Forum: Author Hangout

There's a lot I want to tell the reader the POV character doesn't know.

Meanwhile, I tend to do the exact opposite. I like having the main character (or others) know things that I am not ready to reveal to the reader yet.

Heck, sometimes not even they are aware of this, because it is something by yet another character. Which makes for a weird situation to write.

Doing on for dozens of chapters, having one character alternate between loving the main character, and almost being dismissive and angry towards him. And I had many comment as to why she was "being a bitch", but like the main character not really seeing it was her frustration at unrequited love, and seeing him go from girl to girl, meanwhile not being with her.

Not unlike say real life.

Another problem I have is actually two different sides of the same coin. My own "natural" writing style can be rather short and concise. Rather blunt, I move to and through a scene, then simply move on. Hence, why so many of my chapters tend to be short, 4-8 pages on a word processor.

But I decided I wanted to break that a bit, and simply write to write. And ended up churning out a 7 mb monster, that many then complained seemed to ramble. It would skip off into a great many other things, then wander back to something yet again. Yet, that was actually my playing around, trying to write in a different style, without the usual "drive to get to the ending", but simply playing with and living in the story.

but like the main character not really seeing it was her frustration at unrequited love, and seeing him go from girl to girl, meanwhile not being with her.

That's not what I meant. That's actually being true to POV.

What I mean is not head-hopping.

Thanks, I appreciate the kind words, but that doesn't mean I don't have 6 complete stories waiting for a second set of eyes on them.

Mental!

I find myself doing the opposite. When I finish a chapter, I try not to reread or touch it for a week before making revisions; half the time I'm like "It's good to go..." after only a few days and I send it off.

Then it comes back from my editor with a mass of corrections because I didn't wait long enough to be able to catch things myself. Chapters come back cleaner if I wait, but patience is a virtue I haven't learned.

Kind of similar to how I work.

Normally I will bash out the first chapter of what I know to be a longer story, and then post it. I then get to work and continue writing, alternating on writing new content and posting until I have around 3 chapters held in reserve.

And I rarely touch them after writing and moving on, unless as I am writing one of the later chapters something happens to change one I had not yet published. I then go over it, run it through Grammerly, then read it again before posting. That now catches most of my mistakes.

This has mostly worked well for me, as if I get a block I can post one or two of those I have held back, hopefully getting me through that until I can resume writing. But also it sometimes is the opposite, as I can get these almost frantic bursts of writing, and find myself knocking out 2 or 3 chapters in a day.

Currently, I just posted Chapter 5, as I am writing Chapter 10. But I also have to be careful, because I have had complaints when I post more than 1 chapter in a day.

I do this too (write, set it aside, come back to it). It seems to be a common recommendation and it makes a lot of sense. Some distance lets you review with fresh eyes, spotting flaws and weaknesses but also strengths. Coming back to something, rereading it, and thinking 'hey, this is really pretty good, I did well here' is a great feeling.

It's much easier to wordsmith the rough parts with some distance. Getting the ideas down is an entirely different process from polishing and editing.

Case in point: I just had a comparatively dark, heavy, unhappy part of the story. Things had been going along pretty happily (on the surface at least) and then, boom, a (foreshadowed) bad thing happens. Is that right? Will readers follow? Should readers follow? In this case I'm certain it was the right thing, but it's a constant worry.

I would say yes. You are the writer, you are the creator. And you have to be true to your own vision, or else you are ultimately lying to yourself.

Me, I readily admit that I write for me. If I am in a dark mood (depression is a constant battle), I may alternate between happy sappy love stories, and some really dark shit. Not evil, but really dark. Like the guy having a fun fling he thought, only to discover the gal was HIV positive.

But I have also had stories go dark entirely on their own. Like being about 5 chapters in, and realizing that the love interest I had created for the main character was just not right. Which ultimately turned into a lot of drama (story and reader feedback), and then I purposefully dragged things out forever until I had him finally realize the girl for him.

Which I had decided before chapter 8. In the first of 3 books. *laugh*

But I would always encourage authors to write what they like. After all, this is not really "commercial writing", we are not having to knock off boilerplate romance or westerns for a paying audience, we right for the enjoyment of it.

I try to get my wife to understand this, but she wants me to publish so she can retire.

I'm giving consideration to seeing if an actual publisher would be interested in something. They take submissions. With a 12 - 15 month turnaround time, because of how MANY submissions they get.

trying to get published seems too much like another job to me.

Make the story into one file (which it already is), store in the format they want, ship it off, and then forget about it until (or if) they ever contact me back. If they do, great! If not, no hard feelings.

Make the story into one file (which it already is), store in the format they want, ship it off, and then forget about it until (or if) they ever contact me back. If they do, great! If not, no hard feelings.

It's much harder than that. You need a synopsis (which I find is harder to write than the novel). A pitch. A query letter. They'll want to know what other books are similar to yours (comparable books). Who your target audience is. What platform you have. What is your marketing plan.

If all they're asking for is a manuscript, they're not worth submitting to. They're a small publisher who won't do any more for you than you can do yourself and take a chunk of the revenue.

And if you want to publish with the Big-5, sometimes one of their imprints accepts unsolicited submissions for a short window of time, but usually you have to get a literary agent first. And they're harder to get than a publishing deal.

If all they're asking for is a manuscript, they're not worth submitting to. They're a small publisher who won't do any more for you than you can do yourself and take a chunk of the revenue.

If the names John Ringo, David Drake, Eric Flint, and David Weber mean nothing to you, then you're right. If you recognize those names, then you know the publisher I'm talking about.

We are looking only for science fiction and fantasy. Writers familiar with what we have published in the past will know what sort of material we are most likely to publish in the future: powerful plots with solid scientific and philosophical underpinnings are the sine qua non for consideration for science fiction submissions. As for fantasy, any magical system must be both rigorously coherent and integral to the plot, and overall the work must at least strive for originality.

We prefer to see complete manuscripts accompanied by a synopsis.

If the names John Ringo, David Drake, Eric Flint, and David Weber mean nothing to you, then you're right. If you recognize those names, then you know the publisher I'm talking about.

I sure do, I knew right away. The late Jim Baen. Who's publishing company has long been recognized as one of the best for authors. And not only one of the very first to sell ebooks, his company is considered to be the first to do it profitably. Never used DRM, and still has an extensive free library that is open to all.

but she wants me to publish so she can retire.

Very few traditionally published authors can earn a full-time living off their writing let alone retire. Most keep their day job.

I end up trawling through the whole lot, editing and improving all the way.

That's not a problem. That's how I write. I end up editing a story hundreds of times, fine tuning it until I realize the only change I'm making is changing word-A to word-B only to realize the last time around I changed word-B to word-A. That's when I know I'm done.