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Posts Tagged ‘revisions’

Back to Revision Land

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on January 13, 2013| 2 Comments »

Well, it was nice while it lasted, but it looks like I’m leaving the first draft behind for a while and heading back into revision land.

I think I mentioned here before that I’m a first alternate in Pitch Wars with FIRE AND EARTH. I got the revision notes back from my mentor on Friday and I’ve been digesting them for the last day or so. Some of them I completely agree with, but one in particular has taken me awhile to come around to. She says I started the story in the wrong place–by about eight chapters. Yikes. And then use some of the saved words to further develop the characters, side characters, and their goals and conflicts, as well as more showing of emotions.

But, you know, she has a point and what she identifies as the inciting incident may be a better choice than what I thought was the inciting incident. Now, I don’t know yet if I’m going to be able to delete all of that. There are some things in there I really do believe the reader needs to know to understand what’s driving the characters. But I’ve already identified–and cut–quite a lot that isn’t really necessary. I might be able to work in some of the rest later in the story.

I’ve got a lot of work to do on this. And I have to try to do as much as possible by the 20th, because where the story really starts will determine what the first 250 words are. Duh! (Also, you know, it’s just good form to have a completed ms for things like this just in case an agent makes a request.) Plus I need to write a 35-word pitch. I have about four possibilities right now and frankly, they all suck. This is not the part of writing I’m good at. I really like the description by a critique partner (thank you MattLeo) that trying to boil the story down to 35 words is necessarily like trying to decide which blind man had hold of the most interesting part of the elephant.

Plus, the reader critiques of THE BARD’S GIFT are starting to come in much earlier than I expected. (I was planning on the end of the month.) I think that’s good. It takes longer to read a story to critique it and I only sent it out on (I think) the 30th of December. I’m taking that to mean that the story kept them reading.

Back to work with a vengeance.

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Looking Forward

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 2, 2013| 1 Comment »

I gave up making resolutions a couple of years ago. No one keeps them. Instead, I try to make goals. Goals–good ones, anyway–are concrete and are able to be broken down into achievable steps. There’s a much better chance of at least making progress toward a goal than there is of keeping a resolution. At least, there is for me. So, here are my writing goals for 2013:

  1. Get THE BARD’S GIFT in shape to start querying it. It’s going out for critiques this month. Then revisions and polish. Plus, of course, getting the query in shape and writing the evil synopsis.
  2. Get MAGE STORM into shape to start querying it again. It’s been off the market since last March. This one is still in the hands of a very thorough critique partner.
  3. FIRE AND EARTH, too. This one is currently in the hands of a mentor from Pitch Wars. Once I hear back, beat it into shape and get it out there again. If I haven’t found an agent for one of the above by the end of 2013, I’ll e-publish FIRE AND EARTH.
  4. Whip BLOOD IS THICKER into shape and e-publish it.
  5. Enter Writers of the Future at least one quarter.
  6. Write the first drafts of two new novels. One will be the rewrite of MAGIC’S FOOL (which I have outlined and ready to go). The other will likely be one of the two shiny new ideas that came to me in the last couple of months. I’m excited by both of them, but I have more world building and prep work to do before either is really ready to go.
  7. Learn and improve.

I have a list of personal goals, too, but this post is already long enough.

Happy–and productive and successful–New Year!

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A Look Back

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 29, 2012| 3 Comments »

Well, it’s that time of the year. Time to look back and see what was–or wasn’t–accomplished in the last year and declare goals for next year. I’ll do the first in this post and blog about next years goals in my next post, which will actually be next year.

The full post of my goals for 2012 is here.

Teen and Young Adult Fiction

   Writing goals:

  1. BLOOD WILL TELL was e-published during 2012. It’s original cover wasn’t very good, which I’m sure affected sales. It has a new and much better cover now.
  2. I did query MAGE STORM during 2012, but I currently have it torn apart for revisions with the help of a very thorough critique partner. I expect to give it another go in 2013. I believe in this story. Plus, I have at least three potential sequels for it that I’d like to write.
  3. SEVEN STARS, which is now titled FIRE AND EARTH, has also been queried. It got chosen as first alternate in Pitch Wars this month and I’m waiting for the feedback from my mentor so I can make revisions and see what happens.
  4. MAGIC’S FOOL will never get beyond first draft, I’m sorry to say. I learned in this year’s WriteOnCon that the age of my protagonist is poison. Too old for middle grade and not old enough for young adult. I can’t make him any younger, so I’ll give the story a rewrite as young adult, including material that was planned for the sequel (MAGIC’S APPRENTICE), possibly in 2013.
  5. Keep writing. This was an unqualified success. I finished three drafts of THE BARD’S GIFT, which is now ready for readers in a few days.

As for the personal goals, well, let’s just say I did better with my writing.

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Back to Work

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 26, 2012| 2 Comments »

Due to Christmas baking, sappy Christmas movies that I wouldn’t miss for the world, and, well, Christmas, I haven’t gotten much writing done in almost a week. Okay. Vacation over. It’s time to get back to work.

I still have to finish revisions to my short story that won an Honorable Mention from Writers of the Future a little over a year ago. It’ll need a new title, too, since I mean to give it another chance. This time, I hope to bring it to a much stronger action.

I also have to wrap up a few revisions to the start of MAGE STORM. THE BARD’S GIFT is ready for readers next week and I haven’t heard back yet from my Pitch Wars mentor (I’m first alternate) on FIRE AND EARTH.

That’ll clear the decks for me to start a new story in the new year. It’s looking like it just might be the weird Oz story, since that’s the one my subconscious keeps throwing up ideas for.

And, as incentive for me to get my act together, here’s what I found in my inbox this morning from Amazon:

E-mail from Amazon

E-mail from Amazon

 

That’s my latest story, “Becoming Lioness”, right at the top. *Happy dance.*

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Blog Changes

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on December 12, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I attended a webinar yesterday evening about creating successful author websites. I haven’t begun to internalize all the information, yet, but I’m starting to plan some changes to this blog. Some things covered in the webinar won’t work for me. In the first place, this is a blog, not a full-on website. Still, there are things I can do better.

The first change is planned for next week. I bet a lot of you hadn’t discovered some of the other pages on this blog. (In fact, WordPress’s stats tell me this is true.) If you look up at top, you’ll see that there are other pages. One has just been retitled “Free Stories” (used to be just “Stories”). Okay, right now, there’s only one story there. I was already planning to put another one up next week, anyway. (Just in time for the end of the Mayan calendar, next week be on the lookout for “Apocalypse Cruise”.)

Now, I’m trying to plan a bit more than that. I’m going to look into (and I’m not sure yet how well WordPress supports this) providing a couple of download buttons for those stories (Kindle and ePub). That way, even though both stories are short, you don’t have to read them on my blog. I’m also going to experiment with that audio file thing again. Precisely because these stories are short they may be a really good place to start. And, again, I’m not sure how well WordPress supports making those audio files downloadable.

There’ll probably be some other free stuff from time to time as well.

Updates will still be Wednesdays and Sundays, though. That schedule seems to work pretty well for me.

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Minor Characters

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on November 18, 2012| 2 Comments »

As I work through the second draft of THE BARD’S GIFT (now about 75% complete), I’m starting to think more and more about my side characters. Minor characters can add depth, conflict, and realism to a story. After all, would HARRY POTTER be as good without the Weasley twins or Luna Lovegood? Or LORD OF THE RINGS without Faramir and Eowyn?

My first drafts tend to be very protagonist-centric. Minor characters and even the antagonists tend to be underdeveloped in the first draft. That’s not a problem–as long as I realize it and fix it.

Through the second draft, part of what I’ve been doing is strengthening the antagonists. I’m not nearly done with that. There’ll be more to do in the third and maybe even in the fourth draft.

There are other minor characters, too, though. And they all have to be real, three-dimensional characters in the final draft. That’s one of the main things I have to work on in later drafts.

In particular, I’ve got my eye on a very minor character. Well, she was minor in the first draft. A friend of Astrid, my main character, who isn’t always on her side. She’s a friend, but she has her own issues and goals, too. And her own ideas of what is in Astrid’s best interest. This is good. It makes her more real. It’s also a potential (and currently untapped) source of conflict in the story. Next draft, Gerda is getting a lot bigger role.

Who are some of your favorite side characters?

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Progress Report

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 11, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Just a quick progress report today.

I’m trying to finish up the second draft of BLOOD IS THICKER, now about 98% complete. It’s that last two percent, which is actually turning into a new chapter, that’s taking the time.

Then I want to concentrate on finishing the second draft of THE BARD’S GIFT, now about 40% complete. I’ve got this scheduled for first readers in January and it’ll need at least a couple more passes after I finish the second draft before it’s ready for them.

This month, I also want to get to revisions on at least one of the three shorter works that need some revision, specifically my novelette, “Becoming Lioness”, which I want to e-publish in December.

Meanwhile, I’m still querying FIRE AND EARTH.

I also need to dedicate some time to figuring out marketing. I want to do a lot better job with “Becoming Lioness”. That’ll require some preparation and coordination this time around.

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NaNoWriMo

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 4, 2012| 1 Comment »

November is National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo for short or sometimes just NaNo. Thousands of people commit to write 50,000 words in a month or an average of 1667 words a day. They virtually disappear from any other writing communities for the duration. November is a very slow month on most writers’ forums.

I have never done NaNoWriM0–and no, I’m not doing it this year either. I don’t feel I need to. I proved to myself a few years ago that I can, in fact, write a novel in that space of time if the story is ripe and ready to be written. BLOOD WILL TELL was actually the first novel that was like that for me. It’s a heady feeling when a story comes together that way and writing it feels like opening a spigot and just letting it flow out onto the page (or the screen). But the truth is not all novels flow like that. And, even when they do, when a story is ready to just pour out, you have to write it while it’s hot or risk losing it (been there, done that, too). Somehow, those times when the story is just ripe for the picking never seem to happen in November for me.

In any case, I’m pretty firmly stuck in revisionville this November. I’m working on the second drafts of both BLOOD IS THICKER (about 90% done) and THE BARD’S GIFT (about 33% done). I also have three short stories that need revisions–“Becoming Lioness”, “The Seeker”, and one I can’t tell you the title of because, if I ever get back to it and find a better ending, it may be my next Writers of the Future entry. That one could use some polish but what it really needs is a good ending that doesn’t feel like it just sort of fades off into the sunset.

I expect to go back to writing a first draft at the beginning of next year. I’ve got a few stories brewing in the back of my head to choose from. Will it be the story I already have outlined (and I never do outlines)? Or the shiny new idea that twists all kinds of fantasy staples around and sets them on their heads? Or the fairy-tale retelling? I’ll have to wait and see what’s calling to me when I get there.

So, to all my writer friends out there who are doing NaNo: good luck. And I look forward to hearing from you and reading some of your novels on the other side.

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Prologues

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 28, 2012| 2 Comments »

Ack! I really generally dislike prologues–both as a reader and as a writer. Besides that, I’ve heard often enough that agents hate them, too. But even I have to admit that sometimes they’re necessary. Unfortunately, it looks like THE BARD’S GIFT is one of those times.

You see, there’s a speculative element in TBG that will be somewhat important to the ultimate resolution of the story. And that element–a particular creature–doesn’t turn up as early as I’d originally hoped. Not until about three-quarters of the way, through, in fact.

In my opinion, any unexpected element that will affect the ending needs to be introduced at latest before the half-way point. Otherwise, you risk the ending feeling like Deus ex Machina–something the characters haven’t really earned. That’s just not satisfying for the readers, generally.

But there just isn’t any way to introduce this creature/character much sooner because my POV characters don’t get into his territory before that. My solution, at least so far, is a prologue–just a short scene involving this character that hopefully also raises some tension, but mainly lets the reader know that he exists.

Sometimes, you just gotta do what you gotta do.

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From Romance to Capers

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 24, 2012| 4 Comments »

My last post was about rereading Lois McMaster Bujold’s A CIVIL AFFAIR to help me work out some of the kinks in the romance part of my paranormal romance BLOOD IS THICKER. I’m still working on BLOOD IS THICKER, though I’m in the last quarter, now and my focus has shifted.

Now I’m working on a little mini-caper plot point. In this case, I haven’t read or re-read anything exactly. I’ve relied more on this episode of Writing Excuses. This caper will only last through a couple of chapters, but hopefully adds a bit of action and suspense to the story leading up to the action surrounding the final resolution.

This is something new for me. I’ve written action scenes before, but never tried anything resembling a caper before. I’m sure that this will need more tweaking in the next draft. That’s okay. It’s good to try new things and stretch yourself a bit.

Meanwhile, I’ve also started the second draft of THE BARD’S GIFT, which is a young adult alternate history. It’s interesting to be working on two such different stories at the same time. We’ll see how that works out, too.

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