Author: judeknight

by

A brief glossary for novice novelists

stepbackHere are a few of the words I’ve had to look up since I started taking my novel writing seriously. Most of them are not romance-genre specific. All of them were new to me.

Beta reader: I’ve been seeking beta readers for Farewell to Kindness, and one of the people I asked said ‘what’s that?’ A beta reader is kindly soul who agrees to read your 3rd, 4th, or 5th draft (the one you think is just about finished) and give you a reader’s honest opinion. A beta reader is not doing a proofread or a copy edit. They’re reacting to the story as a reader would.

Category or series titles: A short romance novel (55,000 words) published within a clearly delineated line with a distinct identity, which may involve similar settings, characters, time periods, levels of sensuality, or types of conflict. Publishers of these lines include Harlequin/Mills & Boon.

Indie publisher: Indie is short for independent – a person who decides to go it alone and self-publish.

Novel: A work of 40,000 words or more

Novella: A work of between 17,500 and 40,000 words

Novelette: A work of between 7,500 and 17,500 words

Pantster: Writers are apparently either planners or pantsters. Planners plot everything in advance. Pantsters write by the seat of their pants, finding out what’s happening as they go along. I do extensive planning in advance, and go into the book with a clear idea about the characters and what is going to happen. Then the story takes over and I shoot off in a completely different direction. I rewrite my plans constantly as I go, each day finishing the day’s work by writing the story line for the next day. Then my characters surprise me again the next day and I have to do it over. Am I a planner or a pantster?

Planner: see pantster

POD: Print on Demand – using digital printing techniques to print copies of a book one at a time, as they are ordered. While not as economical per copy as traditional printing for large print runs, POD makes it possible to provide small numbers of books and save on warehousing space and print overruns.

POV: Point of view – the perspective from which the story is written. In my novel, I’ve used third-person limited, where I’m inside the head of a particular character during a scene, but cannot write about anything that character doesn’t know or sense.

Series: A group of books with connecting themes, characters, or both.

Series titles: see Category or series

Short Story: A work under 7,500 words

Single-title: A romance novel that is not published as part of a category line. They are typically longer than category novels (100,000 to 120,000 words), which means the writer has room to develop subplots and secondary characters.

Step-back: the picture on the inside of the cover – a tradition in romance novels that is making a comeback. The two together are called two-image covers.

If you have more, please add them in the comments. My lunch hour is over, and I’m back to work.

The Slang for Writers I found is more about writing and plot development terms, so not relevant to this post. Good to read, though. Consider it a bonus.

by

Is that a rooster in your pocket… ?

A row of roosters and their hens at the local agricultural show. I think the one on the right is my Mr Peep.

A row of roosters and their hens at the local agricultural show. I think the one on the right is my Mr Peep.

I’ve been researching the c–k term since I mentioned on Facebook that I’d included a joke around it in Farewell to Kindness. (Anne’s sister has a pet rooster which the heroine brings with her to stay at the hero’s house, allowing the heroine’s cousin to make jokes about the hero needing a prize-winning c–k).

One of the commenters said that the term in England was cockerel, and that the term c–k wouldn’t be used.

The same conversation came up on a Goodread’s thread, where another novelist asked about acceptable and time-appropriate terms.

It turns out that the one I wanted to use  was in common use for both male birds and male members, and was not considered unfit for polite company (even when referring to male domestic fowl) until Victorian times, about 25 years after the setting for my book.

And a cockerel was, until Victorian times, a young male chicken – under 12 months old. The Victorian English applied the junior bird term to all male chickens of any age, while the Puritan Americans reacted to the double entendre a 150 years earlier, and adopted the term rooster.

So I can keep my joke and remain historically accurate, though Alex’s pun would have had him banned from the dinner table if the more innocent ladies at the table had understood his double meaning.

Other writers have clearly faced the same challenge, and some clever person has responded with a timeline diagram for male anatomy terms, taken from Green’s Dictionary of Slang, by Jonathon Green.

I could go for man Thomas, though there are a number of other possibilities. Calling it a battering piece might break the mood of my love scene, don’t you think? And shaft of delight, while authentic, is rather too congratulatory. Tickle tail is funny, and gay instrument might be misunderstood by today’s readers.

Here, by the way, is the equivalent timeline diagram for female anatomy terms.

by

Procrastibaking

procrastibaking

Writing this post is a form of procrastibaking – creating something that I hope will be useful to others, but that doesn’t take me further on the jobs I need to do.

On the novel, I’m up to page 266 (of 506) and scene 53 of the plot-line and character name review, and page 28 (about to start Chapter 3) of the rewrite. Chapter 3 needs to be completely rewritten, and I’m dithering over how to start.

I could also be doing character sketches for the novella I want to bring out before Christmas, Candle’s Christmas Chair. (Seven weeks away. Yikes!) I’m about halfway through getting to know Candle Avery, and I still have to learn about his mother and Minerva Bradshaw, the woman he encounters in a carriage manufactory, making Bath chairs.

And I should be thinking about the next two novels to make sure that nothing I do in Farewell to Kindness stuffs up the plotlines for Encouraging Prudence or A Raging Madness.

On the commercial writing side, I’m working from home today, and am due to start in a few minutes. I finally have the information I need to review five templates, write guidelines for using them, rewrite the relevant style guide, and create a one hour seminar to introduce them all. The seminar is to be delivered in less than four weeks. And I have a 70 page guide for another client to edit by Friday week.

Busy is good. At least that’s what I tell myself.

But I always dither at the start of a project. Intellectually, I know I’ll be fine once I get started. But every time, I circle around the project and find other things to do. I tidy my desk. I make phone calls. I send emails I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I fiddle with the back settings of the blog.

Work is good. Work puts food on the table and a smile on my face.

But for the moment, I’m procastibaking.

by

He was drunk. But not nearly drunk enough.

the_abandoned_rakeI’ve rewritten the first chapter, changed the POV, lost 500 words, and turned it into a prologue.

He was drunk. But not nearly drunk enough. He still saw the boy’s dying eyes everywhere. In half-caught glimpses of strangers reflected in windows along Bond Street, under the hats of coachmen that passed him along the silent streets to Bedford Square, in the flickering lamps that shone pallidly against the cold London dawn as he stumbled up the steps to his front door.

They followed his every waking hour: hot, angry, hate-filled eyes that had once been warm with admiration.

He drank to forget, but all he could do was remember.

I’ve posted the whole prologue on my excerpts page. Take a look and see what you think.

 

by

Pulling all the threads together

I’ve been through all 506 pages of the first draft, and I have a head (and a notebook) full of ideas.

image Now I’ve opened my plotline spreadsheet, and created two new tabs.

Here’s what I’m planning to do.

I’ll update the plotline spreadsheet (plots for the columns, scenes for the rows) from my notebook, and note when a plot starts, progresses, or is concluded.  Then I can see what gets resolved and what gets forgotten about. I’ve added a column to note things I need to do.

I’ve added a tab for characters. I’ll put all the names and titles in scene by scene, and check that they don’t change.

I’ve added a tab for a calendar, so I can plot the scenes against dates, sunrise and sunset times, and the phases of the moon.

I’ll let you know how it works out, but in theory, by the end of the day (6 or 7 hours from now), I should have a marked up draft that I can split to work on on the train.

UPDATE, Monday evening: The answer is that it is taking longer than I thought. I’m up to page 200, but I have the plot threads mapped for the first two-fifths of the draft (and have found some holes, which I’ve now noted on the draft, the character names recorded for two-fifths of the draft, and all of the scenes laid into the calendar – and I’ve found a whole extra day, which I’m going to have to account for, somehow.

By taking this analytical approach, I’m avoiding the temptation to drop back into creative mode. When I finish the analysis, I’ll have all the thinking done that I need to do, and I’ll be able to deal with the draft one page at a time, content that the logistics have been dealt with.

So it’s working.

by

Random thoughts about writing from Christina Dodd

Today, I’m editing. I want to be through this first continuity edit before tomorrow morning, when I have the day off from work and plan to do the think and plan part of the rewrite, restructure phase.

So for today’s post, I’m taking the easy route and also offering you a treat. Here, if you haven’t come across them by another route, are Christina Dodd’s thoughts about writing.

And here are some covers of Christina’s books, chosen at random and made into an image quilt for your viewing pleasure.

ImageQuilt 2014-02-11 at 12.45.15 PM

 

by

The real work is all in the edit

vonnegutI’m on page 92 of 506 of my first hard-copy edit, and I’m loving the experience. This bit is all about continuity, pace, and plot. I’ve marked where the hero’s housekeeper changes her name, and his land agent goes from weedy to buff in a matter of days. I’ve noted the change in the heroine’s eye-colour (green flecks turned into gold flecks). I’ve found two scenes I can cut dramatically and another that I think I can get rid of altogether, thus removing several peripheral characters entirely.

And, for inspiration, I’ve been reading some quotes from an article entitled 20 Great Writers on the Art of Revision.

Here’s one of the 20 quotes:

“Your eloquence should be the servant of the ideas in your head. Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out.” — Kurt Vonnegut, How to Use the Power of the Printed Word

by

Beauty and the Beast, Hoyt style

darling-beast-stepback1What a wonderful story Darling Beast is.

Apollo is working as a garden designer, restoring the burnt out ruin that was the pleasure garden Harte’s Folly. Four years ago, Apollo was wrongly accused of a brutal and senseless murder, and sent to Bedlam. Having escaped, he is at risk of being recaptured by the King’s men and reimprisoned or killed A savage beating in Bedlam has taken his voice.

Lily is an out of work actress, banned from the London stage by a vindictive theatre manager after she left him to work at Harte’s Folly. Harte, the eccentric part owner of the gardens, has allowed her, her child, and her maid to move into the two rooms that remain of the theatre.

When Lily’s son Indio meets Apollo and makes friends, Lily is first compassionate and then attracted.

As they begin to act on their attraction, Apollo becomes more and more determined to clear his name. But his own past and a secret from Lily’s past come back to put them both in terrible danger.

Both Apollo and Lilly were beautifully drawn. Apollo’s dreadful experiences in Bedlam make him fear that he is more monster than man, and Lilly has learnt never to trust an aristocrat, so is horrified to find that Apollo is a Viscount, heir to an Earl, and brother to a Duchess.

Each has to learn to trust and depend on the other.

Thank you, Elizabeth Hoyt, for another several hours in your world.

Several of the secondary characters are crying out to have their stories told.

I understand that Captain Trevillion and the blind sister of Apollo’s brother-in-law, Lady Phoebe, come next. The Captain is the lame ex-soldier who arrested Apollo but who also worked to clear him once he was convinced of his innocence. In Darling Beast, Lady Phoebe greatly resents the restrictions her brother forces on her in his overprotective love, restrictions that include the Captain as bodyguard.

I sense that the enigmatic and capricious Duke of Montgomery may already have met his match in Miss Royce.

Asa Makepeace, also known as Harte, must one day have his story. He’s a marvellous character, who has popped in and out of the books from the beginning of the series. Such a contrast to his sternly religious family, but with his own high moral code when pressed.

And what about Lily’s brother Edwin? Is there a story there?

I look forward to many more Maiden Lane stories.

by

Editing the book

editing novelSo here’s my to-do list for the next three weeks. All going according to plan, I’ll have a draft ready for beta readers by mid-November. Of course, it’s a bit heavy to lug on the train with me. 🙂

Prepare

Update the outline as it is

Update the plot spreadsheet as it is

Hand edit

Need: single subject spiral bound notebook, 3 to 4 colours of pen, printed draft, Outline Notebook, maps.

Read.

Write down:

  • Chapter numbers
  • POVs
  • Name of each character as that character is introduced
  • Plot lines as they begin
  • Events in each chapter

Mark:

  • Writing that needs work
  • Writing that works

Questions:

  • Does this character have a place in this book?
  • Has a character changed appearance?
  • Has a character changed in other ways? If so, do I explain why?
  • Are all plotlines carried through?
  • Are all plotlines resolved?
  • Have all conflicts been resolved
  • Does this scene matter?
  • Have I followed the rule of 3? (If it appears twice, it should appear three times)

Talk things out

Discuss my proposed solutions with my PRH and my lovely sister

Plan and plot

  • Rewrite the outline
  • Rewrite the plot spreadsheet

Rewrite, reorganise

Now fix all the things I thought were wrong, rewriting and reorganising as needed.

ADDED: Check that every chapter ends in a way that keeps people reading, and that every chapter begins with a hook.

Edit for spelling, grammar, punctuation, word choice

  • Check capitalisation
  • Eliminate qualifiers
  • Evaluate adverbs
  • Remove superfluous movement
  • Tune dialogue attribution
  • Check whether ‘that’ is needed
  • Remove filter words

To See (See, Sees, Saw, Seeing, Seen)
To Hear (Hear, Hears, Heard, Hearing)
To Feel (Feel, Feels, Felt, Feeling)
To Look (Look, Looks, Looked, Looking)
To Know (Know, Knows, Knew, Knowing)
To Think (Think, Thinks, Thought, Thinking)
To Wonder (Wonder, Wonders, Wondered, Wondering)
To Realize (Realize, Realizes, Realized, Realizing)
To Watch (Watch, Watches, Watched, Watching)
To Notice (Notice, Notices, Noticed, Noticing)
To Seem (Seem, Seems, Seemed, Seeming)
To Decide (Decide, Decides, Decided, Deciding)
To Sound (Sound, Sounds, Sounded, Sounding)

Read out loud, marking anything that doesn’t work

Fix, and let it go to beta readers