Plough on or go back and review

merc

I have been working on a novel for nearly three years at this stage and im only on 30000 words so far. There have been periods of months where I havent even looked at it but it is alway int he back of my mind. Unfortunately work kids etc. doesnt leave much time.

Anyway what im wondering is at this stage should I go back and start to edit it fromthe begining and clean up what I have already done or just plough on and try and get it finished?

My problem being what if what I have done it pure rubbish?
I have uploaed it to Authonomy bit by bit and have had minimal feedback (some very good) but its probably not a good way to judge as most users want you to review thier book in exchange so maybe they wont leave a negitive comment for fear you would do the same.

Any idea???:(

pickarooney

PM me the link if you like. I'll give you an honest review on there.

merc

Done. hope u enjoy. Thanks in advance

pickarooney

You need to go back to the drawing board and decide what your story is and how it fits together. Currently you have bits of stories but nothing concrete. The opening chapter is one long dump of information with no discernible story. It might be just a case of moving things around and trimming some fat but if you keep going with this in the same vein you're going to multiply the amount of editing needed.

Are you able to make a twenty word synopsis of each chapter right through to the end of the story yet or are you making it up as you progress? Both are valid methods of working but I'd just like to know if you've got a solid plan for a beginning, middle and end yet or if it's more a case of building the characters and watching what happens to them.

merc

The first chapter has ended up being a huge info dump, i totally agree there. I had already planned on going back and taking most of the back story out. Maybe i need to do this for a lot more of the novel.
There is definatley a begining middle and end, the story basically follows a group of friends over one day, with three main charachters emerging. Anothe probelm I think I have is to many nonessential charachters but I was trying to keep it as close to real life as possible.
The problem I had at the begingin was introducing all the charachters and trying to let people fet a sence of what they are like.

pickarooney

Then you should do that - let the reader get a sense of what they're like instead of outright telling him what you think they're like. Don't tell the reader anything they don't need to know before they need to know it.