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Slow and Steady Publishes the Book (I hope)

I did not expect it to be three months between posts.  I really thoughts that my next post would be announcing a Facebook page or a publishing plan.  Maybe some word on Crowd Funding or Publishing Dates…instead, I’m not there.

That’s not to say I’ve slacked off for three months.  My book is getting edited, and I’m closer to having artwork for a campaign.  I’m writing two other books that are coming along nicely.

But when it comes to publishing, there are so many options the possibilities get intimidating to consider.

I could ask for a lot of money and do a bulk package from a website, hoping that the extra expenses pans out for me.  While this seems simpler, I’m not a fan of how much it costs versus how little I can expect back, and how little control I may have over it.

Or I could start a publishing company and do as much of the work myself, working to get several books out there and establishing a name for myself that way.  This gives me more control, but I’m not sure that I know enough to use it correctly.

Lots of research to be done, and soul searching.  Whatever plan I go with, I’m going to be going with for the first several books I publish, so it’s got to be something I’m comfortable with.

Writing

Looking into 2016

2016 PictureAs 2016 begins, I look ahead and ask myself, as a writer and author, what do I expect to do?  What do I want to do?  I’ve wanted to publish for years and I constantly trip over myself.  I’ve got projects I revisit from time to time.  Lots of things I could do, I want to do, I should do.

So, realistically, what am I planning for 2016?

I’m planning to publish my first book.  

I’m so close, only if I give up completely will I fail to do so.  The third draft is a few chapters off from being done.  I had an editor lined up (and some options if it fell through), a company to help with publishing and promotion.  I’m researching Crowdfunding and Social Media.  And I’m staying focused.

I’m looking forward to holding a book in my hand and seeing my name on the cover.

I’m planning to finish writing a second book.

If I want to make a career as an author, I need to be able to write them faster than I have been.  Luckily I’ve learned a lot about myself as a writer, and I believe I can finish as least one more before next New Years.

The book I’m hoping to publish is the first half of a book I cut in half; so with so much work done on the second half, I write the second book pretty quickly.  I also have a fantasy book I’ve been working on that I might be able to finish.

Maybe I’ll finish a third book as well?

I’m planning on reducing the projects I’m working on.

A few weeks ago I counted myself as having 17 Projects in some stage or another.  Some of them were ‘hey, this could be a fun idea and I should think about it’, some of them were already underway.  This year I’ll figure out which ones I will focus on, and which ones I will put into storage.

Where do I want to be when 2017 starts?

I want to be a published author with at least one more book lined up and moving towards publication.

Publishing, Revising

When is a project done?

I recently had a bit of a crisis of confidence in regards to my work.  While a large chunk of my 3rd draft is new and in need of extensive revisions, the first thirteen chapters have been written, revised, rewritten and revised again.  They’re pretty solid chapters.  But I still found things to change.

I’ve been working to publish for years, and I’m close enough I can almost taste it.  I would love to be able to finish this and move on to the next project, but I don’t want to wrap this up just for the sake of moving on.  This needs to be a good attempt, not just throwing it at the wall and hoping it sticks.

The question is: how will I know it’s ready?

I expect that every author has this crisis at some point, so I can’t believe I’m unique in this feeling.  But it’s hard to imagine Hemingway sitting at a typewriter and not knowing exactly what he was going to say.   That King or Clancy didn’t just write out a book and say ‘Done, what’s next,’ that they had to revise and consider and research.  I’m so used to the final product I have to remind myself each book starts with a simple idea.

In response to my own question, I don’t believe I will know it’s ready.  I could spend years revising and always find something wrong, something I want to work on, something to defer the next step again.  Maybe that’s why an editor is such an important part of the process, so that an author can take a step back and say ‘this is it.’

But for now, I still have a lot of work to do.

Writing

The Antagonist Story line

Villain Pic0001
Everyone has an antagonist

When I wrote the first draft of my book, I decided to include an antagonist’s story line, that is to say, a thread of the book from the perspective of an opponent, and not just people the main character has to deal with in her story.  The two characters never meet, never know each other’s names, or come within a hundred miles of each other.  I included the story line for two reasons.

First, it allowed me to explore more of the world.  The main character is fairly parochial in her view point, and does not travel far from home during the course of the story.  She learns a lot, but she can’t learn everything I want the reader to know.  The antagonist, being removed, well-traveled and experienced, could provide more of the framework the heroes are working against.

Second, his actions during the course of the book allowed me to toss a wrench into the main character’s story line, and to do so logically, without a feel of deus ex interruptus.

This worked for the 1st and 2nd drafts, though I must admit I was never quite happy with the actual wrench being thrown in.  When I started working on the 3rd draft, where I cut the book in half, I put the antagonist’s story line to the side.  I wasn’t sure (and I’m still not) that I would have room for it, and what kind of wrench he would throw into this one.  He would provide more of a world view, which in the long run may decide the issue.

Now that I’m nearing the end of this draft, I’m coming up on the point where I have to decide if I want to use his story line or not.  The first reason, world building, certainly still applies.  And I think the ending could use a wrench-toss to spice it up, make it more interesting for the character to overcome.  On the other hand, I’m not sure how long the book is going to be, and an extra story line could add too much.  And there is the aspect of writing a story where the reader learns alongside the character, reducing the chance of an information overload and surprising the reader along with the character.

I’ve got a tentative deadline of the 31st to finish writing this draft, so less than four weeks to decide if the antagonist stays or not.  Stay tuned!

Fiction

Forgotten – A very short story

A very short story I wrote during a writing group exercise.  Not my normal type of writing, but it was well received.

‘Hi, honey!  Welcome home.’

What did I forget? I thought.  She’s smiling.  She hasn’t smiled in years.  I’ve forgotten something, and she KNOWS it!

‘Hi, dear.’ I hung up my jacket, meticulously putting everything back in its place the way she liked it.  It’s not February, so it can’t be Valentine’s Day.  Anniversary?  No, that’s in…shit, when WAS it?

‘Did you have a good day at work?’

A kid’s game.  I forgot to take time off for our kids…wait, we don’t have kids.  What did I forget?

‘Good enough. Yourself?’

‘Oh, I can’t complain.  I did make plans with my parents for dinner.’

I missed an email or text about dinner! I checked my phone.  ‘That’s good,’ I said, not seeing anything I hadn’t seen before.

‘It should be fun,’ she said.

I finally stopped and shrugged.  ‘Okay, I give up.  I know I forgot something.  Was it milk?  Dry cleaning?  Did I send flowers to the wrong somebody?  What did I forget?’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘you forgot that we got divorced.’

Writing

Planning an argument

The current section of my primary project is an argument between several characters.  This section brings two challenges for me.

First, keeping the antagonist as a challenger.  It always bugs me when the author gives the antagonists the worst arguments.  Like any conflict I’ve written, it has to be  a real threat.  The other side HAS to try to win, otherwise it’s just a poor read.  As I’ve been planning, I’ve paid attention to both sides to keep it an argument.

Second is the strength of the arguments.  The topic is ‘When is it okay to rebel against tyranny’.  Now I have plenty of thoughts on this topic, but I don’t consider myself an expert on it.  And neither are most of the debaters, which makes their interactions relatively easy to write.  But one of the characters is much smarter than I am.  Planning his section is difficult because I want him to win, but I don’t want him to win because the other guy rolled over.

My answer to both challenges is research.  Not every character will be able to quote philosophers, but experience can be used to make similar points.  And the intelligent character, who probably can quote philosophers, probably should.

Only time will tell if my answer was correct.

Until then, write on!

Writing

Writing a Prologue

I used to think that every book needed a prologue, basically a chapter which introduces the reader to the story.  I’m not sure why, just one of those things you never really question until it’s challenged.

I was sent this article by a friend of mine.  A lot of these I’d heard before, but the ‘Avoid Prologues’ one stuck with me.  I always started a project with a prologue; it was what I thought I was supposed to do.

This resulted in a number of conversations with friends and family, and I realized that a prologue, like any writing convention, isn’t always useful.  Most of my prologues were really just first chapters, with nothing but a POV shift into the book.

A prologue sets up the story, but is separated from the core of the book, either by time or distance.  The point can be world building, establishing the conflicts and challenges for the character, or just an awesome hook, but if it rolls directly into the meat of the book, it’s probably just a first chapter.

(On Basilisk Station is a good example: the prologue is a ground of politicians who appear only in the prologue, and make a decision that impacts the main character for the rest of the book.  )

Most of my books don’t have prologues anymore, they’ve all been renamed to Chapter 1.  It’s become something of a challenge with a project, to consider any prologues I might write for it that could be separated enough to work.  Most of the time, nothing comes of it.  Which is okay.  If anything, it’s a fun exercise in creative thinking.

Any examples of a nice prologue, let me know, and as always, keep on writing!

-Michael

Revising

On getting feedback

Plenty of people have started my book, but until recently no one had finished it.  Many people offered their services, but most people are busy: they have lives and jobs and houseplants, and critically reading a book is much different than reading it for enjoyment.  Luckily, someone I know had the time to read my book, for a decently modest fee.  During a nice summer evening, we floated on a boat drinking beer and discussing the particulars of what my book needed.

The fact is, for any novel, you need someone who has gone from start to finish.  Yes, an editor will do that, but I mean earlier in the process, when you don’t have a book you are ready for an editor to see.  You have questions about your story that need to be answered.  Does this work?  Does that make sense?  Did you get the right response to this event?  Did you realize what I needed you to realize at the right time?

Getting someone you know, who you can trust to give you good advice, is invaluable.  If you can get someone to do it for free or for fun, great, but it is certainly worth the money if you need to hire someone.

And now, with a number of important questions answered, I’m better prepared to finish my book.

Writing

Chapter Size

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I noticed something as I was revising my book: my chapter sizes are all over the place.

With 18 chapters written, I’m averaging a little less than 3000 words a chapter, which is not bad (I don’t think).  But that’s the average.  The smallest chapter is about 1500, the largest about 5200.  Most are between 2 and 3 thousand, with a number of 3000+ and two 4000+.

I’ve never really thought about chapter size before.  For me, a chapter is simply a segment of the story, and some are going to be larger than others.  But I’m wondering if I should be thinking about paying attention.  Perhaps I need to cut some of the chapters up into smaller bits?  Will one long chapter or one short chapter ruin the enjoyment of the book?

Do you have any thoughts on chapters?  Is it important that they’re all the same size?  Or is it completely irrelevant to enjoying the story?

Thanks, and keep writing!

Revising

Cutting a Project in Half

There are a number of options an author has when a book is too long.  There is steam lining the story, removing little bits here or there.  There is cutting arcs and whole scenes.  And there is dividing the book into multiple parts.  Operating under the belief that my book is too long (153,000+ words), I’m using all three options with a goal of having a publishable book, but mostly I’m going to write about cutting the project in half.

It isn’t as simple as simply finding the halfway point and making the cut there.  Not every story will have an adequate break point in the middle, and cutting the flow of the story can make for a jarring division.  So you have to find a point where you can divide the story.  The best place to make a break in my story comes about a third of the way through.

Second, I look at the arcs involved in the story.  One of the arcs was written to produce conflict and explain the world more to the reader, but it doesn’t quite work cut up, so I’ve removed it (at least temporarily).  The main arc works, but needs a lot of clean up.

The third step is to look at what is left and ask yourself: is this a book?

My modified story is not.  It needs some expansion, and not just because it is so small, but because it needs to be able to stand on its own.  So I’ve sat down and considered how to change the book, planned and outlined and established what I want to have happen so the second book will work.

A large portion of the work is based on the realization that the character who would head into the second book would not be the same one as from the rough and first drafts.  She’ll have more time to grow and expand, become a unique individual.

But there’s still the question of plot.  The start is good for the first ten chapters, then begins to muddy up and wobble a bit.  And the ending needs a nice climax, something that the character can work towards and learn from.  I’m working on one that will make sense with the stories I want to tell, but I haven’t fully developed the concept.

I’m working, aiming to be done with this project by the end of July. I’m hoping this is the draft that I’ll submit to an editor and work out for publication. If not, at least I’m writing.

The tale of an author, and his blog.