FEAR THE STARS cork board

For my last few novels I've taken to writing a summary of each chapter on 3x5 notecards and laying them out on the ground or on a cork board. The following is what I did for Fear the Stars while I was going through the final revision a few months ago (smudgified to prevent spoilers):

I also use Scrivener as my writing software, and Scrivener has a cork board feature which I use extensively. That said, there's something about physically seeing all of my chapters and scenes in order, and being able to move them around in a physical space, that I find very helpful.

Fear the Stars comes out in about seven weeks! I've already started getting my advanced copies from my publisher, and I have to say I'm very excited about this book. I realize I say that every time, but I honestly think it's because of a positive trend in my novel-writing abilities as opposed to any bias on my part (I mean, let's be clear, there's that, too, but still).

If I were to rank my Chaos Queen novels, I actually think Duskfall and Dark Immolation are about on the same level. They're very different novels, with very different strengths and weaknesses, but if I had to grade them on a whole I'd say they're of roughly the same quality (which is, in my opinion, pretty good quality). I think Blood Requiem, on the other hand, is clearly superior to the first two novels in the series. It's tighter, the characterization and character voices are stronger, and overall the writing is just better.

I think Fear the Stars is to Blood Requiem what Blood Requiem was to the first two books in the series: tighter, stronger, better. That's a good thing for a number of reasons, but mainly in that I think it's displaying how I'm generally getting a better grasp on what it means to be a writer. That's a trend I hope continues throughout my career.

As far as Dawnrise goes, it definitely has the potential to be my best book yet. It might end up being more or less on par with Fear the Stars, or, perhaps, just a smidge lower (I really did like FtS, ya'll). Only time will tell, of course, but based on my outline and what I've written so far, I'm feeling very confident about the ending book of the series.

LTUE 2019 Schedule

I'll be at the annual Life, the Universe, and Everything symposium here in Provo in just a couple weeks! This is the one that's basically in my own back yard. Incidentally, LTUE is the conference I've been attending the longest and most consistently--10+ years--and it also happens to be one of my favorites. LTUE is great on a number of levels, but their programming is usually top-notch (I've posted mine below, which I'm quite excited about this year), they have great guests and panelists, and it's a great place to meet other writers and folks in the business, especially if you're local. Also, at $55 for the three-day experience, and a measly $5 for students, it's a steal.

So, there's my plug! If you're a sci-fi/fantasy writer in the area and aren't attending LTUE, that's something you need to remedy, like, now.

Plus, you'll see me there! So, win-win-win!

MY SCHEDULE:

Thu 14 Feb

11 AM (Zion) - A Punch in the Face: Writing Gripping Fight Scenes
"Action, well done, will draw in the audience and keep them on their seats. Not so well one, it leads to boredom and fatigue. How to keep your work in the first category and avoid the second." I've been on at least a half dozen versions of this panel, probably more, but we usually find an interesting way to approach and discuss the subject. More often than not, I learn something here, too.

12 PM (Elm) - Not Just Shock: Writing Good Grimdark
"Grimdark isn't just shocking deaths and violence. How to create compelling stories in a grimdark environment." Ah, ye olde grimdark. Views on this vary widely, so these panels are always interesting.

6 PM (Bryce) - Writing LDS Themes in Mainstream Fiction
"Even though none of the characters are LDS (or sometimes, human) doesn't mean that the Plan of Salvation or doctrines on redemption can't make an appearance. LDS authors publishing mainstream fiction will talk about how they use these themes and others." Because what is more fantastical (or, at least, promotes more of a fantastical worldview) than Mormonism??

Fri 15

6 PM (Arches) - Pantsing: Making the Most of Draft 0
"Discovery writing can be a great way to work out your ideas as you go. It is also a great way to throw yourself off track and cultivate lazy writing. Come listen to professional panthers (and pantsers-at-heart) talk about how they make the most of discovery writing." I've taken a different approach to this recently, mainly in that I use both methods depending on which fits the story best. So that'll be my perspective, here.

Sat 16

12 PM (Arches) - Writing with the Door Open: How to Revise
"You can put whatever you want in a first draft, but at some point, the day of reckoning comes. How to revise with purpose, and what you should be looking for to strengthen your story." Standard revision discussion, I suppose. Revision was (and, in some ways, continues to be) one of the most difficult parts of the process for me, so I've done a lot of learning in this area. Should be a good discussion.

3 PM (Bryce) - Three Types of Terror: Gore, the Unnatural, and Deep Terror
"According to Stephen King, every good horror tory includes three kinds of terror: the blood and guts gore, the unnatural (like a spider the size of a bear), and the deep psychological terror of the unknown. How to use all three to the greatest effect." Advice I've discussed many times before, but advice that is generally useful nevertheless. Plus I'm always up for discussing Stephen King, or something he wrote, or something he said, etc....

4 PM (Elm) - Writing Stories without Villains
"Antagonists do not have to be people. How to have conflict and a satisfactory resolution without a bad guy." Stories! Without villains! Okay!

Blood Requiem Final Draft

Just got editorial notes for Blood Requiem back from my editor yesterday. I have to say, I'm very excited about the final draft of this book. I've already gotten some great feedback from my writing group on a few of the sequences in the book, and looking at my editor's notes, I think it will all synergies very well. Book 3 will coalesce into something pretty awesome, I think.

I'm back to the point with book 3 where I'm excited about and proud of what is going on, which is always a good place to be as a writer. Like most writers, I inevitably go through phases with each project where I'm alternatingly excited about, bored with, horrified/embarrassed by, excited about again, and ultimately proud of a given book. It's nice to be in the positive swing of that once again.

I'm aiming to get the final revision done by 12 March. That should be doable. After that, it'll go through copy edits, and before you know it I'll have ARCs in my hands!

Anyway, all this is to say that I generally enjoy and like what I write, and I think that's a good thing :-).

DARK IMMOLATION (The World Turned Upside Down)

Folks, this morning I (FINALLY!) emailed my agent a revised draft of Dark Immolation (Book 2 of the Chaos Queen Quintet).

I could not feel more relieved.

Revising this book has been incredibly difficult, and that's putting it lightly. I'll likely write a post or two in the future talking about the specifics, but here's the short of it: because of (1) life circumstances and problems and (2) the learning curve behind writing a five-book series, this book took me forever, and it's easily the most difficult thing I've ever written. I'd heard that once I started writing professionally there'd be times where the writing would just become straight up work, losing basically any attraction or redeeming quality that might've drawn me to it in the first place. The last six months, more or less, have been one long instance of that.

The good news? That moment has now passed, and I can RELAX.

That said, let's talk about the book!

Some of you may remember that when I finished the first draft of Duskfall, I wrote a blog post about it. It was actually the very first post on this blog, so that's kind of cool thing to remember. But I neglected to do this for the first draft of Dark Immolation (mainly because my daughter was born right around the time I finished it, but also because the feels of existential dread and agonizing inadequacy regarding this book were already setting in), so I'm going to give you some stats about the book right now. Check it:

• Title: Dark Immolation - Still a working title, but the fact that it's in the frontmatter of Duskfall makes me think it might be permanent. I don't mind; I like the title, I came up with it after all, and I've been playing with some new tentative titles for books 3 and 4 that compliment "Dark Immolation" help with the symmetry of the series.
• Version: 2.4 - So this is technically the second draft, (that's what the 2 stands for), although I've made so many passes at it over the past 8 months that you could technically count it as the third or fourth draft if you were so inclined; that's what the 4 represents--some other revision passes during this aggregate "second draft" phase. There were also a few minor drafts between 2.3 and 2.4 (2.3.1, 2.3.2, etc.), so, yeah...this novel has gone through the wringer.
• Total Word Count: 212,500 words - For reference, the first draft of Duskfall was around 184K, while the final draft clocked in at just under 150K. The first draft of Dark Immolation, on the other hand, ended up being a whopping 265K, so I feel pretty good that I've already gotten it down to 212. That said, there's still a lot of trimming that needs to happen. I'll feel happy if I can get it under 190K by the time it's in final draft form. We'll see!
• Chapters: 52 and an Epilogue
• Viewpoint Characters: 7, with a number of other minor viewpoints at varying degrees of inclusion. That's two more major POVs than the first book, for reference.
• Start date: October 2014
• End date: August 2016 - Those numbers are slightly deceiving, as I finished the first draft sometime in Julyish of 2015, and started the second draft in December of that year. That said, that was a lot longer than I'd hoped to spend on this book. I'll really just need to write an entire post about why, but again, to summarize, DI has been incredibly difficult, but also a huge learning process, and what I've learned will profoundly affect how I move forward into Book 3.

So, that's the gist of it! Stay tuned for more info on the DI process, a mini Southwestern US book tour we're doing in September, Salt Lake Comic Con info, and more!

In the meantime, here's the song that's been playing over and over in my head (and through my speakers) since I hit the send button on that email to my agent. The fiery adrenaline, strange emptiness, and sweet relief of victory, my friends*:





* Yeah...I've become total #Hamiltrash and I DON'T CARE WHO KNOWS IT.

Retreat to the House on the Hill II

As some of you may remember, last year I attended a writing retreat here in Utah and it was amazing.

Well, I attended the same retreat two weeks ago, courtesy of the eclectically brilliant, academic-hating, ice-giant-of-a-man Dave Butler, and once again triumphed over my writing foes.

I can't say for sure exactly how much work I got done this time because it was mostly revision, but I revised upwards of 80,000 words, and re-outlined the main story braid of book 2 in the Chaos Queen Quintet for further revision. It was fantastic.

The retreat is a cool thing for a number of reasons. (1) I get a lot of writing done. Writing happens pretty much from the moment everyone wakes up until dinner that evening, with itty-bitty breaks here and there for lunch and shooting the breeze with the other retreaters. (2) I get to hang out with some other awesome writers--we all eat dinner together, and then play board games until the late hours. It is a lot of fun, and this year I got to hang out with Jon Rock, Daniel Braithwaite, Scott Taylor, Aaron Michael Ritchey, Eric Patten, Michael Dalzen, and Marion Jensen. We had a special guest in the form of Nick Dianatkhah, and of course were hosted by Dave Butler.

It was quite an enjoyable week.

Highlights include the Edward M. Kovel Awards:

Remind me to tell you why these awards are so amazing sometime.

A delightful, over-too-soon game of Twilight Imperium:

The greatest board game on the planet (or in the galaxy, for that matter). And this was only a six-player game.

And, of course, making significant progress on version 2.0 of CQQ2. That, my friends, adds up to a very successful week.

Expectations (or: How I Got Published, Part 9)

I’m a perfectionist.

To be clear, I actually don’t think perfectionism is that great of a personal quality. Hard work, tenacity, time management—now those are attributes worth having, especially if you’re an artist/writer. But perfectionism, well…it just makes things tedious.

But the worst thing about perfectionism, I think, is that it makes me want to make my stories perfect (whodathunk?) before I let anyone else see them. And let’s be honest, folks, that just ain’t possible. So what do I do when the unstoppable force of reality meets the immovable object of my perfectionism? Well, it’s easy.

I tell my perfectionism to GET OUT THE WAY.

Perfectionism manifests itself the most when I start thinking about showing my work to others—especially an agent or an editor. “I just need to change that setting element first,” I tell myself, or “Not until I revise this character arc.” And, in my defense, those things may need fixing, and fixing them is good. Fixing all I can before I start circulating my work is important. But there comes a point where the effort to fix something—or the effort needed to find something else to fix—exceeds the anxiety of submitting a flawed manuscript.

And that’s the thing: a manuscript is going to be flawed, no matter how much work I put into it. I had to realize that my manuscript was never going to be perfect. Published manuscripts aren’t even perfect, for crying out loud. Typos slip through, the passive voice and adverbs somehow seem to meddle their way into things, continuity errors pop up every once in a while. That’s just the truth of things.

So for me to think that I’d have a perfect manuscript before I even sent it out to professionals (i.e. agents and editors) was an impossibility. Fortunately, I had a few smart people tell me this while I was revising, and when Duskfall was finally ready enough for me to query people, it was still far from perfect. But it was a good manuscript. It was as good as I could have made it at that time. If I had taken a few more months—a few more years—tried some other revision methods, read more about the writing process, etc. etc., would I have been able to make it even better? Probably. But diminishing returns applies here, too. There’s a certain point where I see diminishing returns from the effort I’m putting into a manuscript, and an important part of self-discovery as a writer was learning where those diminishing returns began, and when to quit and just send out the damn thing.

Manage your expectations. Learn to let go. Put the hard work in. Be tenacious. Manage your time. Before you’ll know it, you’ll have a ready—not finished—manuscript.

And ready is the more important thing.

Alpha Readers, Beta Readers, and Writing Groups (or: How I Got Published, Part 7)

Happy Tuesday ya’ll! It’s time for another #HIGP post, and this one’s all about getting outside help.

I mentioned last week that an essential part of my revision process is getting input from other people. “What people?” you may ask. Well, lemme tell you. Today I’m going to talk about the three main types of readers I’ve had for my stuff, and Duskfall in particular: Alpha Readers, Beta Readers, and Writing Groups.

Alpha Readers

Alpha Readers are, basically, the very first people who will look at my manuscript besides yours truly. Personally, I like Alpha Readers to point out global issues about my manuscript: are there gaping holes in the plot? do character motivations, actions, and decisions make sense? does the magic system make sense, or is it over/underexplained? do characters change drastically halfway through the novel? did you see the twists coming, or did they seem completely out of the blue (in a bad way)? These are the sorts of questions I prep my ARs with, because, if I don’t, I tend to get feedback that focuses more on grammar and typos than actual story issues.

Because I’m looking for specific issues with story and craft, I generally have a few requirements for ARs:

1. Some experience in story/plot/characters is essential. This does not mean, however, that they have to be fellow writers. They can be phenomenal readers, not have written a scrap, and still be very effective at helping me recognize where my manuscript is going wrong.
2. They have to be able to give honest feedback. Family members, for the most part, do not perform very well as ARs.* Professionals, or people very experienced at giving writing feedback, are usually ideal in this scenario, but they aren’t the only people who can give honest feedback. You may have a close friend, someone in your writing group, a classmate, or someone you’ve met online whose honest opinion you respect. That’s what you’re looking for.
3. Variety. If I have an epic fantasy manuscript, I don’t necessarily want three epic fantasy authors to be my ARs. I find it helps far more to have maybe one epic fantasy person as an AR, and to look in other genres, or even look for non-writers (keeping in mind #1, of course), to fill some of the other slots.

I think between 3-5 ARs is kind of the ideal number for me. More than that and the feedback gets a bit overwhelming, and less than that doesn’t seem quite diverse enough.

I mentioned in my last post that I actually don’t pay attention to a large percentage of the feedback I receive (I usually only take from 10-50% of the feedback, depending on the source), and that is as true for ARs as it is for anyone else. I take their feedback a bit more seriously, so I think for ARs the percentage is closer to 30-50%, but I still need to be judicious about what I do and do not consider. It’s still my story, after all.

Basically, Alpha Readers are my first line of defense for my manuscript. They are people I trust, who have experience in story and character, and who can be honest with me.**

Beta Readers

Beta Readers, at least for me, perform a very different role than Alpha Readers. Beta Readers are the second group of people to whom I send my manuscript for feedback, and my goals with them are different. While I ask many of the same questions I asked my Alpha Readers, I make things a bit more specific here, particularly regarding the magic system, setting, prose, pacing, etc. I’m also a bit more open to grammatical/typographical stuff at this stage, although it still isn’t super helpful to me.***

My requirements for Beta Readers are a lot less stringent, too. While having a couple people who are very experienced is writing, plot, character, etc. is still helpful, my main objective is variety. I view Beta Readers as more of a focus group, a sampling of different types of people who can give me different perspectives on my manuscript. I usually draw on a number of different friends for BRs, and I have significantly more BRs than I do ARs—anywhere from five to twenty. Family members are more kosher here, too; their potential bias is less dangerous at this stage, and can sometimes even be helpful, even for just a slight ego boost :-).

Because the sampling is so much wider, I usually take less feedback from my Beta Readers seriously, percentage-wise—around 0-30% (yes, sometimes I don't take any of someone's feedback, and that's totally fine), again depending on the person.

Writing Groups

While Alpha and Beta Readers are related—two different stages in a similar process—Writing Groups are an entirely different thing. A Writing Group, basically, is a group of writers who get together periodically to critique one another’s work. I’ve been involved in four or five writing groups, more than that if you count the critique groups I had during my MFA program, so I’ve got some experience on a number of levels in this area.

For some people, WGs are fantastic. They’re motivational (you basically have “deadlines” you need to keep, and that peer pressure can force some great productivity), they’re helpful (they are, in one sense, a group of Alpha Readers giving you feedback), and they’re a great way to network.

All of this is true for me, especially in the beginning. My first writing group was a part of Brandon Sanderson’s SF/F writing course at BYU, and having a deadline was probably the single most helpful thing that writing group did for me. A close second were the people I met in the group—I’m still friends with most of them, and still hang out with a few of them at writing conferences and conventions (and one of them in particular was instrumental in getting my agent to look at Duskfall—but more about that in a later post).

That first writing group taught me some other things, too: that I’m a discovery writer, for one, and that discovery writing doesn’t always go super well with submitting work to a writing group, or at least not in the way I submitted it that first time around. Because of the whole deadline thing, many people who participate in writing groups submit stuff they have just wrote, often without revising it at all (or at least that’s how I did it that first time). That’s not as much an issue for outliners, because they already have their story planned out. For discovery writers like me, however, that can be problematic; I’m already making up the story as I go along, and the feedback I get from WGs can often make me want to change my writing in mid-manuscript, which isn’t the best strategy for me to write my novel.

I’ve also tried submitting work to a WG that’s on it’s second revision (where I’ve fixed a lot of the holes I knew were there): I’ve already written the first draft, and I’ll revise the portion I’m submitting before I give it to the group. That works infinitely better for me—it lets me get out the kinks in the first draft and get a better idea of where I want the story to go, so I’m not so malleable and easily distracted when I get critiques.

So, some tips for writing groups, based on my experience:

1. The person being critiqued should not defend their work. In fact, it’s best if they not speak at all while being critiqued, and instead just focus on taking notes. If someone didn’t get something about your work, there’s no point in explaining it—they didn’t get it. That means take their input, think about how you can write it better, and go do that thing!
2. People should generally be courteous about giving their feedback—if they are insulting you as a person or as a writer, they don’t belong in a writing group. If they’re insulting your writing, that’s less problematic—their critiques can still be helpful—but still uncool on their part. If they’re giving you harsh and honest feedback, that’s fantastic, and you should accept it with gratitude that someone is willing to be honest with you. Trust me, we all need harsh feedback every once in a while.
3. Depending on whether you’re a discovery writer or an outliner, I’d suggest you think seriously about what you’ll be submitting to your group, whether it’s first-draft stuff or revised stuff (if even slightly revised).
4. Diversify your writing group—again, if everyone’s a straight white single dude from 23-29 years old writing space opera, your critiques won’t be as, um, holistic as they could be. So it’s good to include different types of people and different types of writers, if possible, to maximize the experience.

If you’d like more tips on Writing Groups, check out the Writing Excuses Podcast. I’ll link to a couple great episodes here, but they actually have a lot of great episodes on just about everything I’m talking about here and then some, so if you want more information, that’s the first place I’d send you.

Season 2, Episode 5: Writing Groups

Season 9, Episode 37: Training a Critique Group

So What About Duskfall?

I actually tried all three of these things at some point in the process as I wrote DF.

The very very first draft of DF was my project for Brandon Sanderson’s class, so that went through that first writing group as well as one or two others. Some of those writing group experiences were better than others. That first one was great because, as I mentioned earlier, it taught me about deadlines and introduced me to some really cool people that became fast friends. Later groups were helpful in teaching me how I wrote (mainly that I’m a discovery writer), helping me define what I wanted to do with later drafts of DF, and of course helping me retain friendships as well as make new ones.

I had a professional thriller writer, a creative nonfiction writer, and my wife as Alpha Readers for DF after I’d finished my second first draft (I never finished that first first draft that went through the writing groups). Their feedback was phenomenal, and I’m really happy with the draft that emerged because of their suggestions.

A few months later I sent DF out to some Beta Readers consisting of some close family members and about a dozen of my friends. Each one of them had something unique to contribute, and helped DF develop in their own way.

-

Here’s what’s important for me: I need outside feedback in order for my writing to progress. If I want to be better, I need people to tell me what I’m doing wrong, because I can rarely catch that stuff on my own. Alpha Readers, Beta Readers, and Writing Groups are the best ways I’ve found to do that, and I definitely think I’m a better writer because of it. I plan to continue using them, and to continue getting better—hopefully!

Oh, and next week I’m going to talk about something a bit different in this series: education, and why it is (and isn’t) important in the process of getting published. So, there’s that to look forward to :-).

* Of course, there are exceptions to this, my wife being one of them. My wife has a reputation for being brutally honest, at work, in life in general, and in our marriage, too—that’s one of the things I love about her. She was one of my Alpha Readers for DF, and she was extremely effective. That said, however, I personally would never have any family member other than my wife as an AR—and certainly no more than one family member as an AR at any given time.

** I imagine that from this point on my Alpha Readers will actually just consist of my agent, my editor, and perhaps my wife and/or one other trusted friend. They’re exactly the type of people whose feedback I’m looking for, and they do it professionally, so it should work out pretty well.

*** Actually, what I usually do is have sort of two stages of Beta Readers (I guess you could call them “Beta Readers” and “Delta” or “Gamma Readers” or something, but I don’t. Just Beta Readers.): the first is the stage I describe above, but the second is a lot more focused on sentence-level stuff: grammar, typos, spelling, etc.

Revision (or: How I Got Published, Part 6)

As always, a quick rundown on what I’m doing, here: I’ve begun a little blog series that’s basically my story in a nutshell—the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful about my journey to publication.

What I’ve talked about so far:

• The importance of desire
• Starting a novel (commitment)
• Writing and finishing a novel (consistency)
• How patience is a necessary thing

Today I’m going to jump into revision.

(For the record, I wrote a post about my revision process a few years ago—I’m giving an updated version of that now, but a lot of this info is lifted, with editorial marks, from that post.)

I’ve mentioned it before, and I’m sure I’ll mention it many times from now, but I’m a discovery writer.* Writing organically without the constraint of any real outline is fun, freeing, and allows my mind to explore a lot more, but it has some drawbacks. Namely, my first drafts are complete crap. “Shitty first drafts” is a common adage in the writing world, but mine are downright bad. They would make no sense to anybody except me, because I often cut (or add) characters halfway through, change locations, pursue tangential ideas for a bit until I find my way back to the main plot, etc. Basically, my first draft ends up being one long, glorified outline, written in prose.

Thus, for me, my first revision always happens with the door closed**.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I want to talk about my revision process with Duskfall specifically because, well, that’s the novel that got me published!

I started*** with the first draft (Duskfall 1.0), where I got the story onto paper (or my computer, as it were). Nothing fancy, just getting the story down. Even back then I’d decided to “write with the door closed”—I wanted to get my idea for the story completely out of my head and onto the page before I allowed anyone else to give me their input.

I then took some time off, did an MFA program, and did not get around to the first revision (DF 2.0) of the novel for a couple years. That time off was important for my process, I think (although I’m sure I did not need to take two years off, it just kind of happened that way—a month or two is more than enough time, in reality). Again, for this first revision, I wrote with the door closed. In Duskfall, characters that were there in the beginning suddenly disappeared halfway through the story, while other characters appeared out of nowhere because I suddenly decided they should. Settings changed in my head, but I didn't change them on paper. Plot twists developed out of nowhere and needed some retroactive foreshadowing. I knew that before I showed DF to outside eyes, there was a lot I needed to fix, and that’s why that first revision was all me. I knew there were things I needed to fix, so I was sure to fix as many of them as I could before I showed the project to anyone else; that way I didn't have people wasting their time (and mine) by telling me things I already knew I needed to change, or things that were going in an opposite direction for the plan I already had for the book.

After that first revision, I finally gave the story to some outside readers. For Duskfall, my wife and two close writer friends had the graciousness to give me that first round of feedback (and now that I’m writing in a more official capacity I imagine this “alpha reader” group might just be my agent and editor). They read the book, gave me basic feedback—not a lot about the grammar or writing on the sentence level, that stuff just wasn’t very useful to me yet, but rather on the more global issues regarding plot and character development, etc. This would be a good place for a note of caution: I was definitely tempted, at this stage, to make the prose as beautiful, concise, and grammatically correct as I could, but I resisted that urge. If you’re like me, you might want to do the same. There was just too much that was going to change in future drafts, and revising on the micro level that early, while surely tempting, seemed like it might be a waste of time. I’m definitely glad I didn’t open that can of worms; focusing on global issues was definitely what I needed to do at that point in time.

So, after receiving this feedback, I jumped into my second major revision (version 3.0). I took the suggestions and feedback that I’d received seriously, but I also took them all with a grain of salt. That, I’ve realized, is one of the most important mentalities I can have in revision: while some people are certainly better at giving feedback than others, I found that even from the best readers I ended up only taking action on maybe a third of their suggestions. And that’s ok, preferable even. It’s my story, after all, and I need to be judgy about which suggestions I take to heart and which I dismiss. I’ll talk more about this next week, but I realized early on, thankfully, that it was really okay if I basically ignored quite a bit of feedback offhand.

At this point I did a more micro-level revision (version 3.n, I cant remember exactly, it depends on how many times I’d read through DF during that second major revision) in which I finally focused on some of the writing itself--using active verbs, eliminating unnecessary words, etc. I knew that I wanted to start sending it out to agents at this point, so I figured I should start paying at least some attention to the language.

I did, indeed, find an agent around this point, and he (along with a number of other gracious folks at JABberwocky) began contributing input to DF, too. Basically, it was the same process as the previous two revisions, only a bit more formal and I ended up taking into consideration a lot more of their suggestions (they are professionals, after all). The third, fourth, and fifth major revisions (DF 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0) came through interactions with my agency and a few other choice readers to whom I sent my manuscript.

One significant revision to note was what I think ended up being DF 5.0. It was, essentially, a line edit in which I cut about 17% of the entire book. I believe that good writing is, in large part, saying the most with the fewest words possible, and because I tend to be a bit of a windbag to begin with, I usually have quite a few words that I end up cutting from my later drafts, so this aspect of revision has become a staple for all of my stories and novels: I like to have an entire revision in which my only goal is to cut at least 10% of the word count. It works for me. It’s also a nice interruption from the more mind-intensive story-revisions.

Incidentally, Duskfall will have one more round of revision before it goes through the gauntlet of publication. Just some minor language things, making the prose as pretty as possible, and a few other marks from my editor. I think I’ll be doing that in the next month or so (basically as soon as I finish Dark Immolation 1.0), and that will mark version 7.0 of Duskfall.

I imagine my revision process for Dark Immolation and for my other future novels will be very similar; the first two drafts of my work still need to be written with the proverbial door closed. I need to work out all the kinks I can on my own, make sure the story is doing what I want it to do, before I send it out to others. But, once I get those first two drafts done, it’s open season, and anyone with a brain has the potential to give me some great, story-altering feedback (although, at this point, most of that will come from my agent and editors).

Another side note: some writers may be opposed to getting feedback on their writing—maybe they think it’ll muddy their process or something. I’m pretty sure I used to have that outlook. Now, I don’t. I’ll talk more about why that is next week.

So: revision for me is a pattern of sending a work out, getting feedback, selectively and judiciously revising, and repeating that process until I (and my agent and editor) feel the work ready, in which case I do move on to the more micro level stuff. Let me offer a few tips in summary:

1. Don’t sweat the small stuff, at least in the beginning—grammar, conciseness, and language-oriented edits can wait until later revisions. Focus on the big stuff, character development and plot coherence, first (and tell your readers to do the same).
2. Seek outside feedback! Again, I’ll talk more about this next week, but it has become an indispensable part of my process.
3. Be judicious and selective about said feedback. You may give your story to a bunch of smart people, but they don’t know your story like you do. Take what you like, and leave the rest.
4. Your novel is your own—keep it that way.

That’s how revision worked (and continues to work) for me! Stay tuned for a discussion next week on alpha readers, beta readers, and writing groups.

* That means I prefer not to work from an outline. I start with an idea and/or some characters, put them all together, and see where they take me. This method is also known as “seat-of-your-pants” writing, so I’m aka a “pantser.” Aka “gardener.” You get the picture.

** You’ll hear me talk about “writing with the door closed” and “revising with the door open” a lot in this and the subsequent HIGP post—that’s an idea lifted from Stephen King, specifically from his fantastic memoir, On Writing.

*** It may or may not be helpful to compare these revisions to the timeline I posted last week—just saying.

The End Draws Nigh

In case you haven't noticed, my % counter for my current WIP--Before the Dark--is at 95%.  My self-imposed deadline is this Friday.  I think I'm going to make it, folks.  Then it's on to alpha readers!

[In other news, it's been a long time since I posted, I know...things got busy.  Apparently that happens, with me.  Also, pictures of awesome 5 year anniversary trip with the wifey to come, so stay tuned.]

Halfway Point/Character Voice

For those of you paying attention to my progress bars on the side, you'll notice that my revisions for The Rising Book 1 (tentatively titled Before the Dark) have passed 50%!  I'm pretty happy about that, if I do say so myself.  I think this puts me on track to finishing those revisions by the end of April, at which point I'll send it out to a group of alpha readers.

I've been going through at least 4k words of revision a day lately, which has not been as difficult as I thought it might be.  Some days are easier than others, of course--a lot of it depends on what part I'm revising, and how much actual rewriting needs to take place.  But I'm definitely happy with my productivity level lately.

One of the largest problems I'm noticing with this draft, though, is voice.  Character voice, specifically (not my own voice, or style, or whatever you choose to call it).  The two main viewpoint characters just seem bland to me right now, and I'm not sure what direction I want to take them, yet.  I've always been a fan of fiction with strong character voices--Joe Abercrombie being the master at it as far as fantasy writing is concerned.  I'd like to apply that to this novel, but it's something I haven't quite figured out how to approach, yet.

It's easier for me to develop a voice when writing it the first time through, and more difficult to come up with a voice in revision.  Unfortunately, I wrote the first draft of this particular novel about three years ago, before I had started the MFA program, and that definitely shows.  (For the record, I think I grew a lot as a writer during those two years working on an MFA.)

That said, I don't think this novel is unsalvageable; it will just take some more work.  I think I'm just starting to hit the "I'm a horrible writer and everything I write sucks" stage of revision, which isn't fun.  Hopefully that is just a stage, in this case, and not the complete truth as far as this novel is concerned.  Only time will tell, I suppose.

In other news, I'm still hoping to get a story submitted to Writers of the Future for this quarter...but the deadline is the end of the month, and I only have about 1k of the story I was planning on submitting finished, which I estimate as being roughly 10% of the final story.  We will see if I can get anything respectable finished in that time; revision is kind of my master right now, and the novel deadline is more important to me than getting a story in for this quarter.  That said, if I don't get a story in, that'll be three months of the WotF contest in which I'm not even competing, which seems like a ridiculous amount of time.  Only time will tell on that one, too.

Either way, only thing to do is keep writing.

Revision Update

Just a brief update on how my revisions have been going for BTD.  In short:  like, really really good.  :-)

You may have noticed the progress bar slowly creeping forward.  I've set a goal to go through a minimun of 3k words every day, and so far I've been hitting that consistently.  On a good day, I'll get up through upwards of 5k, which is pretty impressive (for me) if I do say so myself.

I feel like I've gotten into a pretty solid groove.  I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was going to outline my novel according to Dan Wells' 7 Point Story Structure.  Well, I did that, and I think that was particularly helpful in motivating me to get through this revision.  Just being able to see the plot progression and main checkpoints for each character a bit clearer has been invaluable.  It's definitely something I plan on doing for future works (at least the longer ones).

So, yeah.  Going along well.  My deadline for myself to finish BTD 2.0 is May 1st.  Come hell or high water, that's what I'm going to do.  But, if things keep progressing the way they have, I should hit that deadline no problem.

Brief Writing Update, oh, and Revision

I'm still working on "Wretched Queen," as you can probably tell from the sidebar.  I'm a bit miffed that I'm not back to working on my novel yet, but honestly, I think it's a really good thing.  Better to put something into the WOTF contest that I feel confident about, first of all, but I've also been learning a bit more about the revision process with this piece, which I think will be immensely helpful when I move back into my novel.

During my MFA program, and pretty much up until this story, my revision process has been sort of a hodgepodge frankenstein conglomerate of writing groups, workshops, line edits, consulting with professors, and so forth.  Don't get me wrong; all of those things were (usually) immensely helpful, and that's how my MFA thesis evolved into what it is now.  But there was no structure to the process.  I'd workshop when a workshop class came around.  I'd be involved in a writing group until it dissolved (which they all inevitably did).  I'd go to a professor when I felt I really needed some direction.  I'd edit for conciseness and clarity right before a deadline.  That's about it.

For this story, my process has been pretty different, and actually aligned with a revision philosophy I've been formulating for the past couple years, but just haven't put into practice until now.

I start with the first draft (version 1.0) of course, where I just get the story out onto paper (or my computer, as it were).  Nothing fancy, just getting the story down.  I've decided, at least for now, that I don't appreciate outside feedback during this process*.  I want to get my idea of the story completely out of my system before I allow anyone else to give me their input.

Next, I do my first revision (version 2.0), but again, I do this one with the door closed.  I'm a discovery writer**, and in a first draft I almost always end up taking things in a different direction than I'd anticipated.  Characters that were there in the beginning suddenly disappear halfway through the story, or characters appear out of nowhere.  Settings change in my head, but I don't change them on paper.  Plot twists develop out of nowhere and need some retroactive foreshadowing.  So, generally, before I show a story to outside eyes, there's a lot I need to fix after the first draft.  I know I need to fix it, so I figure I might as well do that before I show it to anyone else; that way I don't have people wasting their time telling me things I already know I need to change.

After the first revision is when I finally give the story to my first readers (a group that usually consists of my wife and one to three close friends or writer acquaintances).  I give them time to read the story and give me basic feedback--nothing about the grammar or writing on the sentence level, but rather the more global issues regarding plot and character development, etc.--and after receiving this feedback, I jump into my second major revision (version 3.0).

At this point, depending on how strong I feel the basics of the story are, I may or may not do a more micro-level revision (version 3.n, depending on how many times I've gone through the second major revision) in which I focus on the writing itself--using active verbs, eliminating unnecessary words, etc.  I won't put a ridiculous amount of energy into this, but I'll do what I can before I send it out to my next group of readers.

Once that's done, I send it out to another group of friends/writerly acquaintances--my beta readers.  Same cycle as before:  they read, give me basic feedback, and I read through that feedback and make the changes I find necessary*** in the third major revision (version 4.0).

At this point, any number of things may happen.  I may feel it is ready to submit to the contest, or send to the journal, or query to the agent, etc.  If that's the case, I'll do one more cutthroat revision (version 5.0) in which I look once again at the story on a paragraph and sentence level and really focus on streamlining the writing.  I'll often have a goal of cutting 10% of the total wordcount of the draft (hence the title of this particular revision) to make sure my writing is as efficient as I can possibly make it.  At that point, it's submission time!

If I don't feel the story is ready after that third major revision, I'll essentially repeat the process of finding more readers (or a writer's group, at this point), getting feedback, mulling over that feedback, and then integrating it into the story until I'm satisfied ("satisfied" being an extremely relative term in this case).

That's the revision process I've been following with "Wretched Queen," and so far (I've just received feedback from my first readers and am about to move into the second major revision) I've really liked it.  I feel much more direction with this process than I ever did while I was in school, which makes sense, because this particular process actually...has...direction...

This is also the revision process I plan on following with my novel.  Once "Wretched Queen" is done and submitted, I'll jump back into my first major revision of Before the Dark.

So there you have it!  That's the process I've developed at this point, and I'll stick with it until I find something better (which I may very well find; writing is an organic process, I think).




*  In his book On Writing (which, I think I've mentioned before, is one of the best books about writing on the market), Stephen King essentially says to "write with the door closed, revise with the door open."  I think that's a great concept for me, at least in this stage of my craft.



**  A discovery writer, in a nutshell, is someone who writes without the direction of an outline--also called writing by the seat of your pants.  Outlines have, historically, limited me more than motivated me.

***  I don't think I've ever taken ALL of someone's revision advice.  There are almost always things I completely agree need to change/happen, and there are almost always things that I know I can ignore for whatever reason.  That's just the nature of feedback, I think--that was even the case with my writing professors in my MFA program.

first drafts and anticipated revisions

Lately, things have been going pretty well.

And by things, I mostly mean my writing*.  Last week it was going well enough, I was getting about 2k words/day which is respectable.  This week its been even better, and I'm getting between 2.5-3k/day, all on the YA NOVEL project of course.  Things are coming along with it, and I can't really ask for more than that.  The plot is progressing fine, my main character is really getting fleshed out.  It doesn't feel quite as true as THE RISING, but I don't yet think its terrible.

The first draft process is interesting for me, especially because I haven't yet revised any of my novels.  My first project (THE RISING) is finished and awaiting revision, but I've decided not to tackle that until I can finish the first draft of my current YA NOVEL project, along with perhaps another short story and/or nonfiction piece.  That way, come Fall semester, I'll have the first drafts of all the major writing ventures I want to work on complete, and I'll be able to focus on revision.

It won't be ideal--depending on how the workshop classes are structured, I could be simultaneously revising up to three projects at the same time (my main goal is to have THE RISING revised by the end of October so I can get it out to some alpha readers, but I'll also be revising whatever I'm submitting in my nonfiction and YA novel workshops along the way--as well as writing new stuff, mostly short stories, every so often . . . hopefully . . .).  It will be a busy semester, but I think I'll be able to handle it.

Anyway, what I'm getting at:  the first draft process.  Other than short stories, I've never really revised any of my creative work (yet)--its not that I don't believe in it, because I certainly do.  I just haven't gotten around to it yet, for the reasons mentioned above.

But here's the thing with most of the first drafts I've been crafting lately:  I plow right through them, getting the basic story and character arcs out on paper (or on my word processor), ignoring problems of about every shape and size with the justification that "I'll fix it in post."

Will these problems actually be fixable in post?  I don't know.  I suppose I'm going to find out this Fall.

I admit its something I worry about, to a degree.  I'm putting a fair bit of work, time, and energy into these projects.  They're investments.  If it turns out that they're completely unsalvageable**, well . . . you might be able to imagine my chagrin.

But, although it will be frustrating, I'm not too worried about it.  That surprises me, but (I think) its true. It will be disappointing, sure, and frustrating in twenty or thirty different ways, but it won't be the end of the world.  I'll be able to learn from them either way, is the idea (see footnote ** again).

Of course, ideally these novels will turn out okay, if not better-than-okay.  I'm pretty sure THE RISING will.  The more I think about it the more anxious I am to get back to it and see what that thing can really DO.  I'm more worried about the YA NOVEL, but even that I think will turn out satisfactorily.  Again, it may not be publishable in the end, but that won't be the end of the world.

Anyway, at this point there's nothing for it but to push through and see how things turn out.

And you know what?  I'm optimistic about it.



P.S.  This post was meant to be about BYU's MFA program, but my mind was, apparently, occupied by other things.


P.P.S.  Have you guys seen my YA NOVEL progress bar?!  It's like watching a drag race.  Really.



*  If you're curious, everything else leaves me with a cavitous lack of things to complain about, too.  Other than lots of friends leaving us for some exciting (and some less exciting) places, while we stick it out in Provo for another two years.  But other than that, everything is actually quite dandy.




**  By unsalvageable, I mean this:  after attempting revisions I think the piece is so utterly putrescent that I'm positive it will never be published anywhere, and know that even attempting to send it in to places would be a complete waste of my time and not a learning experience in any way--AND try as I might there is nothing I can seemingly learn from the disaster that I could do better in future first drafts.  So, basically, a worst-case scenario.  I don't think its likely to happen for either of these books--I don't think either of them will be that bad--but that also doesn't mean I expect both of them, or either of them for that matter, to end up published any time soon, if at all.  My hope, essentially, is that they will be good "learning experiences," making me ultimately a better writer and helping me to understand what I can do better the next time around.  If they can get published along the way, that's fantastic.  But I'm certainly not expecting it.