Writing a YA novel for my MA in Creative Writing! (part 2)

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So... things have changed in more ways than I anticipated since last week.

Turns out I hit a creative wall. There was something wrong with my draft, so I sat down with myself to figure out what it was. Because time's running out (that sounds more ominous than it needs to be).

I sort of felt like I was writing someone else's novel, but not in a 'ghostwriting' kind of way. In a 'this feels forced and impersonal' kind of way. Also, my wanting to set the story in the Victorian era and infuse it with two different worlds and a magic system was too ambitious given the circumstances.

Don't get me wrong: this would make a fantastic premise for a novel. But getting it done by the end of September, with a first chapter and a full synopsis to deliver by mid-May clearly would have been impossible. Plus, my MA is at stake, so I really can't mess this up.

So what did I do? I made a list of all the reasons why this novel felt wrong, and I came up with 5 main issues. I then found a solution for each of these issues, and that eventually turned into a sort of 'formula', which might help you if you're in the same circumstances right now (I'm guessing you're not, though). Here it goes:

1. Listen to the story and the characters.

2. Keep it realistic; no fancy other worlds.

3. Plan the work for the next two weeks.

4. Stop worrying about making the story tick certain boxes.

5. Keep your head on your shoulders; you can do this, it’s not the end of the world, just schoolwork.

Now of course this is very personal, and specific to this project. I'm sure I probably won't use it for anything else in the future, and you would probably find it unsuitable for your project too. But you can always use it as a template and come up with your own formula.

Mine takes into consideration the short amount of time I have at disposal, which gives me point n°2 about 'keeping it realistic', because the further a story is from the real world and 'what you know', the more research and world-building will be required, and these two things take time. In short: the story went from being set in the 1880s to being set nowadays, and everything is happening in our world. It's still fantasy though, who am I kidding.

Also, I stopped worrying about 'ticking boxes' and forcing things into the story that weren't organically there. Inclusivity and diversity are still very important to me, but I realised I might have tried to do 'too much', which wouldn't have done any of it justice.

Instead, I focused on more personal issues, such as dealing with mental health and being bicultural (I'm French on my dad's side and Armenian on my mother's).

Surprisingly, that helped me flesh out a character I believed in and develop a coherent story in no time.

Now my problem is: I don't have much time until I have to hand in the first chapter of this novel, a pretend query letter for it, and a full synopsis. I have until May 13th, to be exact, which is almost one week from now. That means I've had to plan my work:

Write at least 500 words for 4 days, and then edit those 2,000 words for another 4 days.

Of course writing takes much less time than editing, so it will probably end up looking like: write 2,000 words in 2 days, and then spend the other 6 days editing. But as long as I get the work done and submit my school assignment on time, I really couldn't care less.

I'll see you next week!