Bad News and Good News in the New Year.

Lets get the bad news over with first- Empire won’t be ready for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

The good news? I’m giving myself time to make it the quality it deserves to be! I continue to be amazed at the improvements made as I work on it. I don’t want to submit something that isn’t truly a breakthrough novel. Empire will be, eventually.

I used to fear editing. I made such drastic changes that things began to warp into all the wrong shapes. I’m completely thrilled with the editing process I’m using with this work.

I always had a feeling my writing was more suited to novel-length works. Reading what I wrote this summer has confirmed that to me. I tend to be hyper detailed. I have to know a scene and character backwards and forwards- something that makes writing shorter works harder to create to my satisfaction.

There are a few scenes I want to rethink. The ending fourth of the work especially needs some scaffolding and resolution strengthening. Overall, the book is much better than I could have dreamed.

That said, the more I work on it, the more I realize it won’t be for everyone. I expect more than a few low scored reviews from people that don’t like how passive my main character is. I also think some people will find it a bit slow. I’m prepared for that, but it’s the story. I could try to make it more attractive to a mass audience, but I would have to change things that are important to me to do so. I will write more action-packed stories in the future, but that’s not this book.

As I read and edit, it also becomes clearer to me that this book is about fear. Not just regular fears- spiders, heights, clowns, etc- but fear of action. Fear of taking steps to change the things that make our lives harder. Fear of looking past the things we can’t change and to the (perhaps smaller, but still very important) things we can.

As I work through this very important year in my teaching career, I have to balance my paying job with my writing. Empire will be finished soon, but I want to do so in a manner which lets it be all it can be, while not ignoring my other responsibilities in life. I’m sad it won’t make this contest, but it wouldn’t win in the state it’s in right now.

I want this work to be the highest quality I can provide at my current ability level. That is way more important than meeting a date for a contest.

Check back for more updates.

On Killing Characters.

Death

There are many types of death for a character in a literary work, but by far the worst is where the cease to exist completely. I have had to provide that most depressing of deaths for a few characters over the last week. While they were all good people who I liked, they were either redundant, did not fit the tone of the rest of the story, or were simply holding the pacing back.

One survives in a sense. I gave his words to another character. He still impacts the story in a way, but now he does so without adding unnecessary characterization.

I love giving my characters… character. They are part of the biggest joy I get while writing. I know everything (or at least a lot) about them. I see them very clearly and want them to live a strong and productive life. Sadly, this isn’t always possible.

The most glorious death for a character is when they die on the page. That is a death that will be remembered and mourned (if the writer has any skill and feels any sympathy for the people they create). I have provided that for one as well. It haunts me to this day, but also gives me a certain peaceful feeling.

I know that readers will feel the impact of his loss. Even though he only exists alive for a few short pages in the text, his loss is felt throughout the entire (planned) story. I call it planned because I have only written one chapter. The rest is planned, and it is good.

I also finally began the process of editing Empire.

Seeing the words I wrote weeks ago getting improved is extremely rewarding. What was there is OK, but it will get better. Much better.

I will try to provide more updates here as things move forward. I am also going to work on a site for my overall writing, not just Empire. Once I have something I am happy with, that will become the main site I post from. I will also provide links here, so that anyone checking back will know there is new content and where to go to get it.

Please, post a comment or send me a message as you drop by the site. I would love to know who my potential readers are.

Be seeing you!

It’s quiet… Too quiet.

Blade Runner

Yes, I know you haven’t seen a ton posted here lately. I just want to assure you that things are moving forward. School starts tomorrow, so I have had to wade back into my day job as a middle school teacher. I am getting ready to start editing Empire, I am just waiting for two more beta readers to get back to me. If I don’t hear from them by the end of the week, I will call them to see where they are.

I am very excited about the changes I will be making. Every one of them should serve the story well. I’m also deep into planning my second book- The Light of Silver and Gold. It is going to be pretty different from Empire, and so far the story is some of my best work. I will post the first part of it here soon. I just have to kill one character first. I love the guy, he just doesn’t fit in the story like he should.

Hey, sometimes authors have to kill the characters they love. He may come back in other works, but he would have taken too much from the main character in Light.

See you soon with more news!

Back from vacation with my first reader feedback!

I just returned from a week of fun and sun with my wife’s family. It was the best beach trip I have had with them, and was very restive as well. One thing I did not do, however, was work on the novel very much. I printed up a copy of it and took it with the intentions of reading it, but I got sucked into Wool, by Hugh Howey. I also watched a lot of Sons of Anarchy.

There were some big developments as far as the novel goes, though! I sent the book out to about twelve people to beta read it and give me feedback. Of those twelve, I expect at least six will actually get back to me. I understand how it goes- you get busy, the book isn’t perfect, it gets replaced in your schedule by other activities.

Honestly, I am just thrilled that a few people have actually got the thing in their hands or on their computer/ipad/kindle!

I did get some great/very useful feedback from one very helpful and prompt reader already. She wrote-

Overall impression: The book is very modern and relevant to the times. This is evident with the global economy. Mining was the livelihood for many communities that have bonded them for generations. Take WV for example. Those people do not want their coal mining taken away due to government regulations. Many of those towns dry up much like Empire.  I also like the fact that the story is somewhat semi factual and how the actions of the company affect many. The book reads very quickly and it written in language geared towards the age range of the target audience. The book kinda reminded me of a modern day Stand By Me in a way. Several boys on a journey to save a town…..

Squee!

She did have a lot of critiques of things that need to be worked on- but they were all things that I can see and agree with. That is a great feeling! I would much rather be able to see and agree with reader criticism. My worst fear is thinking that I have written some amazing work and then having people poo-poo it in ways I simply do not understand.

I have a lot of work to do to get it where it needs to be, but it will come. I have to get school started over the next few weeks, but once that calms down, I will start to whip this baby into shape.

I also started working on a few possible follow-up pieces to write after this novel is done. To be perfectly honest, the style of writing required for Empire is a bit out of my comfort zone. It is a much more literary piece of fiction that I am used to writing. My wheel-house is usually sci-fi/horror/action/adventure. Writing in that style flows much smoother. I get into the zone where pages fly by without me having to stop to think about where the story should go next.

I may run a poll here eventually to see which possible path I should take next, but I may just have to leave it up to where the inspiration is.

Either way, my concentration is getting Empire publisher-ready. I still don’t know whether I will query an agent to find a publisher, or if I will just publish the book myself. That is all kinda beside the point if I don’t have a work that meets the bar of quality I am looking for.

Stand By Me is a pretty huge movie to me, and the short story it is based off of –The Body, by Stephen King- was a story that I love deeply. I didn’t go into Empire with the goal of aiming for that. Really, Holes, by Louis Sachar was more of my target. But, ending up at Stand By Me is enough to make my heart stop.

I would be vastly lucky to end up with a novel even distantly close to the quality of that movie and that story!

On beginnings.

I did it! The first draft of Empire is done!

I printed up the first four chapters first to start editing them, and I am already extremely happy with the improvements being made. Part of me regrets even sharing what parts I did now. The book will truly be ten times better by the time I have it buffed and shined. Another part of me wants to leave it up for my students to see in the future.

I’m sure some writers craft works very close to perfection on the first go. Most aren’t that lucky. We have to work and toil and then work some more to get something that is actually fun to read.

Sure, I have a story that has three full acts, a conflict, rising action, and a resolution. That bit wasn’t easy to get, but just having that does not make it a book.

What happens now is the perfecting of what I have. I have to ask myself; do I really need Paul to be in a band? Sure, I like what I have about that, but it adds space to a book that’s already long enough and doesn’t really come back at all other than in the beginning. Cutting that part will be a hard edit. Maybe it’s an edit that won’t happen, but I’m going to think about it long and hard before I make a call either way.

I wrote a post last week about how I dreaded the editing process. Now that it’s here, I’m finding out that I love it.

Editing is easy to try to pass over. Most people’s natural compulsion is to simply be done with something after they have written it. Sure, they may give it a cursory look-through for misspelled words and grammatical mistakes. But, doing this doesn’t do anyone any favors. You have to be willing to make the deep cuts; the ones that bleed. You have to have new eyes for your story. Is it hitting all the marks it needs to? Is the logic of what the characters are doing true to what their character is and does what they do make sense in a way that it won’t drive your readers crazy?

That’s where I am now, sitting with my scalpel and getting ready to slice. And I’ve got a big ol’ grin on my face to be here. 🙂

 

 

PS- Here is a small look at the newest version of the cover.

On editing and fear.

Editing terrifies me. When I wrote in college, editing always took my work and twisted it into something it wasn’t at first. I began to think of editing as the process of bastardizing a work until it was ground beef, rather than the filet it was when it existed in my head.

Putting words onto the page (or computer screen) seemed to take some of the mystery away. There they were, for me to judge.

Sadly, I have always been my harshest critic. Don’t get me wrong, I like myself- I just don’t think I’m great at much. Sure, I can fumble my way through and get parts right, but it never ends up as sparkly on the page as it was when it was forming in my head.

Part of me just wants to send my first draft off the the beta reader I have waiting for my manuscript, but I know that would be a lazy cop-out. I know what’s wrong with the text already. I have to gut a few sections I want to keep in there badly, or at least find some way to salvage them.

Why would a reader want a whole chapter on a convenience store that doesn’t play much into the protagonist’s story? Sure, I know I really want to put the store in there. When I first heard the story of Empire on the evening news, the images I saw of the sign that said Welcome to Nowhere grabbed me. It was both hilarious and deeply sad to see. Especially with the events that were unfolding that led to the closing of the town.

But, as it is written right now, that information isn’t key to the story and it weighs the beginning of the novel down.

I know I have to re-write the first couple of chapters almost in their entirety. Sure, there are small bits I can save, but to introduce things and move the story forward, changes have to be made.

Getting to the point of actually making these changes; printing the story up for me to see all its flaws in black and white- that is truly terrifying to me. I know I will have my time sucked away soon by planning that has to be done for the school year. But, I also know that I’m using this fear as an excuse to delay finishing, so that I don’t have to see all the flaws.

That’s probably why I’m writing this post rather than working on the last two chapters…

I think I can do it. I obviously already know where the major faults are. I just have to find the right concrete to use to fill them up and make them go away. I also know that I have some help waiting there for when I have done all I can with the script.

That terrifies me too, though. Even though I grew up across the street from the person that will beta read it, I don’t know her well. I don’t know her tastes; what she looks for in a book.

That could be a good thing in the end, though. I want people who aren’t just like me to enjoy the book. I want to know the sections where people will question the logic of what’s happening.

I want to edit, I’m just terrified to actually do it.