first drafts | Meredith Mansfield, Author

Posts Tagged ‘first drafts’

Done!

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, sequels, series, writing on March 24, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Earlier today, I typed “The End” at the bottom of the last page of BEYOND THE PROPHECY.

That doesn’t, of course, mean that it’s finished. As first drafts go, this one’s pretty rough. But now I have a draft to revise. That should go faster. It usually does.

The story threw me a curve right at the very end, too. I’d had in mind a particular ending. Not the resolution of the conflict. The denouement, setting the characters back down to rest–until the fourth and final book, anyway.

However, that ending depended on an event that has an unalterable real-world time period to completion. Well, it’s a fantasy. I suppose I could have altered it, way back in THE SHAMAN’S CURSE.

But, since I didn’t alter it there, I can’t change it now.

I’d been struggling with this over the last few chapters, making myself a note to write out a detailed, month-by-month timeline to make it all work. And then, half-way through the last chapter, I realized I had it all wrong.

That event can’t happen yet. Well, it could, but it shouldn’t. It needs to happen not in the fall, but in the spring. And since there are other events that need to happen over the winter–and which are slated for Book Four–it can’t happen in this book. Talk about throwing a monkey wrench into the works.

I had to think up something else to land this book on. I think I have. We’ll see what my beta readers have to say about it when I’ve gone through a couple more drafts.

The important thing is that I have a draft to revise. First it needs to rest a little. So, look for a preview of the cover art for BEYOND THE PROPHECY soon. Also the tie-in short story, “Modgud Gold”, now that I’ll have time to revise it.

And, of course, likely sometime in May, the unrelated story, Daughter of the Disgraced King.

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Home Stretch and Interim Projects

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, revisions, sequels, series, writing, Young Adult on March 22, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Woo hoo! I’m trying to finish up the first draft of BEYOND THE PROPHECY this week. I’ve only got two and a half chapters to go. It should be totally doable.

All rough drafts–at least all my rough drafts–need some work. This one’s going to need more than most before it’s ready for my beta readers. Still, with luck, I hope to be able to have it published by September or October. That’s the plan.

Before I can start the revisions, though, it’ll need to rest for about a month. That’s so I can clear it–or the version of it I meant to write, but didn’t quite–out of my head so I can look at it with fresh eyes. One of the best ways to do that, is to fill my head with something else.

So, during that month, I have a couple of things queued up.

One is to epublish a book I wrote over a year ago, now: Daughter of the Disgraced King. Here’s an advance look at the cover:

Ailsa’s father was forced to abdicate when he married a mage. And things have only gotten worse for mages, since, due to the new king’s paranoia. Ailsa’s spent her whole life trying not to become a target of that unreasoning fear. But, if she’s going to save her magic-starved homeland, she’s going to have to learn to stand out and put her own considerable magic on display. Her first love may turn out to be more obstacle than help, but Ailsa won’t have to stand alone.

(Yeah, that pitch still needs some work.) I’ve already started the read-through to make sure it’s ready. There may be one or two small things I’ll want to adjust, but that shouldn’t take long.

Second is the Dual Magics tie-in short story, “Modgud Gold”. This one has been waiting for some attention for a while now.

This one is about Vatar’s cousin, Arcas, and takes place during the same period as THE SHAMAN’S CURSE. I’ve got a couple of other tie-in stories to do eventually, too.

Third, if I have time (which I likely won’t), is a read through and possible revision to my upper middle grade fantasy (ages 10 – 12), Mage Storm (written back in 2011).

Everyone believes usable magic died in the Great Mage War along with its practitioners. Then a violent storm infects eleven-year-old Rell with leftover magic which threatens to kill him. In a world now hostile to magic, Rell’s survival depends on finding a mage to help him–one who doesn’t want him dead.

Middle grade is hard to publish independently–successfully, anyway. So this one might get sent out to a small press once I’ve gone through it again. I have other stories I want to tell about these characters and this world.

So that’s what’s up for the next month or so for me.

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The Shape of a Story

Posted in writing, tagged conflict, e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, Learning, revisions, sequels, series, writing on March 11, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I’m a discovery writer. I know, I said that before.

One of the things that means is that I don’t always see the shape of a story when I start. In the case of BEYOND THE PROPHECY, which is the third book in a four-book series, I knew most of the events that would take place. I knew the theme. I knew the main conflicts. But I didn’t have a real feel for the shape of the story–the way those conflicts would fit together to bring the story from its starting point, through the climax, and on to some form of resolution.

I’m kind of a stickler for some kind of resolution to each book. That’s partly because as a reader I hate to be left hanging in the middle of a long story for months or a year for the next part–which often still doesn’t resolve anything. So I always try to structure my stories to reach some intermediate resolution in each book. I want each book to feel like a complete story in itself, as well as part of the larger story of the series.

Now, as I’m writing the beginning of that climax, I have a really good feel for that shape.

The downside of being a discovery writer is, as always, that the story needs more revision than a plotter’s might. All those things I figured out along the way are going to need to be set up in the earlier parts of the book. And they’re not set up in the first draft because I didn’t know about them when I wrote the first chapters.

That’s okay, because I actually don’t mind revising. Good thing. Even if I’d been keeping count (which I don’t), I’d be embarrassed to say how many revisions THE VOICE OF PROPHECY had to go through.

Certainly a record, even for me.

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Writing and Music

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, inspiration, sequels, series, writing on March 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Spring cleaning and writing are not the best combination. I’ve been giving the kitchen a deep cleaning. Now, normally I can pace myself. But there are just some things that have to be done all at once.

I saved up a couple of the hardest tasks for the weekend–naturally. Yesterday I pulled to stove out and cleaned behind it and cleaned the grease out of the vent-a-hood above it. Wasn’t good for much the rest of the day. The stove’s on the list for today–along with more other chores than I’ll possibly get to (mowing, getting ready to paint the house, cutting that bishop’s cap vine away from the side of the house–again). Plus, I want to finish the chapter I was supposed to write yesterday and at least start the one that I was supposed to write today.

Writing an action scene while I’m still wiped out from yesterday. That’ll be fun.

So, I’m going to have to find a way to energize myself. Music.

Normally, I don’t listen to music while I write. I like vocals, mostly, and me singing along–off key, because I can’t carry a tune in a basket–interferes with getting the words down for some reason.It’s not that I don’t enjoy instrumentals as much as the story-obsessed part of me just loves the tiny stories encapsulated in songs. Usually, I just have a news channel on in the other room for a little background noise.

So, I’ve just raided my old CD collection for some marches. Think I’ll start with my Hollywood Marches CD (Raiders of the Lost Ark, among others). Maybe that’ll get the blood pumping.

I pulled out a bunch of other CDs, too. Maybe I’ll start using more music while I write if I queue up some instrumentals.

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Things Are Coming Together

Posted in writing, tagged conflict, e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, inspiration, sequels, series, writing on March 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I’m a little more than three-quarters of the way through the first draft of Beyond the Prophecy, the third book in the Dual Magics series. I’m at a point where I’m making a lot of notes of things that need to be fixed in the revisions.

This is the first book in the series in which things are moving on two fronts. Not that I haven’t occasionally cut away from the main character to show what was going on somewhere else. But now it’s not something that’s going to impact him later. Now, while he valiantly tries to put a lid on things over hear, they’re boiling over somewhere else. And, being only human (if a magical one), he can still only be in one place at a time.

The thing was, I didn’t have a good way to connect what’s going on in one place with the issues in the other–at least until everything blows up in the fourth (and last) book. That is–until yesterday, when the solution occurred to me.

I also had a couple of characters who’d played a part in the second book, The Voice of Prophecy,

who had virtually disappeared in this book. I wanted to at least have them show themselves, since they’ll have roles in the fourth book.

And the plan came together. One of those characters is the perfect link between at least part of what’s happening away from the main city and what’s going on in the city.

I’ve backed up to add a chapter. That’s not something I usually allow myself to do in a first draft, but I’m making an exception this time.

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Series Guide

Posted in writing, tagged characters, e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, inspiration, marketing, sequels, series, world building, writing on February 22, 2015| Leave a Comment »

This is a fun idea brought to my attention by fellow writer Donna K. Weaver, based on something she’d seen another author do recently.

Create a little guide, probably .pdf, of the series. It could include extra materials on the world building and history along with images of things that were part of my inspiration. Maybe other fun things, as well, like deleted scenes.

It seems to me that a newsletter would be almost a necessity to distribute something like this. That’s something I keep saying I’m going to do and somehow never get around to. Maybe this will be the kick in the pants I need.

At any rate, I’ve had some fun this drizzly morning looking up and collecting images that reflect what I see when I’m writing these stories. Like this one:

© Prometeus | Dreamstime.com - Aborigine Photo

That’s a pretty good image of my concept of the shaman from THE SHAMAN’S CURSE. Right down to the raven mask. (But less the heavy eye make up.) So good, that for a while it was a contender for the cover. Might have made it, too–if I’d been able to figure out what I could do with the other covers to unify the series.

That’s not as much of a sidetrack to working on the first draft of BEYOND THE PROPHECY as it might seem. This kind of inspiration can also help to recharge the creative batteries. I may have to do some more browsing later.

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Building Toward the Climax

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, revisions, sequels, series, writing on February 18, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Now that I can see the remainder of BEYOND THE PROPHECY so clearly, I’m getting impatient to write the climax. I think it’s going to be good. And take a couple of (hopefully) unexpected twists. And, of course, take the main character’s inner journey further, too. His character arc may sometimes be subtle, but he has a long way to go to complete it in the fourth book and last book of the Dual Magics series.

However, as a discovery writer, I find I really need to write (mostly) in order. I can’t skip around the way some writers do. Oh, I’ll sketch out a future scene if I, say, wake up with it in my head. But even then, I usually find that it changes significantly–or maybe doesn’t happen at all–by the time I get to it.

So, now what I have to do is channel that excitement about the climax into these next few chapters that will get me there.

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Guessing the Number of Chapters Is Dangerous

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, sequels, series, writing on February 15, 2015| 2 Comments »

Remember Wednesday when I gave a rough estimate of 58 chapters in BEYOND THE PROPHECY? Well, I decided to rough out what I thought those chapters might be. (I won’t call it an outline, because I don’t do those.) It came out to 46 in the first draft.

That may or may not be accurate. It’s perfectly possible that I’ll discover some events that require more than one chapter. And I’m pretty sure that I’ll be adding at least a couple of chapters in the first round of revisions. (That’s not particularly unusual, by the way.) But, yeah, I don’t think it’s going to be 58 chapters.

That means I might finish this first draft in as little as a month. It might take a bit longer than that, though, because there are at least three fight scenes in the last part and they do take more planning and a little longer to write.

So, I’m definitely making progress and getting more confident with the idea of a September/October release. Though a lot could still happen to change that.

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Three Chapters a Week

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts on February 11, 2015| 2 Comments »

That’s approximately the pace I’m on right now. (Actually, it’s closer to 3 1/2 chapters.) I can see fairly clearly all the way to the end. There will always be some surprises along the way for a discovery writer. That’s what makes it fun.

Now, I don’t have all that broken down into chapters the way a plotter might. However, I’m just about to start chapter 31. And the other two books in the series have run to 63 chapters (The Shaman’s Curse)

and 53 chapters (The Voice of Prophecy)

I think this one will likely be closer to 53 than 63, but let’s split the difference at 58 chapters. At this rate, I’ll finish the first draft in about 8 or 9 weeks.

Now, that’s a rough draft. I already know there are things I’ll need to change or fix. It’ll need to rest for about a month so I can come back to it with fresh eyes. Then a couple of revision passes before it’s ready for my beta readers. Those tend to go much faster than the first draft. I’m thinking I might get it to my beta readers around June, which usually takes about another month. Then final revisions and a polishing edit.

Beyond the Prophecy might be published as early as September.

Don’t quote me on that yet, though.

In the meantime, I have a Dual Magics short story to prepare for publication.

(That’s on the schedule for that month when the first draft is resting.) I’d hope to get that published sometime in May or June.

I also have another novel which was completed before I started the Dual Magics Series, that I’ll likely go ahead and publish somewhere in that time frame.

And there are at least two more Dual Magics short stories to work in there somewhere.

Busy few months ahead.

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Characters Going Separate Ways

Posted in writing, tagged characters, e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, sequels, series, writing on February 1, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I’ve now reached a point in BEYOND THE PROPHECY where my characters are moving in different directions and I have to keep the story moving in three (maybe four) different places.

There was some of this in THE SHAMAN’S CURSE, basically before the characters came together in the first place.

But, once I got them together they basically stayed that way in THE VOICE OF PROPHECY.

Now, about half-way through BEYOND THE PROPHECY, they’re splitting up again. Not as in breaking up the team–or the couples. Just, events require them to be in different places, whether they like it or not (most of them don’t). Things are beginning to heat up toward the big confrontation in book 4 and they just can’t cover all the bases if they stay together.

I admit, it’s more complicated balancing the story between characters this way and not letting the pace get bogged down. Things are going to be a lot more exciting in one area than the others, but what happens elsewhere matters to the whole plot, too. I have to try to balance that so readers aren’t tempted to just skip over chapters to get back to the action. (I know I’ve felt that way in some books.)

Still, there are parts of the upcoming plot I’m excited to get to. There’s going to be some fun stuff ahead.

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