I seem to be having a minor attack of writer’s doubt.
I am just over halfway through the first draft of my current w.i.p (work in progress), a historic fiction novel, and just as I’m nipping at the heels of the novel’s biggest story arc, I find myself almost scared to commit word to screen.
I can’t decide if it’s because I’ve done so much work leading up to this point that I’m now anxious I’ve got here before I’m ready or if I’m worried that my skills as a writer and a researcher will not do justice to the events I want to showcase.
Historic fiction vs history books
Before I could even put pen figuratively to paper on this novel, writer’s doubt led me to spend inordinate hours poring over research, unsure of every phrase I wanted to use and every scene I imagined. Then I read some invaluable advice that allowed me to put away my fears and enjoy the fact I am writing historical fiction, not a history book. After that, although I have frequently had recourse to refer back to sources for nuances or details of life during the period, my imagination has been given free rein, knowing that no-one, and no historic text could cry ‘falsehood!’ from the battlements. For no historic records exist at the level of detail I am creating.
Freed from doubt and from those historical accuracy shackles, up until this point, I have given myself licence to create a parallel world; one that shadows the historic events. By concentrating on the day-to-day lives, emotions, fears and aspirations of my created characters, I’m hoping to give the historic characters involved a modern-day currency which allows us to step virtually into their shoes.
And so far, that has allowed me to work, whilst not exactly at Stephen King pace due to the ongoing research, at least with some alacrity. But as I find myself drawing ever closer to the pivotal event in the story which looms with its small army of historical references, ready to do battle, instead of feeling the rush of excitement I hoped for, I find myself feeling like a rabbit in the headlights. So what is it that’s really bothering me?
Does a novel’s size matter?
If you Google average word counts for a novel you’ll find a guide of 70,000 to 100,000 words. 50,000 words is considered too short (except for romantic fiction) and anything over 110,000 words too long. In my mind I have seen a figure of somewhere around 90,000 words as optimum, so to reach the foothills of my main event at somewhere in the region of 60,000 words feels too early.
Given that I intend this work ultimately to be a trilogy, if I find myself significantly below my 90,000-word assumption, I have the option to extend the first novel further into the saga but that could dilute the impact of the dramatic arc. Furthermore, it would inevitably have a knock-on effect for the next two volumes. On the other hand, there are many more dramatic arcs to come so I could instead reduce the saga to two novels and simply extend the arc in each.
Doing justice to history
The whole reason I began writing this novel is because I feel that, apart from specialist Spanish research institutes and scant reference in the usual sources (Wikipedia, Britannica etc) history has largely overlooked something of such magnitude that it deserves to have better recognition. And that is ideal breeding ground for writer’s doubt.
Whilst I don’t kid myself that my novel will reach a readership large enough to draw significant attention to it, I am hoping that I can at least do some justice to bringing it out into the open. If I feel I’ve achieved that, I will finally get it out of my head and be able to move forward with other projects.
But because it’s so important to me that I shine a light on real events, I feel the weight of history now poised by my keyboard. It’s imperative that I record the event with as much historic accuracy as I can while also imbuing it with the emotion that it must have invoked at the time if only it hadn’t been swept under history’s carpet. I think that’s why I’m so hesitant.
Having mulled over my options, and analysed my fears, I have decided to bite the bullet and press on with my novel as intended. If the final first volume comes in at under 90,000 words, so be it. The most important thing is that I maintain momentum, don’t drag it out for the sake of word count, and record these events as accurately as I possibly can.
History books, stand by. Writer’s doubt, be gone! Onwards and upwards.
