Dude, right on with the “I can’t answer without knowing”! I also came to that conclusion myself, but I labeled it mathematician instead of realist, saying “There’s insuffuicient information to answer the question.” Incidentally I saw a quote on Facebook today that said, “Dear pessimist, optimist, and realist, while you guys were busy arguing about the glass of water, I drank it! Sincerely, the opportunist.” I guess that glass was half empty, then.

The statistician, of course, will say, “In order to set up this test, the most likely scenario is that you took a glass out of your cupboard, filled it halfway at the sink, then set it on the table. Therefore there’s a 93.752% chance that the glass is half full, but we can’t be entirely certain.”

But here’s a thought, though: What if you fill it halfway and then drink it? Does it switch to being half empty right when you start to drink it? Or does that happen when you decide in your mind to drink it instead of filling it the rest of the way? Likewise, what if you fill it all the way and drink half of it, then fill it up again? Does it suddenly switch from being half empty to being half full?

So my point is, do you measure the glass by what happened in the past or by what’s going to happen in the future? Why do people always assume that how it went in the past is also how it will go in the future?

As far as the dialogue goes, my first drafts tend to focus more on the most important scenes and getting the basic structure of the story right first and so when I can, I’ll often streamline or skip over things like dialogue and exposition to go back to them in more detail later – usually I’ll write a quick summary of what I want the characters to say or do and then move on in the scene and eventually I flesh it out properly in the second draft. I guess it’s more of a mix of a draft and an outline than a typical first draft usually is but it works for me and I find it’s more important that I know the basic story works and doesn’t have any holes in it. My work tends to be more prose-heavy anyway, which might be why it works for me as well.

You’re right though, I do have an awful lot of notes! I’ve got folders and folders full of them – so many I’ve had to start typing them up just to get them in order! I need a new filofax. Or maybe a secretary!

Thanks again for stopping by and good luck finding an agent for your novel. It sounds very interesting.