The Minotaur
So I read the 3-Day novel. And guess what? I actually really liked it.
Sure, it had all the sorts of problems one might expect from something that was not only written in three days, but basically conceived, plotted, and outlined during that timeline too. For example, it pretty much doesn’t have a middle. It’s all, here is a beginning, this will go on for a bit, setting things up, hooking people into the plot, etc. etc., oh, here’s a mid – nope, sorry, we’re into the climax and the ending now. So any editing would have to address that imbalance. I guess while I was writing I subconsciously was thinking, “there’s not enough time to hit all the main structural points of a regular novel; and if I have to give anything up, it can’t be the beginning or the end, so let’s sacrifice the middle.” And one of the characters is a bit of a caricature … and one of the main plot points is underdeveloped and underwritten during the climax, so it doesn’t really come off. But those are all fixable.
The main thing is, I sat down to read the first bit and I ended up reading the whole thing through because I was enjoying myself. I liked it. I was compelled by it. I found it emotionally resonant, and I found it exciting. So the 3-Day thing was definitely worth it. I’d recommend it to anyone out there who wants to try to escape their own bad habit of being too editor-y with their writing, or too critical to ever get anything finished or down on paper.
