You know people are still reading this shit? I was getting a vote spam and I decided to look through the book again.
Aaaand I hate it even more lmao. But this is a good thing! It shows that I've improved with my writing and how I've improved. It also gives me things to work with.
1.) Distinctive characters. This was a strength of mine in Saving Sable, and the way this worked was by giving each background character a really basic personality. I gave each character a couple of traits and stuck with that. This meant they all had clear and differing personalities and I didn't waste too much time on that and could focus on the more important characters. I just needed to show not tell. Every english teacher's favourite advice.
2.) Focus on the main character!! I used to say "it's a book about a character written from the perspective of another." No! That is not how you write!! The point of a main character is to tell their story. Readers need to be rooting for them. They can't do that if protagonist isn't in focus. This doesn't mean the whole plot has to revolve around them, or that no other characters can play a large and impactful role, it just means to stay away from that Looking For Alaska shit (I say, as if I've read the book.) Saving Sable really didn't focus on Dawnclaw. And I think having her as the protagonist was the right decision, but the book needed to be much more focused on her. On Dawnclaw's past abusive actions. Not just Sablepaw's recovery or the murder plot. Yes, those things. But how they affected Dawnclaw, as well as her own relevant storylines, like learning how to forgive herself and how to be a better mother. Dawnclaw had her moments but overall she seemed really flat and dull to me. She was just uninteresting. No one was really rooting for her. Hell, I knew this when I was writing the book.
So I learnt that it's really important to put a lot of work into the protagonist and that in the end it's that character's story being told. It's their resolution. The plot and other character's stories serve to compliment this. (Or if it's a plot driven book the protagonist serves to support the plot. But that's besides the point)
3.) Fucking research. I always recommend this to writers, especially on writing mental illness. Did I do my research? Not well enough. If I had, I would've avoiding two major mistakes. The biggest was Dawnclaw's actual abuse. I couldn't have the protagonist as a completely horrible abuser. People needed to feel sympathetic towards her and I don't want to generate sympathy towards abusers. Dawnclaw emotionally neglected Sablepaw on a minor scale. So it's still abuse but it's more understandable, in a sense? But for someone to have R.A.D, they need to undergo terrible abuse. Emotional neglect would usually be coupled with physical neglect, but it can occur on it's own if it's at an extreme level. Dawnclaw's abuse was minor. It just didn't fucking work. And that's terrible! That's misrepresentation! To get it right, I could've had Dawnclaw be forced to take in Sablekit when she was nursing her kits and his abuse (or extremely disrupted childhood) have come from elsewhere. Another issue is the fact that Sablepaw was just withdrawn. People with RAD are generally a lot more violent, or at the very least, have a lot of "tantrums" and emotional outbursts. Our boy didn't do that. Again, it's misrepresentation. Yuck.
This taught me that no matter how annoying it is, you have to do your research. Constantly. Throughout the whole writing process make sure you know what the fuck you're talking about. This means watching documentaries. Spending hours on google.
4.) The plot. Oh boy. The plot. This is where it all went haywire. This was the first book I properly outlined and planned. Then halfway through it I introduced the murder plot, which quickly took over. I still outlined it, but this had a fatal flaw. It erased the original plot completely. I think the book would've been worse without the murder plot. That made it a lot more interesting! But it should've been secondary to Sablepaw's growth. The book was supposed to be focused on him but he got forgotten because I introduced a new and more exciting plot. I got lucky with the murder plot. So what I've learned from that is that it's absolutely okay for books to change direction...as long as the original idea is still the main idea, or well balanced with the new one. The new one shouldn't eclipse the one it's supposed to be. If this was a professional book, or if the murder plot didn't work so well, it would've ruined the book completely.
