I'm nearing completion of my first ever novel, "Up in Hell", and it's interesting how different it is from anything else I've written. Not thematically or even stylistically, just by sheer volume.
What had originally been intended as a short story about a sock puppet wandering around in hell is now sitting at about 72,000 words, looks to grow even larger by the end, and has broken some of my notions about how I should be writing. For instance, it's been drilled into me that you finish your story and only then go back and edit it. I've broken this little tenant four times now, and each time it's allowed me to proceed at a point where I'd previously gotten stuck.
I'm not even sure how you could get away with not editing a larger work like this, just to make sure you're staying consistent with your plot and your characters. And I fined each time that I go back the characters grow a little. My little sock puppet now has more personality than "scared shitless".
Well, not that a sock puppet should be shitful to begin with.
So now my sock puppet is anxious but willing to put herself in harms way to do the right thing. The marionette is an unwilling (and possibly useless) messiah. And the sandwich does not have a heart of gold.
Yes, there is a sandwich character.
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