My First Novel Isn't Bad

I've been on a mission to update my three full-length novels, which were uploaded to KDP before the Kindle Create app existed. At the time, I didn't know how to add chapter numbers to my Word doc, and my formatting was atrocious. Now with Kindle Create I can present much more professional-looking book matter. The good news (?) is that no one has purchased any of my novels, so no harm was done.

The manuscript required a lot of fixing, format-wise. I don't know how I ended up with the spacing I did, but it was as if my cat had done it (although she would have done a better job). Thus, I had to skim through the entire book, deleting spacing as I went. 

It's not bad!

I'm not saying it's a masterpiece; there are many issues, which I'm not about to fix. I don't want to re-write the thing, for God's sake. Suffice it to say that if I were to write the same story now, a lot of aspects would be changed. 

For one, it's almost all dialogue! That's not good. I didn't know how to convey a story any other way, apparently. I've missed my calling as a screenwriter. I struggle to this day with my stories being dialogue-heavy, but not like this!

Two, while this book combines three women's stories, unfortunately, the first story is the most pedestrian. That doesn't bode well for someone continuing to read it. The problem is, this particular woman's story has to come first or the rest doesn't make sense. But it could benefit from some punching up. 

One niggling issue was my apparent avoidance of the word "and". Over and over again I used a comma in place of "and". "She turned on the faucet, held her hand under it." That's okay once in a while, but not every damn time! That I did fix this time around.

I think I had a good premise overall, but as a novice, I didn't know how to execute it. 

And it struck me as being too long. But that's simply conditioning. I like novellas. They're compact. For a novel, this wasn't long at all. It was average ~ about 60,000 words. It's just that a 60,000-word missive seems really long to me now. 

One last thing: Third person is too distancing. Every novel I ever read was written in third person, but it bugs me now. I like first person because it puts me inside the story. I realize that's a stupid bias; tons of great novels have been written in third ~ it just doesn't work for me (now).

Finishing the formatting of this one, I'm rather curious how my second novel will come across. I've already tackled my third. At this point I'm just grateful I only wrote three. Editing a novel, even if simply for formatting, is a really long slog. It took me days. I do feel better, though, knowing it at least looks right now.

I might even read it ~ but not anytime soon.