Drew Wagar

Thanks to all (DaddyHoggy, Morag, my ‘lil sis and Michael) who provided feedback. I’m mindful that this blog should end up being a historical trail of how I attempted to get my book published, so rather than edit the original post, I’m putting up a second draft, so people can view how the text changed as a result of feedback. It’s now too long, so suggestions on trimming gratefully accepted! 3rd Draft?

After losing her job, Rebecca Turner has no option but to move back home to her parents. She joins them in a move to the village of Wealdbrook in Kent, where her father takes up a role as Assistant Pastor in a large fundamentalist church. Rebecca is a disillusioned Christian. She is plagued by frequent headaches she believes are caused by stress.

Rebecca begins to reconcile with her father. He apologises, revealing he is now dealing with the dire financial situation at the church. Rebecca and Benjamin make plans for their wedding.

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Well, here’s the long awaited synopsis! I’d really appreciate some feedback on this. It’s about the right length, 512 words.

Rebecca Turner loses her job in a small business and joins her parents in a move to the village of Wealdbrook in Kent. Her father takes up a role as assistant pastor in a large fundamentalist church. Rebecca is a disillusioned Christian. She is plagued by frequent headaches.

Benjamin Lawrence, a local resident in Wealdbrook, intends to build a science park nearby. He is wealthy as a result of licensing an advanced GPS algorithm. He lives with his sister, Phee, after the death of his wife and children in a car accident some years previously.

Rebecca joins the church, becoming a ‘born again’ Christian within weeks. Radicalised as a result, she becomes an activist on behalf of the church ensuring the derailment of Benjamin’s plans, believing them to be anti-Christian.

Rebecca begins to reconcile with her father. He apologises, revealing he is now dealing with the dire financial situation at the church. Rebecca and Benjamin become engaged.

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Writing a book is hard work. You’ve got to have an idea, a plot, some characters, story arcs and so on. You need to do research, finding out the nitty gritty details. You need to have determination in order to cross the finishing line, sticking it out to get all those words onto a page, or atleast into a word processor.

Job done?

Nope.

It takes almost as long to do all the proof-reading. Infact, it probably does take as long, specially if you tend to dump ideas in a hurry and out of sequence like me. You then go back to start chopping and changing things and find a whole bunch of corrections you need to make.

Still. I think I’ve done that. Job done?

Nope.

Now I’m trying to write a covering letter and a synopsis. Covering letter is pretty straight forward, though I had to condense my book into a couple of sentences, which was a bit of a toughy. Here it is though… what do you think?

A romance, set against the background of Kent village in turmoil over new building development. The book attempts to deal with themes of depression, loss of faith, disillusionment and the conflict between religion and science in an accessible, moving and ultimately positive manner.

Probably still too long… sigh!

The synopsis is much, much harder though! I’ve got to write a, max 500 word, summary of my book. This I’m finding tough. Trying to pack some of what I consider to be the interesting parts of my book into this sort of size is really very difficult indeed. I’m having to be brutal. (My initial summary was looking to be about 500 words per chapter, and I’ve got 24 to do!)

Once I’ve got something, I’ll post it up and you can tell me what you think of it!

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In the course of my work, both professional and voluntary, I do have the huge benefit of meeting a large number of diverse people. I’ve been privileged to meet nobel prize winners, astronauts, olympic athletes, celebrities and even – that rarest of things – professional astronomers. I’m always fascinated by the tales they tell, particularly if they have a talent for showcasing their life’s work. (which most do, if they live in the public eye).

I was privileged to meet a reasonably well known writer recently (requested to be anonymous – fair enough!) who after she (oops, narrowed it down a bit there!) discovered I was writing a book asked me at length about it, dissecting plot, characters, motivations and structure.

Needless to say it was interesting for me. She thought the idea behind the book was intriguing and that she didn’t think anything like it had been done before. She liked the emotion arcs the characters go through and the contemporary situations I’d used.

On the negative she wondered who my audience was going to be. This is the third time I’ve heard this question, so I really need to think hard about this and adjust the manuscript if necessary. I’ve already deleted some of the stronger language (originally thought it would add authenticity, but decided it was enough of a turn off to warrent its exclusion).

She also disliked the ending in some respects. She told me I was doing my heroine a disservice, and women in particular would feel short changed with the result. On reflection I think she’s absolutely right, so I’ve already modified accordingly.

Then she gave me lots of advice for prepping the manuscript:

• Edit the first three chapters to death, literally! These have to sell the rest of the book on their own. They almost have to be self contained. If agents don’t like the the quality of them, the rest of the book is irrelevant.
• Don’t stick the word ‘Copyright’ on your front cover. Apparently, nothing screams AMATEUR! more than this… (swiftly deletes!). You own copyright by the mere fact of writing the story
• Double line spacing and Times Roman 12 point – Already did that!
• Adhere to the punctuation rules and other formatting guidelines – already did that!
• Go back, proof read, edit, proof read, edit, proof read, edit until you’re utterly sick of the story and never want to see it again. Then you’re ready to submit!

It was very interesting and enlightening. She seemed to think I had 50/50 odds of getting published, though that might have been her just letting me down gently. Still, if you don’t try, you’ll never know!

Clearly I still have a lot of work to do.

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Having finished the formatting and had a look through the book using Adobe Acrobat, I’ve got used to the double line spacing. It looked like an awful lot of wasted space initially, but I can see the advantage of being able to scribble notes and amendments in between each line.

Weird punctuation rules have been followed, job done. All that’s left is to incorporate some final feedback and then do a little more intensive proof-reading. Oh, the joy!

The length of the book is interesting. It’s just shy of 145,000 words, which I believe makes it medium-to-long in book terms. Considering that I’ve cut quite a lot out of it, it still seems a high on the word count. I’ll have to see what the response is. Hopefully there is enough ‘narrative drive’ to pull readers along.

In PDF, on A4 with double line spacing, Times Roman 12 pt and the default margins, the book is 585 pages long! I’ve hesitated in printing that out as: a) my printer can’t do doubled sided printing, and b) that’s a lot of paper!

Assuming I get a nibble from an agent, are they going to want chapters submitted electronically or on paper? Perhaps it varies by agent. I’ll have to have paper and ink budget on standby!

I’ve also reviewed the first three chapters to ensure they give sufficient outline to the rest of the story – apparently a common request is to have the first 3 chapters sent across for review.

Chapter 1 introduces Rebecca and her problems, Chapter two the same for Benjamin, along with the sense that the ‘Happy-Clappy’ church is doing something unusual. Chapter 3 gives the clear indication that they (Rebecca and Ben) are going to meet in my fictional village of ‘Wealdbrook’ and will have rather different opinions. I’m wondering if I need a bit more of a hook at the end of chapter 3, in fact the whole chapter may need a bit more ‘oomph’…

In other news, everything else is ready. Website is up and running, facebook and twitter are primed and all my other work (the Oolite stories) have been refreshed to pick up the style guidelines I’ve adopted for ‘Torn’, so my work looks consistent. I’ll also do a google-blast to ensure my website gets picked up against certain search criteria.

As promised, I will keep you all updated – make sure you follow me on twitter! You can subscribe to my rss feed too if you like, the big diamond shaped button next to the twitter birdie! Spoilt for choice!

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Coming into the home straight with the book now. I’m polishing it up.

Most of this is straight forward; Times Roman 12 pt font, double spacing, page numbers, grammar checks (again? Yes, again), indenting paragraphs and the list goes on.

Some of it strikes me as a bit odd though. Take this piece of dialogue pinched from the very helpful Writers’ Workshop site…

‘This manuscript is nicely presented,’ said the agent.

‘Indeed it is,’ said the publisher. She paused briefly, to strike off a few zeros from an author’s royalty statement. ‘It is well presented. And intelligent. And beautifully written.’

‘But Richard & Judy won’t like it.’

‘No, indeed. Nor the Chief Buyer at Tescos.’

‘So we’ll reject it!’ they chorused, laughing wildly.

Their limousine swept on through the rainy streets, leaving a faint aroma of cigar smoke and Chanel no. 5 lingering on the mild springtime air.

Having checked out a selection of random paperbacks from my bookshelf, I notice they all adhere to what appear to be some slightly odd rules.

1. Speech marks for dialogue are single ’s rather than the more obvious 66s and 99s  - ”

Why is this? No idea. “s seem much more appropriate, allowing you to distinguish from apostrophes more clearly.

‘Does this look daft?’ queried the author. ‘It’s peculiar.’

2. It’s quite all right to use an ‘And’ to start a sentence, despite what I was told time and again at primary school.

3. You have to use a lowercase proposition after an opening piece of dialogue, even if you finish the dialogue with a ! or a ? (e.g.)

‘This is a daft rule!’ exclaimed the author.

Apparently, an agent will chuck my manuscript in the circular file immediately if I don’t adhere to these slightly odd rules, so I don’t have much choice. Thus, yet another trawl though nearly 150,000 words is underway…

Please note, this doesn’t apply to US authors, apparently you have a completely different set of nonsensical rules!

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I’ve had a great time looking through some of the early crit of my novel. It’s very interesting to see who picks up what.

I knew I’d have loads of corrections and adjustments to make, and that is clearly going to be the case. I’ve got a raft of technical details to sort, scene balancing, continuity checks, dodgy dialogue, missing background and description, not to mention a stack load of grammar and typos to hunt down and nail.

This is clearly going to take a while, and given the day job is pretty demanding, I can’t see it being done before the end of the Spring, possibly even Summer. I think I’m going to have to aim at 2010 (as a whole) being the ‘Year of the Novel’

On the positive side though, folks have been telling me that they really really enjoyed the story. That they got to the end because they wanted to see how the story ended up, rather than by duty because I’d asked them too, is the best bit of encouragement I could have received. It seems I have a ‘page-turner’, so now it’s up to me to polish it up, and remove anything that makes the reader go ‘Huh?’ and mucks up the experience for them.

It’s a big job, but I’m committed (!) to doing it!

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Today I finished my first draft properly. It’s now in a state to be reviewed by people other than myself!

I have uploaded it to a secured area of my website and assembled a group of willing folks to review it for me, courtesy of Facebook.

I have to say this is giving me a feeling of some trepidation. I’ve been working on this book for over four years in elapsed time, though probably about 9 months of actually full-time writing, squeezed around real life!

I like it, but then I would, wouldn’t I?

What will others make of it? Is it any good or will it be dismissed as a torrid mess?

I have asked my reviewers to be brutally honest – which is even more scary! However, I’m pretty used to criticism and I think I’m up for taking it on the chin.

Wish me luck, because this is the first major bump on the hopeful road to publishing!

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A number of people have asked me – “You’ve been banging on about this book for a while, but what’s it actually about?”

Trouble is, if I write a comprehensive plot summary (which I will need to do for publishing purposes, but not for general consumption) and post that up, to my mind it gives the game away. What’s the point in reading a book when you know what the outcome is?

Having said that, I do want to give people enough flavour of the story so that they are interested enough to read it, and, one hopes, to buy a copy.

Perhaps if I explain ‘why’ I’ve written this and some of the major themes I’m exploring that will be sufficient for now.

The seeds of this book started back in the 1970s. I was taken along to my local village church (a classic Anglican Norman affair) for many years. At the age of 6 I was already a confirmed geek, and into science and space in a big way. By the age of 8, I’d figured out that what I was reading in science books and encyclopedias wasn’t jiving very well with what was being read out on Sunday mornings. I distinctly remember saying to the rector, “I’m going to find a way of making both of these make sense.” The reaction, as I recall, was polite amusement.

I found myself in a variety of churches and religious groups as I grew up. Baptist, Anglican, Methodist, Pentecostal, Charismatic. You name it, somewhere I’ve got a a membership card. Add to this Christian unions, at school and university. A huge variety of experiences, some positive, some negative, some plainly baffling, some scary.

My love of science has always been with me too, rankling with faith and belief and occasionally coming to blows. I don’t think it’s being to self-congratulatory to say that I have a half reasonable brain, and I always objected to having to ‘leave it on the shelf’ for the sake of a neat and tidy piece of religious reasoning. Many folks like things to be black and white, but I don’t think anything is; merely ’shades of grey’. I watch with interest, and some incredulity, the machinations of the Creationism and Intelligent Design schools of thought.

Yet, some Christian organisations are very draconian on what they believe, and the inflexibility demonstrated by some did force me into a choice between family and belief in the bible as a whole. I chose family. That was a tough one.

I’ve seen the church at large do hugely worthwhile things. Selfless giving for worthy causes, people who will stay with you in the dark small hours of a crisis, or just offer a simple “Let me help.” Friendship, companionship and life renewing change. I’ve also seen the dark sider: dogma, intimidation, politics, manipulation and gross injustice, bigotry, racism and the like.

With the birth of my own children, and increasing responsibilities at work and home, I was forced to take a good long hard look at what I did believe and didn’t believe. It takes an awful lot of effort and heartache to do this, as people have certain expectations of you, built up over years, and if you are planning a change of direction, it can come as a bit of a shock. Friends who really are friends stand by you, others disown you or betray you. Sad, but true.

So what is the book about? It’s the best and worst of church, religion and faith. The best and worst of science. It’s about wrestling with faith in a complex world. It’s about indoctrination, dogma and manipulation, even outright lies. It’s about family, expectations, mis-communication and betrayal. And it’s about love and hate.

It’s based on some real situations, and though there are no ‘real’ characters in here, recognisable traits from people I’ve met will doubtless be detectable, both laudable and otherwise. The characters in the story are deliberately clashed together to create conflicting situations that demand a painful resolution. At times I’ve felt I’ve had to scale back on the story in order to keep within the bounds of credibility, only to be confronted with a worst excess on an almost daily basis. It’s possible you may read this and think – “That can’t happen!” Let me assure you, it can; it does.

Religion and science may or may not be compatible, so I guess my book is my way of exploring what I think about all of this and the battle we all face in trying to seek real ‘truth’, despite the influences around us. Hopefully that gives you a bit of a clue…

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I’ve just finished the first draft of my book, which, unlike my previous two, is a completely original and independant work, not based on any previous material. This means I may be in a position to publish it at some point.

I’m aiming to do this in order to find out whether or not I stand a chance of one day becoming a full-time writer. (once certain financial commitments are remedied!)

The first draft is a complete story, but it’s yet to be read from end to end. My next job is to re-read it from beginning to end to make sure it actually works. This might sound a bit odd, but I have written it piecemeal, often writing later parts of the story before earlier parts as I’ve felt inspired. I don’t know how many other writers do this, but I suspect it’s quite common. Given this, there is a clearly a danger that the story is a bit disjointed, and the scenes may have some continuity errors. Clearly I need to get rid of these.

Next up the usual grammar and spelling checks. Bound to be plenty of those!

Third is more difficult; revising the text to make sure you haven’t committed any of the various writing ’sins’. Top amongst these is “show don’t tell”. There’s a tendency to ‘info-dump’ about what is going on, rather than letting the reader figure things about by the way the characters react. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but less is more! Then there is situation and descriptional stuff, ensuring the scene is visualisable. In other words, making sure the reader gets enough description of the scene to feel it’s a real place. I know I have a tendency to concentrate only on the dialogue and forget the scene. I need to make sure I add in the background and paint a canvas for the characters to ‘act’ against.

The avoidance of cliche is another one. Ensuring that the characters are not too predictable (unless that’s what you’re deliberately after), making sure their backgrounds are not too obvious, but also not being deliberately obtuse by making them act out of character either. I’ve also got to ensure the plot isn’t too predictable, nor is it unrealistic. This is a work of fiction, but it’s set in the here and now – it’s got to be plausible.

All this will result in a second draft, after which comes the most scary part… getting a team of willing, fair, honest and critical reviews to give me an opinion on it!

Wish me luck, it’s a long road ahead!

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