s fantasy. Think Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree but a bit more grown-up. It’s been a long time since I started a new novel project, and it’s already presenting new challenges: multiple POVs, writing younger characters, and somehow it’s ended up being a bit of a murder mystery. Aside from historical novels, I’ve always thought mysteries are the hardest genre to write. I’m not quite sure how this happened. Help.
In other news, I have a short story coming out – The Caretaker. Ice Hot is an anthology published by Obverse Books, containing stories set in Paradise Towers in the eponymous episode of Doctor Who. It’s a Sylvester McCoy episode from the 80s, there’s cannibal old ladies and cleaning machines that kill people, it’s great fun. No release date just yet, but watch this space.
I plan to post semi-regular updates on here to give a general indication on how things are going. I wanted to wait until I had something to show rather than just talking about the novel, but let’s be honest that’s a way off for now. Hero has dragged its feet the whole way, but finally it’s reaching a (long) final stretch and something new is spreading its wings.
Thoughts?