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Month: May 2019

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Guest Post – Zachry Wheeler

Today I’m hosting the author of a novel I read a few weeks ago and greatly enjoyed. And it’s in development to be made into a feature film—seriously, how cool is that? (he says, without a trace of envy.) The novel is Transient and the author is Zachry Wheeler. He recently hosted me on his blog (that was fun) and it’s good to return the favour. He’s going to talk about a subject on which I’ve written a couple of posts myself: self-editing. Beneath Zachry’s piece you’ll find plenty of links to his website, social media and books so you can find out more about him. Enough from me—over to Zachry.

 How Many Edits Does It Take?

Ah, the age old question. How many edits does it take to get to the center of a good manuscript? As with everything else in writing, the answer is crisp, clear, and concise: it depends. I hope you enjoyed reading this useless post and I look forward to your frustrated hate mail.

But seriously, it’s a difficult question to answer because it depends on a ton of factors. I lost count of the editing rounds with my debut novel Transient. When it came time to edit my second novel, Max and the Multiverse, I had graduated from complete hack to competent author and knocked it out in a dozen passes. Today, I edit down my manuscripts with a tried and true strategy. For me, and I cannot stress the me part enough, I have learned that it takes four major editing passes: Content, Format, Verbal, and Polish.

Content editing should be self-explanatory. You edit for content. This includes fleshing out detail, adjusting pace, fixing structural issues, deleting anything that doesn’t make sense or push the story forward, anything that gives your narrative a clear direction. Usually, my first draft is about 3/4 the word count of the finished product. I add the other 1/4 during content editing. In fact, I sometimes add notes in the first draft like [need more detail about the pickle] and come back to it after completion.

Content editing takes about as much time as writing the first draft. After this round, my story is complete.

Format editing is when I take the results of content editing and dump them into a formatted file that I will use for publication, usually a tricked-out Word document. I set margins, select fonts, add titles, credits, dedications, headers, page numbers, all that tedious stuff. Once I have everything in place (and technically ready to print), I start a fresh round of editing and adjust anything that is not pleasing to the eye. Sometimes it’s a simple word choice. Other times it’s a complete rearrangement of a paragraph or scene.

Format editing takes about half the time of content editing. After this round, my narrative is complete.

Verbal editing is when I read the entire novel out loud and adjust anything that is not pleasing to the ear. You would be amazed at how many errors you uncover by simply vocalizing the words you have written. Your ears have a way of uncovering linguistic quirks that don’t sound right. It might look good on paper, but your ears will tell you things like “no human talks that way” or “this phrase makes you sound like a pirate.”

Verbal editing takes about half the time of format editing. After this round, my manuscript is complete.

Polish editing is quick and easy. This is when you and your find/replace become best friends. You start at the top of your manuscript and search for all those dumb little mistakes that manage to slip through committee. Things like double spaces or inverted quotes or there/their/they’re. I keep a running list of common typos that I search for and destroy in every final manuscript. One of my common failings is using “sunk” when I mean “sank.” At least one of those bastards will make it through to the end.

Polish editing should only take a day or two. After this round, my novel is complete.

Once I complete my polishing round, it’s off to the races. I hand it over to my copy editor for one final nit-pick while I concentrate on cover design, back blurb, and all the other fun stuff that goes into getting a completed book into the hands of readers. It’s quite a daunting process, but I enjoy every second of it. Hopefully this post helped to answer that annoying question, or at the very least, give you an expectation of things to come. Best of luck and happy editing.

Links:


Amazon US
Amazon UK


Amazon US
Amazon UK

Zachry’s website (where the above article first appeared): http://www.zachrywheeler.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zachrywheeler

Twitter: https://twitter.com/zachrywheeler

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zachrywheeler/

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Thrills and Spills

Although my reading (and writing) tastes tend towards science fiction, dark fantasy and horror, I do occasionally enjoy curling up with a thriller. By ‘thriller’ I mean the sort of fast-moving tale that’s heavy on intrigue and excitement, but that doesn’t fall primarily into some other genre like murder-mystery.

Here’s a quick look at some of my favourites, together with one or two that I felt were a bit meh. As always, these are purely my personal preferences; if I enjoyed one you didn’t, or disliked one of your favourites, that’s okay—varied tastes make life more interesting.

The first out-and-out thriller I can recall reading was Run For Your Life (also mentioned in the post about children’s books, When I was Three, I Ate Mud). I guess I must have been around nine or ten when I first read David Line’s tale about two boys who go on the run across the wintry Norfolk countryside after witnessing a murder. It captivated me to the extent that I read the book over and over again during the next four or five years until it was falling apart.

If I had to name one thriller author as my favourite, I’d have to plump for Frederick Forsyth. Every novel of his I’ve read, I’ve enjoyed immensely. I’ll mention two as being superb examples of thriller writing. First, The Odessa File, the gripping tale of a journalist trying to uncover the whereabouts of a former SS concentration camp commander. Second, The Day of the Jackal, a white-knuckle ride about an attempt to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. Both novels were adapted into darned good films, starring respectively Jon Voigt and Edward Fox.


The Day of the Jackal

There’s one author of whose writing on a technical level I’m not the biggest fan, yet I’ve read most of his books. It’s very much a case of story trumping writing style. (Not, I hasten to add, that I’m criticising his writing, and not that he’d give two hoots if I was—he’s sold millions of books and stellar actors like Tom Hanks star in adaptations of his works.) I refer, of course, to Dan Brown.

When I read The Da Vinci Code, I didn’t know the theory about the Holy Grail (being careful here not to introduce spoilers) that Brown drew upon—and which subsequently led to allegations of plagiarism and a law suit, but that’s another story—and it blew me away. It resulted in a trip to my local library to borrow a book on art so I could study Da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper. (This was in the days before the internet was routinely used by pretty much everyone to look up pretty much anything, and it wasn’t that long ago.)


The Da Vinci Code

I also enjoyed one or two of his earlier novels, such as Deception Point, and another featuring Robert Langdon, Angels and Demons. The latter is set in Rome, a city with which I’m familiar after trips to watch Wales play Italy in the Six Nations. Brown uses many locations, such as the Pantheon and Piazza Navona, which I have visited many times. It doesn’t hurt to make a scene come alive in the imagination when you know the setting, and I enjoyed the novel in spite of the most far-fetched escape from a stricken helicopter you’re ever likely to encounter. I’m not so keen on the more recent Robert Langdon novels—in them, I feel that Brown’s tendency towards melodrama and contrived, cliffhanger chapter endings become distracting. Not enough, mind, to stop me reading each one he brings out.

Some thrillers I’ve read, I’ve enjoyed but almost instantly forgotten, which hasn’t led me to rush to find other works by their authors. These include novels by Robert Ludlum, James Patterson, Harlan Coben and Clive Cussler.

Then there are many celebrated thriller authors whose books I’ve never read. Tom Clancy and Lee Child, for instance, though I have one or two of their books sitting in my tottering TBR pile. As usual, it’s a case of too many books, too little time.

There are some well-known thrillers that left me cold. The Girl on the Train I found irritating and I saw the ending coming long before the main characters did. The Firm was meh enough that I never bothered with John Grisham again. And I Am Pilgrim was filled with improbable escapes from seemingly hopeless situations and began to drag around halfway so that I was relieved to finish it. (I’m not trying to put you off reading any of these books—you might love them.)


I Am Pilgrim

I’m going to finish on a high with a few more thrillers I felt were top-class. Before I Go to Sleep is the tale of a woman whose memory resets every night when she goes to bed so that she cannot remember who she is when she awakes the next morning. How she deals with this I’ll leave you to find out—it’s an intriguing journey. The only novel of John Le Carre’s I’ve read is The Little Drummer Girl, but I hope it won’t be the last. It’s an edgy story of a young actress recruited by Mossad to infiltrate a Palestinian terrorist cell, and it gripped me to the end. The BBC recently made a damned fine job of adapting the novel for television. Finally, a mention of the best psychological thriller I’ve ever read. Red Dragon by Thomas Harris isn’t as celebrated as the author’s better-known The Silence of the Lambs, but is far superior in my view. Difficult to imagine a darker, more disturbing study of human depravation, at least when it comes to fiction.


Red Dragon

Thrilling reading, folks!

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Guest Post – Kath Middleton

Today I’m hosting the lovely Kath Middleton. Though we’ve never met in real life, I’ve ‘known’ Kath online from the days when she was a reviewer and great supporter of indie authors. She’s since crossed the divide and joined the writing ranks with a great deal of success. Without further ado, it’s over to Kath.

Genre

What’s a genre? People used to ask what kind of books do we like. That’s the genre. Some genres are more popular than others. Look along the shelves in your local library. Some genres cover many shelves, some one small section.

How do you become a bestselling author? Obviously you need to write a great book. It has to be literate—sounds obvious but there are books on sale that don’t follow the rules of grammar. Above all, you have to write in a popular genre.

Crime, thriller and police procedural are linked genres and are very popular with readers. Romance is another genre that sells well. I’ve read some stunning books in the Literary Fiction category, although I know that title can put people off. They expect it to be worthy or stuffy. People know what they like and steer in that direction. They don’t want to read something they are not expecting, in general. If they love science fiction they don’t really want it to end up as a bodice (or space suit) ripper. If they love horror they don’t want it ‘tainted’ with humour. If you want to write a best seller and make money, look at the top 100 books on Amazon and choose one of the most popular genres.

That said, many authors write because they need to scratch the itch. It doesn’t matter what the genre—in fact, I often don’t know what genre I’m writing till the book is finished. Even then, it may cross boundaries. Many of us, particularly independently published, write what we’re interested in. Lots of people are interested in more than one thing. I would find it tedious to have to restrict myself to one genre. I start with ‘what if?’ and move on from there.

In the days when everyone had to interest a publisher to get a book in front of an audience of readers, genre was particularly important. If a publisher accepted your thriller and it sold reasonably well, they would want another thriller. If you had an urge to write comedy, you had to suppress it. They wanted more of what would make them money—not whatever you felt the urge to witter on about this time.

Today, with indie publishing, people can follow their own interests. I know several authors who have written in more than one genre and some have written a kind of genre-mashup. A humorous thriller, a historical crime novel, a supernatural story that doesn’t dive straight into horror. Indie publishing has freed people to write what interests them, not what will guarantee big sales for a publisher.

These days I largely read indie fiction. It’s so refreshing to read what the author is driven to write, to scratch that itch. Most indies know they will never get rich. They could increase their chances by following the trends in fiction and by sticking to best-selling genres. I believe that if a writer isn’t producing books they feel strongly about, you can tell. If someone churns out books in a certain style just to make sales, there’s a deadness to the stories. I wouldn’t want to read that. I love something different and a bit edgy. Something the author is excited about. If the person who writes the book isn’t fired up with love and enthusiasm, you can hardly blame the reader for being unenthusiastic.

Let’s hear it for the genre mashups, the cross-genre books, the books you couldn’t fit into any single genre with a shoe-horn.

Oh, and the real way to make money with your writing? Ransom notes.

Links

Kath’s website: www.kathmiddletonbooks.com

To purchase Kath’s latest release: The Angel Monument

Bio
Kath Middleton began her writing with drabbles (100-word stories) and contributed a number to Jonathan Hill’s second drabble collection. It wasn’t long before she moved up a size to contribute short stories to anthologies. Shortly afterwards, she progressed to writing longer pieces and her first solo work, Ravenfold, was published to some acclaim. This was followed by the novella, Message in a Bottle. There are now several more books, from short stories to novels. Kath likes to put her characters in difficult situations and watch them work their way out. She believes in the indomitable nature of the human spirit (and chickens).
Kath is retired. She graduated in geology and has a certificate in archaeology. When she’s in a hole, she doesn’t stop digging.