Adventures with Printing Copies

Over my trip at Gettysburg, I did manage to revisit Ange's (the main character) portion of my book 1, Adamant: Enemy of Elsinaire. I restored earlier drafts to get back to the girly, innocent Ange and even wrote a few sections where she and Nellwyn spat like real sisters do. This has felt amazingly essntial to the book as a whole, because as much as I love Ange and build her up into a force to be reckoned with, I've never really had a good hold on her as idealistic Ange. Now I do! Believe me, after reading the ultra masculine The Blade Itself (by Joe Abercrombie), a little dose of the female feels like a refreshing change.

So, right, I did some revising. I would like to have a couple of new satellite readers take a gander at it -- hence my adventures with copy rates. I figure I have a lot of binders around me with old drafts in them. Why don't I just copy the draft I'm printing off now, punch holes in it, and file it myself? Well, the problem with writing a 125K book, is that is A LOT of pages. Even with some margin fiddling, I'm looking at a little over 295 pages each copy. Office Max and Kinkos are telling me 9 cents per copy, which would mean about $80 before taxes. The UPS store is a bit cheaper at 6 cents a copy, but that's still $50 before taxes. So I found www.bestvaluecopy.com, where I can send my manuscript out and then have them ship me the copies at a very cool 2 cents per copy. YIPPEE! So that's what I'm planning on doing.

That has meant picking up my old N-I-P binders and removing those contents. Good grief but was I organized with that shiz. It's a little sad, though, taking out my friend' comments and pages, for instance. But I'm supplanting them with the newest version!

Also, I'm hoping this will free up some shelf space for my overflow of books!

P.S. I'm considering writing a whole new final chapter from Melandor Ormonde's perspective. Not sure how that would resonate though, but I'm contemplating it. Might make a cool lead-in for Book 2!

~X

Ange dusted-off

Oh, Ange. I've neglected you. I should have revised your sections first, before I revised anything. But now I've gotten warm and cozy with you, and everything in Book 1 is now in hand. Not only did I add a new section here you have a fight with your sister Nellwyn (as sisters do), but you also have a new encounter with Caius, which helps substantiate your whole relationship with him. All of this means you're a real character, going through a real arc. The book is the stronger for it.

So another read-through, and I'll start examining another character. I'm quite pleased at this point, especially as revising Ange's section affected all the others -- in a good way. I had to look at scenes involving all the other major characters.

So yes, progress is being made. I hope to have a working copy in August to give to my satellite readers. Then I'll be querying again in the Fall!

~X

More Sisters!

Every time I think of the novel, I'm assured that I'm making the right call. Why? Because I changed Chapter 1's Ange/Nellwyn sections back to previous girly versions, I've had to change things through the rest of the book.

For instance, Ange no longer has her *weird* vision (which I may put back in later). That means she has no idea who Caius Raynor is. So, I changed their first meeting to consist of Ange falling into the mud and a laughing Caius Raynor helping her up. I like it, because I think poor Caius has no idea what happened between helping this bedraggled girl and leaving her. Something happened though. And there's no "she's a beauty." It's mostly the oddity of her, of a finely dressed powerful man's daughter out in the garden, branch in her hair, covered in dirt, talking happily with a slave. I like it!

Secondly, I've thought about how I have had no scene where Ange shows her reaction to Nellwyn being engaged to thePrince. Isn't this a big deal? Um, yeah! So I wrote an entirely new scene where Nellwyn's punishing Ange for dirtying her dress, and they're scrapping together -- until Ange breaks down crying about her sister getting married. That, to me, is more real than anything. This book is about sisters, and here I have a very important sisterly moment.

The progression of revising this bad boy continues. I'm hoping to work on it this weekend, as well as next week and during my sans-Internet week at Gettysburg! Then I've got two brand new readers I can give manuscripts to, which is always a motivation to get things done!

~X

Perhaps Found My Title

Although I've been trying to work "trees" somehow into the title, a title just popped into my head: The Adamant, Book 1: An Enemy of Elsinaire. This reference works for a variety of reasons, as each character does have his/her "enemy" qualities (if not in actions, then by birthright). It isn't too feminine or too masculine, and it does proclaim its fantasy-hood. Plus, I think I can come up with "A (Object) of (Place)" for Books 2 and 3.

YAY!

On Friday, I had a great chat with my friend Catherine about the book. She's introduced me via email to someone who knows about the publishing industry. Not sure if much will come of it, but I'm contemplating working on the query side of things with him.

Still feeling good about my recent edits. I need to continue revising the rest of the book, which I'm hoping to do while at the beach next week. Until then, I've got work that needs to take precedence.

~ X

Up late when I shouldn't be

Sometimes the writing bug just *bites* you, and despite how you may have real life obligations (read: I'm supposed to be up in four hours), you cannot help but submit.

I've restored an older version of Ange and Nellwyn's chapter 1. The writing isn't nearly as sophisticated -- but the truth is, these are young girls who shouldn't have sophisticated writing. I've taken away poetic phrases, but I've put in two sisters who scrap with each other and rely on the other's opinion. They're much more real this way. Ange is idealistic and determind, and Nellwyn is trying her best to be Ange's guardian, despite a two year age difference. They're real, and so I know I'm on the right track.

I've got a few problems though -- namely, Ange has a vision, bears markings on her hand, and learns a powerful and secretive Stalfen phrase. These things are referenced later in the story, so there needs to be a place for this to happen. I shall confer with chapter 2.

In any case, I feel very good about this change. Characters, rather than ideas, are stepping forward. This is just what this book needs.

In other news, I'm reading the Fantasy book, The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. Woo, is this a masculine book. 50 pages in and no female character whatsoever, not even referenced. Perhaps this is why entering Mereglen and observing the lives of two sisters is so pleasurable tonight.

~X

The Power of Time

I haven't read my novel in ages, but the good thing is that offers a fresh perspective. Getting through 90 pages today took good bit of time, lots of red ink. (I also had purple but had to switch to green, after the purple ink ran dry.) I did a lot of line edits to tighten sentences, but I did a lot of soul-searching as well.

I've decided I will be sending the Battle of Toc, my favorite section (and strongest), on to agents in the future. No longer am I going to consider it a "Prologue," as this scene is absolutely vital to the events during the rest of the novel. This isn't a set piece; this is a historical event that ripples throughout the rest of the story -- so much so that all the POV characters mark its anniversary at a gala during Chapter 3. I'm hoping this might receive different results.

Another light bulb moment came when I got to Ange's first section (which has been rewritten and rewritten and rewritten). I could barely tolerate it. What this says to me is a complete rewrite or I may return to an earlier draft, which may depict Ange in a more even way. At the moment, I'm feeling the latter. She doesn't need to be so serious right off the bat; the whole point is she is supposed to grow by the end of the story.

More thoughts about the title came, such as The Scent of Ice and Steel, The Torch and the Flame, and Uprising. I shall ponder.

All and all, I think this is progress. Can't seem to force any sentences out right now, but I think I've got good notes going so far!

~X

Making My Upcoming Reading Effective

The following advice I'll be using when I do my reading run-through of my novel this weekend. This is from Seattle Writergrrls.

What to do after you finish your novel?

1. Set it aside and go on to new projects. Stephen King recommends at least six weeks in his book On Writing. Paul Park said, "The most effective rewrites come when you are cold to the work." I put my third novel under the bed after my agent sent it back to me. When I pulled it out a year later, I saw immediately that the two chapters in which I changed point-of-view had to go. After making those edits, I sent it back to my agent and he sold it within three weeks to Doubleday.
   
2. Ask at least three of your friends to read it and give you feedback. Pick friends who love to read, know your genre and can be honest. You can ignore comments you hear from only one reader but if everyone has the same concerns, you need to pay attention.
   
3. Don't start revising until you have a clear vision of what you want to change. This may involve months of musing, reading similar novels, making notes or brainstorming with a writing partner.

If readers tell you they don't care about the main character(s). That's the most common problem in first novels: the writer chooses as a protagonist someone they dislike or disdain (you can have a creepy or weird character but the reader has to care about them). Of course, you can fix this by making the main character more sympathetic, but your new character will make completely different choices and take different actions, so you might as well write a new novel.

If readers tell you they don't believe the plot. Although there are exceptions to this rule (some literary novels and experimental novels), the classic shape of the novel demands that plot events be connected in a cause-and-effect way, slowly gathering weight and complexity until the major trouble in the novel becomes as bad as it can be. This is not as easy to fix as it seems since the causal connections must be consistent and plausible for the characters. Again, you may find it easier to start a new novel.

Certain technical problems are easy to fix:

Start is too slow	Drop the first three (or more) chapters
Lack of suspense	Rearrange some events & revelations of the story Make the reader and the characters work harder to get answers to questions
Point of view shifts	Make sure you understand how POV works and be consistent
Too many characters	List the characters & their roles, then get rid of those that are redundant
Too few characters or events	Add a subplot

The easiest of all to fix: lack of description and dull dialogue. Don't get me wrong, it's hard to write good description and interesting dialogue, but it's easy to fit in after the fact once you've mastered the skill. A good editor can help you or study the writing of your favorite authors and consciously imitate them.

If you decide to revise your novel-and you might want to do this simply as a learning tool even if you have doubts about salvaging it-set up a deadline, otherwise you can revise endlessly. Some writers revise a whole novel in a month. I've spent almost a year revising a novel it took me two years to write.

Here are a few tools I use while revising:

1. Put the whole manuscript in one file. Then you can search for a character's name and see exactly what they said or did in the scene immediately before or after the scene you're revising. This helps with continuity.
   
2. Create a scene list or chapter summary so you can review the major plot points and revelations in a compact format. It makes it a lot easier to see how changes you are contemplating will affect the whole novel.
   
3. Print a version of your current manuscript and annotate it with your comments and those from your readers.
   
4. Make a checklist of changes you plan to make. Mine included decisions (what does Zoe do for a living?), enhancements to the theme, and "what if?" questions (what if I drop that subplot?). I went through my list methodically, then wrote specific changes into the annotated manuscript and the scene list. The more specific they were, the easier they were to make.
   
5. Don't throw away the pieces you remove. Put them in a separate file; journalists call this the "morgue;" I call mine "unused." If you discover you need that passage after all, search for a key word, copy the piece and reinsert it into your novel.
   
6. Do several passes of revision. Start with a "rough cut" to establish the events in each scene-then do a polish (where you focus on the word level) later. It's frustrating to spend hours fine-tuning a paragraph only to realize it's got to go.
   
7. When I'm doing a polish edit, I use a list of common stylistic flaws and search for problems like vague adjectives, adverbs and passive sentences throughout the manuscript.
   
8. In my final edit, I aim to eliminate at least one sentence in every paragraph and one page in every chapter. This arbitrary challenge helps me eliminate redundant words and unnecessary details.