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!
If it helps, I’ll beta-test it
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My congratulations to you on you authoring abilities, Status Quo and Mutabilis were gripping to say the last, extremely entertaining, possibly amongst the best short stories i’ve read.
Its amazing what one can produce with a good imagination, but its art when one is able to publish such entertaining and gripping stories.
Good luck and hope to see more works from you in the near future.
Many thanks Jerry, great to hear you enjoyed the stories, means a lot to get feedback from readers!
Status Quo and Mutabilis deserve a final sequel to turn them into a trilogy, which was always my intention. Once my current project is out of the way, I may turn my attention to that – time permitting!