The Sniper

My third novel, but it will be the first I will progress beyond the first draft stage.
Although 'The Sniper' is its proverbial 'working title', I can see that I'd like to retain it as the title, even though the only true sniper in the novel has only a line of dialogue, and that reported as having been spoken by him.

But his actions , if not quite critical, have a significant bearing on actions on a number of the novel's key characters.

I intend to write more frequent blog posts in the coming months detailing my progress: I'm targeting the end of April for its completion
(I'll also be writing a radio play for submission to RTE's PJ O'Connor radio drama competition, so I won't be focussed solely on the novel)

I'll be starting my review/revision work on this coming Monday, January 23rd.

I Love The Night, latest

I haven't done anything further with this first draft, as I've since written two original novels, although each only to first draft.

First draft, for me, will probably always be: complete what I expect will be the essence of the novel, without using either a spellchecker or thesaurus, but just basically getting the main elements, plot, scenes, characters, ...yadda, yadda, yadda,.... down on paper, so that I will then have something to work on

Short Story Competition

Submitted my (first) entry to the annual Francis McManus short story competition today
(deadline day).
I called it 'A Desert Mystery', although its actually more horror, than mystery story.
Its got a nice little twist in the tail which I don't believe anybody would see coming from halfway into the story.

I'm quite pleased with it although I was very surprised the amount of revising I had to do, particularly after now having written three novels, admittedly each only to first draft stage; a radio play, and another short story competition entry (Dublin City library competition).
Part of the reason for this was the nature of the story which required me to blend two completely different tones, and styles of writing.
Also I completely changed the starting-off point for the story after discovering I had so much more story that I needed to tell, when I'd already neared half-way on the original draft.

Although I may yet find out to the contrary when I'm working on reviewing/revising 'The Sniper', I think you can be that much looser in your language with a novel, - particularly a genre novel, - than you need to be with a short story
Even a genre story

First Draft Completed

I've just finished the first draft.

It clocks in at just over 33,000 words which apparently in industry terms is more usually termed a 'novella', or at best a 'short novel', but I deliberately wanted to strip things down and keep things fast-paced, as befits the story.

Although I haven't yet re-read it, or even spell-checked it, I'm very pleased with how I was able to change it substantially from the original, including making changes 'on the fly', yet still arrive at a satisfactory conclusion, which wraps things up very neatly.
The ending might not be a total surprise, but it is decidedly different from the original, and is nice and abrupt.
In any event, where surprise endings are concerned, one always has to be sure that it could have been flagged at some stage during the preceding narrative, as 'deus ex machinas' are a big no-no, if a novel is to have any credibility.

I'll be sending this first draft to a friend and crime fiction fan to see what she thinks as to how it stands up, and reads.
At this stage the narrative is probably a bit rough and ready but I'm happy with the dialogue, pacing, and characterisations, so the main issues to be addressed are possibly fleshing out some scenes, and fine-tuning some of the narrative, and possibly also tweaking some of the pacing

The Green Router

This is probably going to be the point where all my planning can be seen to have gone out the window, other than as a memorandum of the characters and plot line of the original to ensure I don't lose sight of what the story was about.
I've already decided that the reader should know at this point that they'll never see Luke alive again, but thats partly because I want to set a bookmark for when Hans felt guilty about his treatment of Luke.
But the variations from the original will be coming thick and fast, now, and I'm also finding a number of uses for a major new character I introduced, Hans' old cop buddy, Ed Doran, who'll help me get around a number of problems I had with the original.

Unless I either need to do a major rethink if I've allowed the plot to run away with things, for the foreseeable future I'll be planning 'on the fly', according to scene dictates, although I'll be making sure that the characters are true to themselves

Decisions, Decisions

I've already decided to inform the reader in advance of the last time Hans was to see Luke alive. In the original his death was a shock, but not completely so, given Hans' restless sleep.
I'm considering the various ways that Luke's body could be discovered, and the consequences for Hans.
And also, then, how to introduce the Assistant DA into the story, if I stray too much from the original plot

Flashback, and new characters

I was never happy with the way the relationship with the client was detailed in the original so I've introduced a flashback section in Chapter Three, which had originally been handled partly by way of exposition, and partly by way of follow-up phone call from client.
I'm also introducing two new characters in this chapter: one, an ex New York cop buddy of Hans, who recommends him for the job; and secondly, Van Buren's loyal secretary
I may decide later on to move this Chapter to the beginning of the novel because as much as I don't care for detailed expository sections, neither am I much of a fan of flashbacks.
But at the moment I don't think this flashback section will upset the flow of the novel too much.

I'm conscious of the fact, also, that, although I still have the plot of the original novel in my head, and the scene and character details, this may only be the first of a number of deviations from the original.
I'm also conscious, though, of the need to finish each chapter with the reader wanting more