A Writer's Work is Never Done

I've been saying my work is never done as a variant on the one adage for years.  But it turns out to be true.  My publisher tells me they want to review Book 2 now.  I just sent them Book 1 for edits and such. And they want to see Book 2.

I really have to get moving then because it can't go the way it is; it's too messy.  And since it is over 100,000 words it will take me a bit of time to wade through it.  So much for a relaxing summer.

On the other hand, I really need the feedback on Book 2, but not so soon.  Guess, I'll stop tinkering with my web site and focus more on writing.  But my revision process can't be rushed.  It requires time so I can think about the scenes I'm revising.

I'm hoping they'll accept a partial submission.  I should have about the first twenty chapters revised soon.  If not, then they'll have to wait a bit because I really can't let the book out without one more revision on my part.

Revision Cycle

In my recent post on revision, I noticed that I didn't actually spell out the process by which I am revising my second novel.  It requires a Kindle or some other e-book reader.  Here's the process:

1. Create an e-book of the draft and put it on your e-book reader.  This is preparatory step.  You do it once and then never again, unless you repeat this whole process.
2. Read one chapter of the book, using the notes feature in the Kindle (or what other feature there is in your e-book reader) to leave yourself comments.
3. The next day:
1. Incorporate the comments from the chapter you read into your draft of that chapter and then print out a copy of the chapter.
2. Repeat step 2 with the next chapter of the book.
4. The next day, read and markup the printout you made.  
5. The next day: 
1. Incorporate the comments from the printout.  This chapter is now complete.
2. Incorporate the comments from the Kindle on the next chapter and print it out.
3. Repeat step 2 for the next chapter of the book.
6. The next day, repeat steps 4 through 5 until the whole book is revised.

I admit that it takes a while this way to revise the novel.  But I want to go slowly so I can think about each scene one at a time and make revision on a scene that are needed.  Using this approach, I've already expanded several scenes that needed more detail and cut melodrama from several others.

Of course, I could edit faster, but my goal is to get each scene complete and correct.  I will pay an editor to do a copy edit on anything I miss.  But only I can look at a scene and know if it is doing what I need it to do, what I want it to.  So my time here is an investment in the novel to make it better so it can sell.

Hope you find this approach helpful.

On the Road of Revision

I did some checking about the amount of time I spent writing Book 3.  It appears it took five months to belch out that draft.  During that time I did little else in the way of side projects and other distractions.  Now that it is complete, a great weight has been lifted from me.  Revision takes much less work because I go more slowly and only do small bits of work here and there.

This approach works well for me when revising and it gives me time for other things in my life.  This is good timing because with Spring arriving I will want to spend time outside to tend to the garden, the tree, and the yard.

This means a lot more time thinking about the events in Book 2 and the new characters that are introduced. Given that the book is over 100,000 words (a personal best) it means I've got a lot of work ahead of me.  Hope it it ready to go by December.

But that's not the only potential pitfall.  In Book 2 several of the main characters get fleshed out.  The issue here is the fine line between drama and dramatizing scenes and melodrama (the type of thing you see in soap operas and reality TV shows).  I want drama; I eschew melodrama.

But the whole young adult crazy in fiction now seems to thrive on melodrama.  I find myself slipping down that path.  The good news is now is the time to revise it out of my story.  This is one reason I am proceeding slowly through the book.  I need to find the words and scenes that don't belong and remove them or change them so that the text sings.

Essentially this means I'm doing a developmental edit, a copy edit, and a review for word choice and sentence variation all at once.  I doubt I could go much faster even if I wanted to.

I think the editor is getting this after I'm done, just to make sure nothing fell through the cracks.

Back to the Future

Time to return to the 21st century, I think.  Over the weekend I completed the draft of Book 3 (67,000+ words) so it is time to go back to revising Book 2.  The plan is to revise and polish the novel so that is ready for release by the end of the year.  That should be possible, but we'll see.

The method I used for writing Book 3 was very old school; I was chained to my desktop computer typing.  There is no point to that in an age of mobile devices, but the iPad keyboard does not work well for typing.  I make many more typos that I would at my desktop computer.  I have since purchased a wireless keyboard for the device so perhaps the iPad will work out better for Book 4.

The technique I'm using for editing Book 2 is one of my own devising.  I read it on my Kindle and make notes.  Then I transcribe the notes to my draft on my computer.  This is a little labor-intensive but it worked really well for Book 1 and avoids the need of editing on paper.  I want to avoid using paper and printer ink for environmental reasons.  That's why I devised another approach in the first place.  It also seems to me to the way to go in the future.  I'm thinking that printers attached to computers may very well be as obsolete now as typewriters.

Theoretically, if I want a less labor-intensive approach,  I should be able to edit the draft of my novel on my iPad more easily.  The problem is edits are not setoff in anyway, the way one might Track Changes in Word.  And I need to track my edits so I can review them after I make them.  Only in this way do I know if the edit is right and does what I want.

As you can see, I am taking a lot of care in the editing process -- perhaps too much.  But I think it is worth it.  I need to make sure the text says what I want to convey and that is often hard because English is such a blunt instrument.  Nevertheless, this is how I got Book 1 to sing.  And this is how I will polish my work.

And in case you are thinking of trying this yourself, please don't.  My methods work for me because I am the one using them.  You will need different methods because you think differently and have different associations.  So experiment and see what works for you.

I Have a Dream Too

Today is a holiday in the United States to honor a man who had a vision and dream of a better world for all.

It would be hubris to compare myself to such a one but I too have a dream-- a writer's dream. I dream of being published. While that time may be close at hand it does not feel that way.

But I am also concerned about the walls that still exist along the road to publication. I think they are still quite high. I may have scaled them at last but many have not. Of course many do not want to. They take the path of least resistance: self-publishing. But I think that's because there is tyranny surrounding the publication process. I dream of a world without this tyranny, one in which all voices can be heard.

Then there are personal dreams of finishing the fantasy series I started. Seven books is a lot to write and I only have partial drafts of Books 4 to 7. So I wonder of I will finish it. I don't have any intention to abandon it but accidents happen. I would hate to leave my readers hanging.

But today is a day to envision the world as it should be and not as it is. To dream our dreams and find ways to make them happen. To strive to make the world a better place.

So what's your dream?

Editing with an iPad

As I mentioned in my last post, I tried to work a new revision process, one that let me edit away from my computer.  I wanted this because I find I edit better when reading in a more relaxed venue.  For example, I've lots of errors in text when reading from my Kindle.  I wanted to replicate that for myself during the writing/revision process.

I could have converted my draft to the Kindle, of course, but I'd have no way to edit the text directly.  The Kindle only lets you leave notes so that's like adding comments to a Word or PDF file.  That was not what I was looking for.

I decided I needed a tablet with an app that let me edit my text and the iPad seemed like the logical choice since I work on a Macintosh computer regularly.  The trouble I had was find an app to do the job.  Ultimately, after discarding the notion I would save my story in RTF format, I settled on QuickOffice.

I chose that app because I had used it before on my old PDA and had experience with it.  I also chose it because it could save text in Word format and after discard RTF as my preferred format to work in, Word is the next logical format to use.

Using QuickOffice is easy and editing the text is straightforward but clunky.  This is not because of the app.  This is because of the iPad.  I am so used to having fine control for cursor placement with my mouse, that on the iPad, I really don't.  This is why I think all touch interfaces should use a pen or stylus like my old PDA.

The other odd thing is the auto complete feature is very strange.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it is a place in the ass, introducing errors.  I introduce enough errors of my own when I type, I don't need the machine adding to it when I get it right the first time.

Typing at the keyboard is different too.  A hard press on the keys isn't needed creating more typos than normal.  I also find I can't always type with two hands because certain keystrokes are being missed.  That has everything to do with how I hold my hands and pressure I use.

So it is a different model and the shift it like the one we went through when mice and GUIs were introduced to the computing world in the 1980s.  Still, I think tables may replace laptops because content creation apps are available and more will be coming.  And since tablets are smaller and easier to carry, why use a laptop?  All the tablets need is a port so I can plug in a real keyboard.  Of course if they do that, I can probably go back to using a mouse since most keyboards provide a port for a mouse.

Regardless, I think tablets are another tool in the writer's arsenal and should be used to their fullest advantage.

Showing Backstory

I've been diving deep into my characters and plot for Book 2 and turning up all kinds of interesting things.  I'm doing this up front because it was one of the things I didn't do for Book 1 until very late because I didn't know any better.  As I work, I'm seeing what I can do to round out the characters and the story.

This has led to some interesting questions that I had to answer.  For example, the tension in the story starts when the main characters prevent a little orphan girl from being abducted by a local witch.

The witch gets away but the girl, Amanda, is safe.  This poses the question why did the witch want Amanda in the first place?  Was it convenience or is there something about the girl that is special.  I had already decided that Amanda was the fifth of five girls the witch wanted for a sacrifice to a demon.  In this way, the witch hoped to acquire knowledge and power to cement her hold on the town.

Ultimately, I decided that there had to be something about Amanda, something special because if there wasn't then the witch would find a different girl and perform her ritual after not abducting Amanda.  Not a lot of tension there.  But by making Amanda special in some way, I create more tension.  Now the five girls are selected for a reason and the fact that the heroes of the story have one of the girls sets up a reason for the witch to attack them.

But the real problem I had was, what was special about Amanda? My first thought, that she had the ability to learn and use magic seem too easy, too pat.  I wanted something else.  Something we wouldn't think twice about that the heroes of the story would.  And then it all fell into place.  It was Amanda's astrological sign.  And then it hit me; what the witch needs was four girls for the four basic elements, water, air, fire, earth, and a fifth girl to represent magic.  That was perfect; it explained why the witch needed five girls and why those five girls.  It let me nail down the signs of the zodiac for my fantasy world (which I'm sure I'll use again) and tied those signs to the system of magic I developed for the first book.

All very nice and neat.  And the most the reader will learn about all this is that if the witch is planning to sacrifice the girls she had abducted they need to have the right astrological sign.  The story's demon hunter, Evan, who knows all this does not elaborate because the other characters understand what he means.  To ensure the reader does too, I have them discuss it a bit.

And this is perfect example of the amount of backstory that is often required to make the story work.  Often I can't show more than the very tip of it.  And this is also the issue I have with showing the characters as completely as some people want.  I can't (or I won't) do it at the expense of the story.  It has to fit in with the story I'm telling.  In Book 1, there weren't many subplots or side stories.  In Book 2, each main character has one, specifically to address the comments I received on Aure, the Topaz.

And I've planted seeds in Book 2 that I will pick up in Book 3.  And in this way, the story, the characters, and the readers all grow together as the series progresses.

I only hope Book 2 is well received.

Holistic Writing

Recently, I've been reading blog posts about holistic writing.  The views expressed generally state that all parts of a story need to work together, that the story is an organic whole. and that characters need to fit the plot and the plot needs to fit the characters.

Well, Duh?

Where have these people been?  All writing must be holistic or it fails.  It does not matter if it is an essay, a work of fiction, instructions for assembling the next big thing, or a letter to Mom, the writing must be conceived in its entirety and executed as a whole.  This means different things for different forms of writing.  In fiction, it means the characters and the plot are a unified whole.  The whole character vs plot discussion (about which is more important) has always struck me as pointless because all writing needs to be holistic.  You need both characters and plot and they have to work together or the story fails.

Example:  If Romeo is from a different family, not the mortal enemy of her family, does it matter whether he falls in love with Juliette?  No, of course not.  In fact, the story is not nearly as interesting because it transforms the tale into a simple love story, not a tragedy of star-crossed lovers.  But because the characters and the plot are tied together, the entire story is transformed from a simple love story to a major tragedy.

What this means is you need to select characters that fit the story and have a story that fits the characters.

Example: In my first novel, I spend time introducing the main characters.  Daniel, an orphan, is looking for members of his family.  He was rescued by elves and raised by them.  He knows his last name but little else.  Daniel is also a master of elven martial arts and revered by most elves.  When Iriel, an elf in town, meets Daniel, she offers to help him because to her he is almost a religious figure.  James, Iriel's lover, is also sucked into this plot, not because James wants to help but because Iriel wants him to and asked him to help.

I spent time setting this up so that when the magic gem in the novel communicates with Daniel and asks for his help, it starts a process that affects all three characters.  Here, plot and characters are partners each pulling their own weight to move the story along.

Now some may say, "But that's contrived."

Yes, of course it is.  All art (and writing) is contrived.  I've purposely selected details to tell the story I want to tell.  If I don't do that, you get a lot of irrelevant details and you don't have art, you have... reality TV or something equally noxious.

So if you are oohing and aahing about holistic writing, I think it is time to go back to basics and remember what makes fiction work, what the elements of fiction are, and get over any sense of novelty.  Holistic principles aren't new; they are as old as writing itself.

Revision is a Harsh Mistress

I've been revising my novel.  No news there.

But I've been revising it for six weeks and what I've discovered is revision -- really good revision -- is really hard.  I don't know why it took umpteen drafts to get to this point but I've hit bone I think.  I've finally got the words where I  want them.

So I'm hoping it sells. If not, back to self-publishing.

But I've discovered a few other things too.  Revision is a lonely process and I've been fighting feelings of isolation.  The fact that it is winter in New England (where I live) does not help.

I really need a break but I've have only half the book revised and I want to complete it this quarter so I can move onto to Books 2 and 3.  Worse still, I heard the siren sound of other things calling me.  If I answer that call, I will not return to this work I'm sure.

So I will stay the course.  In the meantime, I am planning Book 3.  It is partially written and needs much attention.  The good news there is that it will give me something new to work on, which helps during my bouts of revising Book 1.

Support from others would probably be good too but I don't belong to a writer's group (I can't seem to find one I like) and I've all but dropped out of my social media sites for now.

I'll be back, but not for some weeks yet.  Still it's all good.