On Being a Writer

This was an interview for a blog that appeared in January 2015, the month that the second book in the Earth Haven trilogy was published. At that time, I was working in a full-time regular job and was signed to a small-press publisher. Seems like a lifetime ago.

One thing that struck me when I read this over for the first time in six years: if I had to answer the final question again on giving advice to new authors, I don’t think my advice would be very different now from what it was then.

On with the interview…

What is your book about?

The Beacon is the second book in the Earth Haven trilogy that began with The Cleansing. The trilogy is post-apocalyptic science fiction, a long tale about how humankind is brought to its knees by a manufactured virus. Who developed this virus and why… can’t say too much here as it will spoil it for new readers, but the makers have their reasons. The Cleansing deals with the spread of the virus and the immediate aftermath. In The Beacon, the handful of survivors face a new threat – as if they haven’t been through enough already, bless them. Again, it’s difficult to reveal too much. The book’s blurb contains about as much as I can say without spoiling anything.

How did you choose the title?

I’m not the best at coming up with titles. Titles to every book in the Earth Haven trilogy (the third is provisionally called The Reckoning) have all been used, frequently, by other authors. My publishers are too nice to say so, but I think my lack of originality with titles drives them a little to distraction. Having said that, each title is apt for the content of the book. Also, each title becomes unique (I believe) when coupled with the name of the series. The Beacon: Earth Haven Book 2 is unique (popping off to Google to check…)

Why did you write the book?

The Earth Haven trilogy was, in a sense, at least fifteen years in the making. Back then, I wrote a short story called ‘The Third Coming’ (it’s one of the stories in my collection Pond Life). It’s a tale of a young boy who, in a post-apocalytpic world in which all his family has died, stumbles across an old man in the Welsh countryside. The man is watching the clear summer skies, waiting for someone – or something – to arrive. During their time together, the boy hears things that he finds difficult to believe, such as what actually killed the dinosaurs, the true purpose of Stonehenge and the origins of mankind.

Even as I finished writing that story, I suspected that it contained seeds of ideas, two in particular, that would continue to grow: a manufactured virus, designed to wipe out most of the human population in one fell swoop; an alien species living amongst us, as us, yet willing to eliminate us to pave the way for the rest of their species to make Earth their home.

And so it proved. The ideas nagged at me like an itch beneath a plastercast. The vaguest outline of a story – a long story – began to form in the muddied depths of my mind. And questions. Lots of questions, most of them starting What if…? What if a superior, though greatly outnumbered, species lived unnoticed among us? What if they were only an advance party and the rest of their civilisation is on its way? To what lengths would they go to ensure the safe arrival of their compatriots?

In May 2013, the itch became unbearable and I sat at my computer and typed a scene in which the effects of a deadly virus are described. (This scene was to form the beginning of Chapter Six of the finished novel.) A little over nine feverish weeks later, the first draft of The Cleansing was completed.

Within days of embarking on that first draft, it became obvious that there was way too much story to fit one reasonably-sized novel. So I was faced with a choice: write a doorstop that no one might buy (would you buy a book the size of a brick by a virtual unknown?), or break it down into a trilogy. I opted for the trilogy.

Describe your writing process.

Write the first draft as it comes without worrying about typos. I do carry out any required research as I go along or beforehand if I can foresee it will be required. The latter, though, is rare because I do not outline novels in advance. I’ve tried but that method doesn’t work for me. I usually, though not always, have an ending in mind but little idea at the outset how the characters will reach that point.

When the first draft is done (usually with a huge sense of relief), I let it sit for at least four weeks before starting to edit. During that time, I try to not even think about it. That way, I read it as if someone else had written it. Makes it a lot easier to notice things like spelling mistakes, inconsistencies, confusing passages, etc. During that first pass, I fix things like plot holes, over-description, repetition; I’ll also build in any amendments I need to make consequent upon comments from beta readers. Usually, the word count comes down during this pass as I weed out over-written passages. Having said that, I’m noticing that I tend to overwrite a lot less than I used to and make fewer typing errors so am producing cleaner copy.

At least another two passes will follow, the last concentrating solely on spelling, grammar and punctuation and usually carried out on my Kindle. It’s amazing how many errors I pick up this way that were missed while reading on a computer screen.

Do you have a favourite part of the writing process?

Editing the first draft, particularly during that first read-through. It’s only then that I gain any sense of how good (or bad) the story is. I think of the first draft as a lump of clay with only the vague outline of a face shaped into it. Each editing pass refines the face’s features, adding texture and definition, bringing out the character of the subject.

What’s your favourite scene from your latest release?

When I was a child, I remember watching The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston, based (rather loosely) on Richard Matheson’s I am Legend. There’s a scene that has stuck in my mind for many years (we’re talking more than forty) where Heston’s character is wandering through a department store and finds himself in the men’s clothing section. He starts pulling clothes off hangers and from racks, trying them on, discarding some by letting them drop to the floor, leaving on those he likes. That sense of absolute freedom struck a chord in my child’s mind. I began fantasising about being the last person left alive; about the fun I could have. It tended to involve sweet shops and toy stores. It completely ignored the sense of desolation and utter hopelessness that would strike to my very core if I ever did find myself in such a situation. But, hey, I was six. Sweets and toys were high on my list of priorities.

What has this to do with The Beacon? My sense of childlike wonder at that scene from The Omega Man has never fully left me. The Beacon introduces two new characters who didn’t appear in the first book: Bri is 16, Will is 10. They find themselves making their way through central London, now occupied only by corpses, dogs and vermin. They’re in Knightsbridge when Will, who’s from London, points out that they’re near Harrods. Bri has never been to the city before and isn’t really one for designer clothes or jewellery. Nevertheless, her eyes light up because she still has that sense of wonder deep at her core – I believe most of us do. Needless to say, they spend a pleasurable few hours in the store

Have you ever queried agents and publishers?

Yes, when I first started writing fiction in the mid to late nineties. I accumulated quite a bundle of rejections and grew fed up of the thud! of the self-addressed brown envelope containing my manuscript hitting the doormat.

Where are your books for sale?

As well as Amazon, they’re available on sites like iTunes, GooglePlay, Kobo and Barnes & Noble, and most other online retailers.

How do you make time to market your current book while writing your next book?

I work full-time so it’s a constant battle to find quality time to spend writing. Consequently, I prioritise writing over marketing, sometimes to the exclusion of the latter. Perhaps not the ideal strategy, but when spare time is precious we have to spend it doing what’s most important.

What advice would you give a new author intending to self-publish?

Here are some generalisations (since there are always exceptions to every rule) based upon my own experiences to date, and aimed at those looking to make a living from their endeavours:

If you go into this expecting to throw a book out there and grow rich, you’re in for a major disappointment.
Write the best book of which you’re capable.
Edit, edit and edit again. If you have a budget, consider employing the services of a professional editor. Be wary, though, and exercise due diligence. For every good editor out there, there are a handful of people charging for editing services who don’t know an adverb from an adjective, an ellipsis from an em-dash, a… you get the idea.
Obtain the best cover you can buy within your budget (or, if you’re one of those clever clogs who can design professional-looking covers yourself, make sure to use a professional-looking font).
Be prepared at some point to spend money on advertising. Best wait until you have a few titles available first, though.
Join some good online forums and read as much advice about the business as you can. I find The Writers’ Café on Kboards is packed with invaluable information. Be wary – not all advice you’ll receive online is good advice or is right for you. Listen to it all; be selective in which bits you follow.
If you can’t handle criticism or frustration, if you’re not prepared to put in hour after hour of hard work for week after week and month upon month for little or no immediate financial reward, if you can’t pick yourself up off the floor and come out fighting, then you should carefully consider whether this business is for you. There are easier ways to make a living.

[Next time I’m due to post to my blog in two weeks’ time, I’ll be away for a much-needed change of scenery, so the blog will be back in four weeks. Till then…]

June 26, 2020

Guest Post – Desiree Villena

Today I’m delighted to host Desiree Villena, who’s going to talk about self-editing, a topic I have discussed myself on occasion. Over to Desiree…

5 Common Self-Editing Mistakes to Avoid

Editing your own manuscript is one of those capricious endeavours that’s high-risk, high-reward. On one hand, if you’re able to perform an effective self-edit , you can maintain complete creative control over your work and save money on editing services down the line. Even if you intend to hire an editor regardless, an initial round of self-editing can make their job a lot easier (and their final invoice a lot lower) than you might think.

On the other hand, without the right information and expectations going into this process, you could end up spending hours on a self-edit that barely improves — or even degrades — your manuscript. To prevent this from happening, you can’t just rely on what you should do; you also have to know what not to do! That’s where this post comes in. Here are five all-too-common self-editing mistakes to avoid, both for your sake and your future readers’.

1. Diving in immediately

Sam touches on this in the post linked above, but it’s such an unequivocal blunder that it bears repeating: do not, under any circumstances, start editing your manuscript the day you finish it (or even the day after that!). For one thing, you deserve a break after all your hard work; for another, you need some space in order to evaluate your book as objectively as possible. This space allows you to detach emotionally from both your prose and your story, giving you the capacity to see where your sentences might be overwrought, or your plot a little bit patchy.

Writers have varying opinions on the ideal amount of time to wait before editing. I’d recommend a six-week minimum, though I agree with the above post that two to three months is better still. Zadie Smith, one of my writing role models, has said that this couple-month period “will do” — she prefers to wait a year or more, though acknowledges this isn’t always possible. However, her reasoning is airtight: “You need to become [your work’s] reader instead of its writer.” I think this can be achieved in six weeks, but the longer the better, if you have the time to spare.

2. Copy editing first

Upon commencing your self-edit, you may feel like you should start by going through your manuscript and correcting spelling, grammar and other mechanical mistakes: in other words, copy editing. Resist the urge to pick this low-hanging fruit! While it may feel like a good way to ease yourself into the editing process, it will almost certainly end up being a waste of time.

Unless you’re some kind of perfect-first-draft deity, you’ll need to rewrite significant chunks of your book in the course of editing — rendering any previous copy editing of those sections useless and forcing you to copy edit similar passages all over again. Indeed, copy editing before developmental editing can genuinely hinder later rounds of polishing! You’ll feel as though you’ve already caught everything major (even if you’ve technically rewritten a good portion of your manuscript) and give yourself permission to skim, or you’ll grow so impatient with rereading that you eventually just give up.

That’s not to say you can’t do any early-stage copy editing, especially if it helps you loosen up your editing muscles… but try and keep it to a minimum before you’ve worked through the big-picture stuff. If you know you wouldn’t change a word of your first chapter or your current book description, for example, you have my permission to copy edit as a (brief) warm-up to developmental editing.

3. Prioritising style over substance

Jumping off that last tip, another frequent pitfall of the editing process is caring more about the style than the substance of your work. Again, I know it’s usually more fun to tweak your prose than to address problems with your plot and characters, but even the most eloquent writing in the world won’t make those problems go away! On the contrary, it will aggravate readers, who’ll wonder why you put so much effort into decorating a mediocre-tasting cake when you could have been refining the recipe (if you’ll excuse the slightly mixed metaphor).

If the problem persists, you’ll end up with a book that’s eloquently written but ultimately shallow, or too long and meandering, or even completely nonsensical. I’m sure we can all think of books like this; don’t let yours become one of them! Even if you’re determined to cultivate a signature style, you must focus on the fundamentals first: a beginning, middle, and end, round characters who interact in interesting ways, and a central conflict that rings true and gets readers invested.

If you feel your work is lacking in any of these areas, try some writing exercises to develop them, particularly in terms of plot and character development. Once you have these elements nailed down, you can return to experimenting with your prose.

4. Comparing your work to other authors’

Here’s another issue that often befalls writers who believe shimmering prose is the end-all, be-all of literature: comparing their writing to that of other authors. For those attempting to pay homage to literary favourites, this can certainly exacerbate the style-over-substance conundrum, but there are other negative outcomes as well.

One of these, as you can probably guess, is editing your own writing to sound precisely like your favourite author’s — effectively erasing what makes you unique as a writer, and often forcing you into a style that doesn’t come naturally. In fact, in my experience, comparing my work to that of others typically results in the worst of both worlds: my own voice gets lost, and the one that replaces it sounds utterly contrived. (I still remember a painful summer of writing and editing when I was trying to imitate Gillian Flynn, memorising snippets of Gone Girl that had been posted on her author website in a desperate attempt to absorb her style.)

On top of all this, remember that your book is still a work-in-progress at this stage! Comparing it to a perfectly polished, published title is unfair on every level. To that end, if you feel especially impressionable or fragile while editing, I’d suggest steering clear of well-written books altogether — or reading exclusively outside your genre to avoid potential comparisons. Just as you need mental space from your own book at the start of this process, you also need it from other books once it’s time to get to work.

5. Not getting a third-party proofreader

I know this post is about self-editing, but hear me out: even once you’ve gone through your book multiple times with a fine-tooth comb, you can’t guarantee error-free copy without a professional proofread. The harsh reality is that your own biases will keep you from fixing phrases that sound awkward to everyone else, and your brain will skip right over typos because you’ve seen them a million times. So once you’ve powered through the developmental and copy editing stages, don’t kid yourself — hire a proofreader for this final, crucial part.

Naturally, there are many other ways that the self-editing process can go awry, but these five are perhaps the most prevalent and harmful. They’re also all mistakes that I’ve made myself, about which I wish someone else had warned me! So do as I say, not as I’ve done, and embark on your own self-editing journey with the confidence and clarity to evade these terrible traps.

Desiree Villena is a writer with Reedsy, a marketplace that connects authors with the world’s best self-publishing resources. In her spare time, Desiree enjoys reading contemporary fiction, writing short stories, and giving (mostly) solicited advice to her fellow writers.

May 31, 2019July 26, 2019

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

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/