Writing process

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Why do I need a beta reader?

betasThe third draft of Farewell to Kindness will be finished this weekend; probably later today. Some wonderful people have volunteered to read it for me, and I’ve been fishing around for clues on what I should say when I brief them. I found a fabulous resource by Belinda Polland at Small Blue Dog Publishing. It explains what a beta reader is, and why we need one. It then goes on to link to more articles about how to find beta readers and how to brief them. Great stuff. Here’s Belinda’s list of reasons:

The fact is, we spend so much time on our own manuscripts that we can’t see them objectively — no matter how diligently we self-edit. These can be some of the outcomes (there are plenty more):

  • We create anticipation or an expectation early in the book, but forget to deliver on it.
  • We describe events in a way that is clear to us but not clear to a reader who can’t see the pictures in our head. (At least, we hope they can’t see them. Are you looking inside my head??? Eek!)
  • We leave out vital steps in an explanation and don’t realise it, because we know what we mean.
  • The characters in our books (whether fictional, or real as in a memoir or non-fiction anecdote) are not convincing, because we know them so well we don’t realise we haven’t developed them thoroughly on paper.
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#amediting 3

Cover showing woman archer on village green

I’m in the final pages of the third draft of Farewell to Kindness. From this point on, almost every row in my plot-line spreadsheet has notes in the ‘needs work’ column. I’ve been averaging 35 pages an hour (the train trip to and from work takes an hour, so it’s easy to work out), but today’s output was six pages. Still, I have another trip tonight, and then the weekend.

Next, I do a final check for filter words and egregious spelling errors, and format it for the beta readers.

 

 

Cover page shows woman with horse

I have a whole lot of super people who have volunteered to read the novel and tell me what they think. I’m pretty nervous, but very excited.

While it’s with the beta readers, I plan to leave it alone, apart from writing the artistic brief for the cover and book trailer.

Oh, yes, and rewriting the book blurb on this site and on Goodreads.

I don’t expect any of those to take long, and I’ll mainly be focusing on the next writing projects.

 

Shows masked woman in a forestI want to write Candle’s Christmas Chair (a short story or novella, depending on how much I write, that I want to have ready to give away for Christmas). And, if I’m to have the first chapters in the back of Farewell to Kindness, I need to finish the chapter outlines and main character sketches for Encouraging Prudence and A Raging Madness.

So no boredom on the horizon yet, then.

In January, I plan to do any changes that come out of the beta read, then read the whole book aloud into a recording App on my iPad. This will let me be my own reader/listener for a complete copy edit, which can be my train-time project for January. I’ll send it for a professional proofread once I’ve done my own copy edit. And then whole heap more jobs to actually publish. I’ve got a little list. (But, if you’ve been reading my blog, you will have guessed that.)

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Write with style

vonnegut1A grateful curtsey (in place of an anachronistic tip of the hat, or H/T) to the person who tweeted a link to the Brain Pickings article about Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 keys to power of the written word.

Here’s his list. Click on the link to find out what Vonnegut has to say about each one.

  1. Find a subject you care about
  2. Do not ramble, though
  3. Keep it simple
  4. Have the guts to cut
  5. Sound like yourself
  6. Say what you mean to say
  7. Pity the readers
  8. For really detailed advice…

 

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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.

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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

 

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First draft of Farewell to Kindness is finished

editingI’m dancing around the room going, Yay, and Woohoo. I’ve finally written myself to Rede’s and Anne’s happily ever after.

Today is a holiday Monday in New Zealand. When I woke up and started to write, the good guys and the bad guys were all converging on the one spot. It took me 8,000 words and nine hours, but the villains are defeated, the proposal has been tendered (properly this time) and accepted, and all the loose ends I remembered have been tied off.

Now I’m going to help my granddaughter design a built-in for her wardrobe and read Elizabeth Hoyt’s Darling Beast, which I’ve been saving as a reward.

Next job is the first edit. I’ve been an editor for most of my adult life, and I’ve long thought that I’m a better editor than I am a writer. But I’ve never before edited a novel, let alone my very own novel.

I’ve some resources to guide me through that, and I thought I’d share them for anyone else who is at the same stage.

Here’s Autumn Birt on five ways to edit (yes, folks, five actual different edits for different purposes and different things).

And here’s the process Holly Lisle follows (lots of similarities, you’ll note.)

Chuck Wendig offers 25 steps, which he says he sometimes follows and sometimes not.

Jessica Bell gives a few simple tips for tightening opening sentences and dialogue.

Finally, Mike Nappa says you write your book 4 times. And goes on to tell you want you do each time.

Tomorrow, I’ll decide which of those, or what selection of those, I’ll try.

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Finished by mid-November?

CARTOON ABOUT WRITERSToday on the train on the way to work I passed the 116,000 mark. One month ago to the day, I posted to say I’d written 60,000 words. Looking back, I wrote 30,000 in the first three months, 30,000 in the fourth month, and 56,000 in this latest month. In part, I’m getting faster as I become more confident. In part, I’ve stopped putting down the novel to research every little fact. In part, it’s the new iPad, which makes it easy to sit up in bed at 1am and type another scene. And in largest part of all, its my personal romantic hero (aka the PRH), who keeps me fed and supplied with endless cups of coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon (and a glass or two of wine in the evening). Love you, darling.

I still have 11 scenes and probably six or seven chapters to go. Boy, am I going to have to cut when I edit! I’ll have around 130,000 to 140,000 words, and I’ll need to trim back to 100,000.