On the writing front, I wanted to talk about a rejection I got for Merm-8, first chapter, that said that the manuscript needed a stronger voice and “less telling, more showing”. And I thought “damn, I thought I had done that”. I mean, I really, really tried to not to tell anything, unlike in “Black Hole Son” or other previous works. I looked for any infodumping (I have some, but not in the first chapter, I think), and tried to make it all come out as dialogue or something more transparent. Like a dog treat in peanut butter. And it’s difficult to do that in science fiction because there’s always…
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Everything’s Coming Up Milhouse
I don’t want to jinx anything, but interesting things are happening in my writing career now, as a result of an e-mail I got this morning. This entry is more of a placeholder for posterity. I’ll just leave this image here, and make of it what you will. 🙂
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Merm-8 Is Finished
Boy, you’d think I’d make an announcement like this on time… I finished the manuscript for my latest novel, Merm-8 (tentatively titled until a publisher tells me to pick a better name), on Friday, December 23, 2011. Still a few things I gotta do before I start sending it out. One, I have to finalize my query letter and list of potential agents. Two, I gotta wait until after New Year’s because no one’s going to pay attention to anything work related until January rolls around and the holiday hangover. Three, I need to write a synopsis. Lots of agents ask for one up front, of varying lengths (one page,…
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Merm-8 Query Letter
Right now, I’m working on my query letter for Merm-8. Like most other writers in the world, I am not good at the query letter. I worked very hard on it for Black Hole Son, which was a challenge in itself, since its got two main characters and two storylines. Merm-8’s working out to be a littler easier, either because the storyline’s simpler or there’s only one main character to worry about. But now I figured out why I’m having trouble… I cannot advertise my book and say what it’s about at the same time. It’s just too difficult. It’s two different audiences. I think the biggest problem is that…
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Merm-8 Final Revision Started
Ah, yes, the final revision. The story’s all made, and now I’m looking for those niggly little bits of punctation and foul-sounding word choices. I’m also using Natural Reader software so I can have the story read to me. By an monotone computerized voice. This will help me find missing words and things that I can’t catch while reading, like sentences that sound good in my head but may fall flat to someone else reading. Yep, gotta shine up the manuscript, get working on the query letter and then onward. To GLORY!
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Merm-8 Third Revision is Officially Complete
I finally got done with those arduous Macros on Sunday night. My last one is “overused words” which includes a lot of “look”s, “since”s, and “even”s. The problem is, most of the time, it’s either very hard to reword it, or it doesn’t matter. If a character looks at something, there’s not a lot of other ways to put it. So now that I’m done with this, I let it incubate for 3 weeks. Then I’ll use a program I found called “Natural Reader” that I’ll use to read the story out loud to me. This will help me find all those little things I miss, the little skippable words,…
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Merm-8 Revision 3 Finished
All right! Barely a week after I complained about the revision taking so long, I actually got done. I’d go out to celebrate, but I have a cold and taste is at a minimum right now. I’d rather wait and enjoy it. I can’t even taste the beer I made right now (more on that later). It’s a pretty good revision too. I even managed to reduce the word count. My artifacts weren’t that bad, and most of the changes took place in the beginning. That might’ve been because I ran out of steam, or it might’ve been because my writing improved. I know what prefer to believe. Now the…
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Done Incorporating Merm-8 Critiques – Begin 3rd Draft
I finished incorporating all the critiques I received from Merm-8 into the novel. It took a long time, especially the ending which needed to be severely revised. The problem was that the sacrifice was not earned or hinted at so I need to sprinkle more hints throughout, and then totally revamp the structure around the final reveal. The biggest problem was that I kept changing my mind. At first, I wasn’t going to do the sacrifice, and I had to weave my way around making it work. Then the way I weaved it, I thought “hey, there can still be a sacrifice. Might as well put it in.” So I…
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Still Working on Critiques for Merm-8
I’m still working on integrating the critiques for Merm-8 into the story. I’m still on chapter 1, but it’s all going quite well. And I’m doing spot checks here and there as well. For one thing, I’ve re-planned the ending and beginning to be more effective and not so cinematic. I’ve learned a few things from the process. One is that I should outline chronologically, not line up all my elements and story ideas, then try and connect them. Because they don’t connect in natural ways, so you’re forcing it. That creates implausibility and continuity errors. Two, not everyone has to die at the end of my stories. I learned…
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Merm-8 Critiques are Finished
I’ve finished going through all the critiques for Mermaid Story. That means I’ve gone through what everyone’s said, and made my notes. Now I need to organize those notes and integrate what needs to change into the story. And this is the part that always depresses me. The great thing about beta-readers is that they find the plot holes and inconsistencies. They find the places where you missed the mark emotionally. And they tell you what scenes are boring, and what they want to know about. That means I’ll have to rewrite some small sections, like the ENITRE ENDING. And now it’s my job to fix all that. That unfortunately…
