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Posts Tagged ‘rewrites’

I Figured It Out

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on September 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I’ve posted before about my difficulties with a particular story.

It started life as THE SHAMAN’S CURSE, my first completed novel (if you don’t count that thing I wrote in college). There really wasn’t much wrong with the story, but there was a lot wrong with my abilities as a writer and story-teller. So, I left it alone for a few years.

But I still really like those characters and that story. So, last year I rewrote a portion of that story as middle grade. It worked at least reasonably well. That version, MAGIC’S FOOL, still needed a little work, but I was pretty happy with it. And then, during WriteOnCon, I discovered that agents and editors don’t like stories that start off with thirteen-year-old protagonists. This was a problem because, for this story to work, I really couldn’t make him any younger. Drat. I had laid out several possible options for how I might proceed.

Well, last week, while I was trying to get THE BARD’S GIFT out of my head so I could start revisions on MAGE STORM, I sat down and as an exercise outlined the original novel. I have to say that was an eye-opener. It really highlighted some of the weaknesses in the original writing. I mean, I knew it, but it’s different when you see it in color-coded black and white, so to speak.

Anyway, my subconscious obviously kept playing around with the idea while I was working on other things. And then it forced me to sit down and type out a new outline. It’s the original, nearly-complete storyline with a couple of things left out that just really didn’t work well for a young adult story. Yes, it will be YA with a boy protagonist. The timeline is compressed from eight years (which was one of the weaknesses of the original story) to about two. And I like it.

There are a couple of things not clearly defined, but I’m a discovery writer; this is way more outline than I usually have at the beginning of a story. In fact, I’m sure that I’ll probably diverge from this outline at least once. That’s just what happens.

So, I guess I know what my next starting-from-scratch project will be, likely some time next year. Between now and then, I have to finish the revisions for MAGE STORM (I have a reader lined up who happens to be a great critique partner), revise BLOOD IS THICKER, possibly work on a couple of short stories, if I can squeeze them in, and then do the second and third drafts of THE BARD’S GIFT to have it ready for readers in January.

Looks like I’ll be busy for the foreseeable future, which is just how I like it.

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Status Update

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 19, 2012| 2 Comments »

Just a (relatively) quick status update today.

Monday, I finished the first draft of THE BARD’S GIFT. Yay! I took longer with that than with any first draft since my first novel. Now it rests for a while before I go back for revisions. I have it slated to be read by my writing group in January.

It’s good I have something to celebrate because my chances of getting into the second round of the GUTGAA (Gearing Up to Get an Agent) agent pitch contest aren’t looking too good. That’s a disappointment, but with four anonymous judges making the picks, you just can’t ever tell what particular kinds of stories will appeal to them–just like with agents.

Meanwhile:

Yesterday, I went through and outlined the existing version of that first novel, THE SHAMAN’S CURSE, as a way to help me decide what direction I want to take with this story. That was a very interesting exercise and certainly exposed some of the weaknesses. It also proved to be a pretty good way to get the last story out of my head and clear it for the next. Whatever I do with this will be a rewrite, but I need to decide on audience first. After I play around with it some, I may just submit this to my writing group for some brainstorming.

Now, it’s time to get back to the revisions on my middle grade fantasy, MAGE STORM. I know exactly what I want to do, so once I get into it it shouldn’t take long. 

Then I think I’ll get to the revisions on BLOOD IS THICKER (paranormal romance). I might even squeeze in a couple of short stories that need some attention.

And then it’ll be time to go back to THE BARD’S GIFT.

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Back to the Drawing Board

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 12, 2012| 2 Comments »

If you’re here looking for my GUTGAA Pitch Polish entry, go here.

I’m within sight of finishing the first draft of my YA alternate history, THE BARD’S GIFT, probably next week. So it’s time to look up and start thinking about what I’ll work on next, while the first draft cools a bit.

I have plenty of choices. Revisions to MAGE STORM are certainly at the top of the list. I have another story in first draft that I need to get back to, BLOOD IS THICKER, the sequel to BLOOD WILL TELL. And there are a couple of short stories that I need to polish up. I have a pretty good idea what to do with all of those stories. And that’s certainly enough to keep me busy until I can go back to work on THE BARD’S GIFT.

But, even though I may not start working on it yet, there’s one more story I’ll at least be thinking about as I try to figure out what to do next. This story was my first completed novel (if you don’t count the thing I wrote in college–and I don’t). In that incarnation, as THE SHAMAN’S CURSE, I thought it was a mainstream fantasy. Now, that version has so many serious flaws, I’m not even going to try to list them here, but, in spite of those flaws, I still love the characters and the whole arc of the story (which was always intended to be a series).

Therefore, last year about this time, I started a rewrite, this time as middle grade. I called it MAGIC’S FOOL and had even started the sequel, MAGIC’S APPRENTICE. The original story had to be changed, of course. Some elements had to be dropped and in order to tell a complete story in about half the length I had to choose a different central conflict. I like the results and was planning on going back for another round of revisions and then polish it up.

That was until WriteOnCon, where I found out that agents and editors don’t want stories with main characters betweeen twelve and fourteen years old. Bummer. My main character in MAGIC’S FOOL was thirteen. (He had started out as fifteen in THE SHAMAN’S CURSE.)

So now, I have to go back to the drawing board and decide what to do with this story. It’s not an easy choice, like MAGE STORM, in which I can easily change or delete a couple of elements and make the protagonist younger, say around eleven. Thirteen was already pushing the limits on just how young this character can credibly be.

So, as far as I can see right now, my choices are:

  1. “Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead.” Just ignore this age limit or maybe delete the one or two references to the protagonists age and go ahead with it as it is. This feels a little like trying to swim upstream (even more than is normally the case).
  2. Keep the story as it is now (more or less) and just make the main character a bit older. Go back to fifteen as he was in the original. To do this credibly, the story would have to be expanded by about half again as much (from around 50,000 words to somewhere around 75,000 words). There are things I could expand. There are also a couple of subplots that could easily be added–and which would add depth to the overall plot. I’d be betting that agents and editors really mean it when they say they want boy YA stories.
  3. And the third possibility would be to go back to the original story line and central conflict. I’d still have to rewrite it, of course. That would actually be better and easier than trying to revise it. This version has what may be a more satisfying central conflict. That’s a draw, frankly. Now, I could still go two ways with this. I could still try to make it YA. There really aren’t any plot elements that are inappropriate for YA, although I might handle one of them a bit differently. Or I could just leave that alone and let it be a mainstream (adult, but not in a sexy way) story.

I’ll be giving this some thought as I work on the other revisions I’ve got stacked up.

 

 

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The Middle Grade/Young Adult Gap

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 19, 2012| 1 Comment »

Something new I learned in the very last event of WriteOnCon this year. Apparently there’s a gap between the middle grade (8 to 12) age group and the young adult (14 to 18) age group. Nobody wants books about twelve- to fourteen-year-olds.

The reason given? Bookstores don’t know where to shelve such books. The main characters are too old for middle grade readers and too young for young adult readers. It seems like a pretty thin reason to ignore an entire group of readers. Makes me think that online bookstores, like Amazon, are a very good idea. It’s no big deal to create a new category in the database and nobody has to move bookshelves or books.

Plus, of course, that skips over the difficult period called puberty, which strikes me as just cowardly. Admittedly, it’s been a few years, but there are parts of that time that are indelibly etched on your memory. Not only is it a time just rife with conflicts, which we all know make good stories, it’s also a time when reading about others going through some of the same embarrassing, confusing things might be more than usually beneficial. But, there’s no space on the shelves for it.

It also makes me wonder about something else. The standard wisdom that you’ll see quoted around the internet by industry professionals is that girls graduate from middle grade to young adult, while boys, if they keep reading, graduate straight to the adult section. I have to wonder if at least a part of the reason for this is that the romance element of just about all young adult stories satisfies at least a part of the needs of pubescent girls. On the other hand, the young adult stories in which the boy is almost always older, hot, and at least socially adept enough to ask a girl out without blushing maybe just don’t address the needs of pubescent boys, so they turn elsewhere.

Part of me wants to say that this is an under-served audience just waiting for the right books. On the other hand, I can wonder and even rant about this as much as I want, but one fact remains: getting started in this business is an uphill battle as it is. Making it any steeper than it has to be is akin to banging your head against the wall because it feels so good when you stop. An established author with a great track record might be able to write these books successfully. A debut author–or a writer hoping to be a debut author–just hasn’t got the horsepower to get up that hill.

Rats! And I’d started MAGIC’S FOOL with the MC at age thirteen. I’m shelving that one and the sequel, MAGIC’S APPRENTICE, while I decide what to do. Make the MC younger? That complicates the plot of MAGIC’S APPRENTICE enormously. Make him older and take this story to the younger side of young adult? It’s ironic that he was fifteen in the original version of this story. In that case, I’m going to have to weave in a subplot or two or else change the central conflict to expand the story–a rewrite, either way. Otherwise, at less than 50,000 words it’s just too short for a young adult novel. Hmm. I already have at least one idea for a subplot, though.

It’s not all bad, though. I got a couple of really good ideas on how to improve MAGE STORM and make it even better before I start sending it out again. That will probably be my next project after I finish the first draft of THE BARD’S GIFT.

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First Person Point of View

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

In those moments when I need to take a short break from my YA alternate history, THE BARD’S GIFT, I’ve started reading through another one of my projects, MAGE STORM.

MAGE STORM is a middle grade fantasy. It’s also a boy adventure story, something that I see several agents/editors saying that they want. I queried it last year to some interest but no offers. Now, I’ve given it a couple of months to cool off and I’m taking a fresh look at it. I’ve already identified one place where I think I could do a bit better and I’m halfway through a new scene to do that.

But, one of the things I’m considering is whether or not to rewrite the whole thing in first-person. It’s currently close limited third person. Everything in the story is filtered through the main characters perceptions already.

Still, changing it to first person would be a rewrite. Done right, in my opinion, it can’t just be changing the pronouns and the conjugations of the verbs. It’s a lot more involved than that–or it should be. First person point of view invites the reader to live inside that character’s skin. It’s a lot more intimate than even close limited third person.

I’ve written first person before, but only in a couple of novelettes. (Shameles plug: “Heart of Oak”, which is currently free on Smashwords and all the places Smashwords distributed it to, is one of those.) In both cases, it was because I “heard” the story in my own head that way. I’ve never written first person just because it’s the popular thing right now.

Just a quick survey of recent novels in both young adult and middle grade makes it impossible to deny that first person is strongly in favor right now. Is that reason to rewrite this in first person? I haven’t decided yet. After all, I really do want to see this published.

So far, I still “hear” this story in third person, although I could easily see it done in first person. Nearly all of the character’s emotions are already there, and quite a few of his thoughts. While there are a number of action/fight scenes in which, eventually, he comes out as the hero, he’s nearly always frightened enough during the action that he wouldn’t come off as bragging. That can be one of the downfalls of first person.

Another consideration, though, is that this story can be the first in a series. I already know, in a general way, what the next two books in this series would be about. I think I need to consider whether first person would also serve those stories as well as third person.

So, for this pass, I’m just going to concentrate on the sorts of things I’m working on now. When I get through this read-through/revision, I’ll make a decision on whether to make the change or not.

Now, I’m going to get back to work on that improved scene.

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Themes

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on March 25, 2012| 2 Comments »

A theme is the central concept of a story. I don’t generally write a story with a theme in mind. However, it often happens that when I finish a story, I realize that there is a theme in there. When that happens, I can use that knowledge to inform choices that I make in the revisions to strengthen that theme, if I want to. Often, I don’t even ask myself what the theme is. I’m focused on telling a good story. Though, when I do, I can usually identify it pretty quickly. Sometimes, it surprises me.

For example, MAGIC’S FOOL, and in fact the entire series that starts with MAGIC’S FOOL, is about acceptance in various forms. (I really am going to have to think of a title for the series as a whole soon. Something to do with the two kinds of magic, I think.) In this case, though, it’s a little different for me because MAGIC’S FOOL and it’s sequels are rewrites of earlier stories with the unfortunate titles THE SHAMAN’S CURSE and THE IGNORED PROPHECY (TSC and TIP for short). Now that I’ve decided it should be a middle-grade story, the events of TSC with a little of TIP thrown in will be broken down into three separate stories. The fourth book in the series will cover the central plot that was planned for the end of the original trilogy, but never written. It’ll actually flow much better this way.

What’s different this time is that I recognized the theme in those earlier versions, so I could construct the story around it in the first draft of the rewrites.

In MAGIC’S FOOL, the theme actually comes close to also being the central conflict as the protagonist has to learn to accept the things that make him different from who he expected to be. That works, I think, as a good middle-grade internal conflict. My beta readers who have it now will let me know if they feel bludgeoned by it, I hope. But I don’t think it came off as that strong. The two critiques I have back so far haven’t mentioned it, at least.

Still, that conflation of the theme and the central conflict is not something I necessarily want to continue throughout the series. In this case, I’ll have to be aware, not of what theme is developing in my story, but of keeping the theme and the central conflict at arm’s length.

That’s a little different than my usual course, where I don’t even recognize the theme until I finish the first draft. In the long run, of course, that’s all to the good: a learning opportunity.

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Characters

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , on February 1, 2012| 5 Comments »

So, as I said last time, part of my revision to MAGIC’S FOOL has been to bring another character on stage earlier. In writing the couple of scenes or expansions of scenes that really show her character, I’ve remembered how much I really love this character. There’s a reason I wrote a whole novelette (“Becoming Lioness”) from her point of view. I might actually start to worry that this character is going to try to take over the series in later sequels.

I remembered so well that I went ahead and submitted that novelette to another market. I’d been holding back on it while I worked out how the middle grade series was going to go.

I actually have considered the possibility that, as this series advances, it may move from middle grade to young adult. In that case, Kiara’s somewhat backwards (Kiara goes at most everything in an unconventional way.) little love story would work very well as a foil for the larger story. Of course, that’s assuming Kiara doesn’t just take over that book and make it her own. She’s been known to be stubborn and venturesome.

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Progress Report

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Well, I’ve made good progress so far with my significant plot changes to MAGIC’S FOOL. I’m up to chapter seven. The changes involve bringing one character in much earlier (the beginning of the book instead of the very end) and making her older than she was before by about eight years. Towards the end of the book, one plot element will have to change, too.

I like this change. I think it will read better for the age group. (That’s mostly the change that will come at the end.) Plus it’s going to be a big help moving forward. MAGIC’S FOOL is intended to be the first of a series of (probably) four books. (Tentatively titled MAGIC’S FOOL, MAGIC’S APPRENTICE, MAGIC’S JOURNEYMAN, and MAGIC’S MASTER.)

This character (the main character’s little sister, Kiara) will now be in a much better position to take her intended role in the later books. She was going to be a little young for it, otherwise. Plus, now I get a (very) little conflict with the older boy not wanting his baby sister tagging along all the time. But, hey, every little bit of conflict helps.

Yesterday, I made the most major revisions so far to give Kiara a much bigger role in one chapter, so she can be seen as something other than just the pesky kid sister. She’ll have a bigger role as the series goes on. In fact, I have an unpublished short story about her that I may have to do something with in conjunction with this series. Maybe a free ebook or maybe I’ll just put it up on this blog. Or both. It’s called “Becoming Lioness”, which might give you a hint as to Kiara’s character.

Of course, after I finish this revision, it’s going to need at least one more read through before it’s ready for readers in March. But, this is my third straight time through. I think I’ll give it a bit of a rest before I go through it one last time before the Pied Pipers get it.

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Replotting on the Fourth Draft

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on January 25, 2012| 6 Comments »

I’ve almost finished the third draft of MAGIC’S FOOL. And I just now decided on a fairly major plot revision.

This draft was supposed to concentrate on improving descriptons, but as I near the end (where most things have already been fairly well described), I started wondering about a particular plot element. It had worked just fine in the original version, before the rewrite. But now I’m targeting a different audience and I’m not at all sure it works for the new market.

Fortunately, I think I see a pretty good solution. One that will, fortunately, actually help to solve a time-line issue that bothered me even in the original version. I think I’ll like this version even better.

Now, I was planning what I was going to work on after I finish this draft: revision notes to BLOOD IS THICKER based on reader input, starting to work on the query for SEVEN STARS, working on that neglected short story I’ve barely started. I still need to do all those things, but I guess they’re going to be delayed a bit.

My readers get MAGIC’S FOOL in March. I’ll need to have it ready for them.

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Revisions, Revisions

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , on January 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I’m well into the third draft of MAGIC’S FOOL and still liking it very much. That’s a good sign. Hopefully, my writing colleagues who read it in March will also like it. 

MAGIC’S FOOL is actually a rewrite–complete rewrite as in I didn’t even look at the first version until after I’d completed the first draft–of my first novel, which was called (ahem) THE SHAMAN’S CURSE. TSC was originally written as if it was an adult story, so I’ve had to break it down into parts to make it middle grade. I like this version better, though. It probably alwasy should have been middle grade. I just wasn’t experienced enough as a writer to understand that.

Of course, I’ve had to lose a few things along the way. Several characters have been axed or combined. That’s okay. There were too many in TSC anyway. I am a little sorry about some of the more adult subplots that have to go. Oh well, maybe I can use those ideas in another book somewhere along the line. They just won’t fit here any more.

Here’s the first page, as a teaser:

Vatar rode along beside his father, helping to move the cattle to better grazing. Though, really, the Dardani’s short-legged herd dogs did most of the work of keeping the herd together. Tradition demanded that he spend the day before his formal initiation into the clan with his father. This was supposed to introduce him to the responsibilities he’d be expected to shoulder as an adult someday.

Vatar’s eagerness was boundless. Not so much for the responsibilities, although the glamour of being considered grown up covered even that. Anyway adult responsibilities were still a few years away. Forever to a thirteen-year-old.

It was the more immediate promise of freedom that had him checking the position of the sun every few minutes and wishing it would move faster. After tonight’s ceremony, he would finally be considered old enough. He and his friends would be allowed to ride out of sight of the village in small groups without an adult to keep an eye on them. They’d be able to do things. What things he didn’t know yet, but he was quite certain they could think of some once they had the chance.

He looked around the endless circle of the plains, merging with the sky at the far horizon. The earth was all golden brown now, the grasses prematurely dried up by the lack of rain. Here and there, the green smudges of trees surrounding a waterhole dotted the plains. The darker line of the Great Forest marked the eastern horizon. The possibilities for adventure boggled even his imagination.

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