It Is Done

Great news! I finished the book over the weekend! 

It was a tremendous feeling of accomplishment as I relished writing the epilogue scene. And then there was the final sentence. It was unplanned, I didn't know I wanted it until it poured out of me into the keyboard. A perfect little period at the end of a long journey.

The word count came out to about 97,000 words. It took me from November 27th, 2007 to February 8th, 2009. It's actually short for a novel by most publishing standards today, but I'm fine with that for a couple of reasons. One, this book is merely the first act to a larger story. I plan on collecting all three books into a single volume once I'm all done. Two, this is the story I wanted to tell. For better or worse, I wrote this book for me. I like it, I think it's fun. Hopefully, others will like it but I know that when I put a book out there to the public that I'm opening myself up for criticism from people that don't care I'm a first-time novelist.

Anyway... what's next?

The manuscript is currently in the hands of a copy editor. I want to give a big thank you to Joe Crowe who has generously offered to edit the whole thing at no cost. Joe is a copy editor by profession, working for the Birmingham News newspaper. He is also the Senior Editor and humor columnist for RevolutionSF.com.

Joe will catch all my spelling and grammatical errors as well as let me know if anything needs re-working or clarification. When I get it back from him, I'll also read it for contradictions and errors.

Even with the manuscript out of my hands, I have been busy this week. I've been working hard trying to commission artwork for the cover. I have approached painters specializing in fantasy work and I have approached artists who work in comics. I have received a lot of interest, as you might imagine when you step into the world of freelancers. 

Three artists in particular that have expressed interest have me excited based on the quality of their work. I won't mention names yet, but if negotiations are successful I should have a very exciting announcement to make very soon. 

As that's going on, I will soon also complete my own interior illustration of the obligatory map that most fantasy novels seem to feature. And then I have to turn my mind toward things like the book's Dedication, Acknowledgments and all the little things like that.

The main thing that will delay the release of the book is the artwork. That will take the most time. Everything else should be done by the time we get that in hand.

Maybe it's time to set up a website and start taking all those advance orders that I know we'll get...

The Next Step

This morning I began writing the final scene of the book. It's the final showdown that also serves to propel things forward into the next book, setting the stage for Book 2 in which the stakes are raised for everyone.

I'm giving myself two weeks because I want to make sure I nail the scene, but hopefully I can be done before then. I have already begun the next step. I'm now looking for a copy editor to go over the whole thing with a fresh perspective to eliminate contradictions and errors.

While it's in the editor's hands, I'll be working on an interior map illustration and searching for a cover artist. I have thrown together a mock-up of the cover design I want using my drawings. But I'd rather move away from my cartoony look and see it rendered in a finer painted style. The trick, of course, is to find someone good and affordable. Wish me luck.

I don't know how quickly or slowly things will progress once I hand over my finished draft, but I'm hopeful to have a book in my hand by the middle of March. Even if, at that point, it's only an advance rush copy without the final cover art.

It appears that the book will land somewhere between 90,000 and 100,000 words. A little longer than I anticipated when I first started writing, but not what would be considered a long novel in today's publishing world.

Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

My goal was to finish my book by the end of January. I would have easily done that if I had not taken the time to write that short story. As it is, I have three and a half scenes left to write.

And if this were a normal week I would be able to push myself and still get it done before the month ends Saturday night.

But as it turns out, I'm busy. I've got a couple of freelance jobs that are conspiring to take away any spare time I might otherwise spend writing. And I don't want to rush these final scenes because, as you might imagine, they are crucial. I want to get them just right.

I don't mind, though. I'm very happy with the short story I wrote and I have confidence it will be accepted for the anthology. And by the end of the first week in February, I will have a completed manuscript. It will be the end of a 15-month journey, but soon I will be able to say that I wrote a novel.

The journey won't be over, though. Not only will I need to go through the copy editing, formatting, designing, and everything else for the final product to see the light of day, but the story won't be finished. I will need to start in right away on the next book.

Bear with me. We're almost there. Remember my stack of thirty-one remaining index cards? I'm now down to three. It's frustrating not to have the time to knock it out this week, but it will soon be done.

In February.

Dang it.

So close.

Write right, Wright p3: Cracking A Scene

Before I write a scene I have to spend some time thinking about how I want to approach it. I may know what's going to happen next in my story. I may have my little index card in front of me that tells me who is in the scene and what the scene needs to accomplish (the "plot point") but that doesn't mean I have the scene figured out yet.

I call it cracking the scene: figuring out the hook that allows me to execute the plot point in a way that is interesting to read, true to the characters and logically flows from what has come before. I have cracked scenes in several different ways but usually the first thing I do is find a way to make it as exciting as possible.

For example, when my index card told me "Lucas joins the army", I ended up with a scene depicting Lucas surrounded by bad influences, falling to temptations, resisting arrest, getting beaten by enforcers, thrown into shackles and pressed into military service against his will. In other words, I believe I took the simple note about the plot point and punched it up considerably. And at the same time, commented on the character of Lucas by showing what sort of people and situations he allows himself to be around.

But punching up the action is just one aspect to cracking a scene. The primary choice I believe a writer has to make in presenting a scene is choosing the POV. I'm writing in limited third person, so who is going to be the point-of-view character for a particular scene? My answer is informed by two factors: 1) Whose POV will be the most interesting? and 2) Is there a character whose POV is revisited regularly through the course of the book?

In addition to POV, the choice must be made when to pick up the action of a scene. Should it start in a quiet moment? Should it start in the middle of action? Should it start in the middle of conflict? Should it start with a line of dialogue or a descriptive passage? There will be no consistent answer to these questions, nor should there be. The variety of presentation will make the story better.

Sometimes, if I'm stuck on how to open a scene, I have a trick that usually helps me out. That is, focus on one of the five senses. What does a scene sound like? Or smell like? What's the POV character's reaction to it? That's usually enough to get me started. Hopefully, it succeeds in pulling readers into the scene, helping them to visualize.

Looking back on what I've written, I can point to another emerging pattern in my style. That would be one of symmetry in structure. Whatever I open with, I try to revisit it at the end of the scene. I find this usually provides a pretty solid spine for the scene. For example, I opened one scene with a character studying the night sky, he turns away and other things happen but I end with him commenting on a constellation. I think I've heard this concept called "callbacks". Stuff like that seems to put a nice little bow on the end of a scene, providing a complete miniature reading experience.

Cracking a scene. I start with a plot point note on an index card, then make a series of decisions (regarding action, POV, starting point, sensory hook, closing callback, etc.) and before I know it I have what I consider to be a pretty strong scene.

Sidetracked

Well, here we are at the midpoint of January and I have not written a word on my novel since the middle of December. As planned, I took the last two weeks of the year off for the holidays. During that time, I read a novel written by a friend, perhaps more accurately an "online acquaintance", of mine: "Dreamer's Syndrome" by Mark Bousquet from White Rocket Books.  My intention was to pick up writing my novel again in January, but a funny thing happened:

I accidently wrote a short story. 

I don't feel at liberty to say too much about it quite yet, but to say that I have high hopes of it being published in an anthology sometime later this year. I was privy to the brainstorming behind the idea of the anthology but had no real interest in contributing a story. Nonetheless, some ideas began percolating in my head even though none of them ever solidified into stories. However, one night during my regular late-night "pondering time", a completely new idea popped into my head and within a few minutes I knew I had a story. 

The next day I did a little research on the internet in regards to the setting. From that, my story really came together. And while it may not be perfect, I have to say I'm personally kind of excited about it. So cross your fingers, with a little luck it can be chosen for inclusion in the anthology and one day, years from now, I could even get a royalty check for, like, $1.25 or something.

But that story's delivered. Sorry about the detour. I didn't mean for that to happen, really. I return this week to my novel. I just read back over everything I wrote in November and December and it all still works for me, so that's good.

Next: I really will look at Cracking a Scene.

State of the Book

Here we are in 2009. After a couple of months of intense writing and tremendous progress, I took the last two weeks of the year off as I celebrated the birth of Christ with my family.

As of January 1st, my novel is clocking in at 80,109 words. I started this journey in late November of 2007 and the end is truly in sight. It is my goal to have it finished by the end of this month.

Once I have it done, we'll begin the "post-production" process of copy editing, procuring artwork, designing and formatting, et. al. While all that's going on, I'll probably get started right away on the sequel.

The new year brings an additional challenge to my finding time to write as I look to launch my own wedding video business as a sideline venture. But I'm so close now, I surely must see this through.

Next: Cracking a Scene

Good Progress

On November 21st, I posted here that I had 29 scenes left to write and that I would be happy with completing two of them per week. Well, it's been about a month and I've been very pleased with my pace. I've done five per week.

First, my 29 scenes grew to 31. Out of those 31, I have finished 20 of them. So just 11 to go. So at that pace, I should be done in just over two weeks. However, here we are at Christmas and New Year's, so I'm sure I'll slow down a bit. Right now, my goal is to be finished by the end of January.

Of course, "finished" is a relative term. It still needs to be copy edited for errors, I've got to design and format the book, develop or acquire artwork for the cover and interiors, navigate the binding and publishing process, acquire an ISBN number and.... probably a couple dozen other details I'm not even aware of, yet.

But by "finished", I mean I can start writing the second book in the series while all this other editing/formatting/publishing stuff gets worked out. I hope it will go quickly. We'll see.

Character Sketch: Lucas Griffon

Lucas Griffon is the younger brother of Galen. As the story begins, he is sixteen years old and resentful towards what he perceives as Galen's preferred status.


Lucas never knew his father. His mother was widowed while she carried Lucas in her womb. He has grown up in Galen's shadow and is eager to earn the same accolades that seem to come to his brother so easily.


I am really pleased with this drawing, I think it came out very well. I had been drawing sketches of Galen for years, but had never given a lot of thought to a look for Lucas. Then one day I drew this with a ballpoint on the back of some computer paper and I fell in love with it. I think I really nailed the definitive look for Lucas with this illustration.


I scanned it in, cleaned it up and colored it. I knew I wanted a darker palette than what I used for Galen, yet I wanted enough similarity to provide symmetry as the novel follows the stories of both brothers. I hope you enjoy it, you can click on the images to see larger version.

Character Sketch: Galen Griffon

Here is a first look at the hero of my story. You can click on each image to see a much larger version. 

Galen Griffon is a twenty-five year old serving as a soldier in King Geoffrey's army. His father died when he was nine years old, leaving Galen and his younger brother to be raised on the family farm by their widowed mother.

Galen repeatedly earns praise for his heroic service but he's plagued by self-doubt. He feels unworthy of the attention and knows he is no true hero.

I have been doodling on character designs for Galen for a while and I think I have finally found a look that works. I have included both the black and white scan of my artwork along with the colored version that I finished in Photoshop. I did this by coloring everything in flat tones then using the Dodge and Burn tools to create gradients, highlights and shadows. The red piping around the shoulders was added in the computer, I didn't have them in my original drawing. But I liked the way the red popped out around the hem so I added it to the shoulders, as well.

Write right, Wright p2: The Business of Business

I minored in Drama at the University of Georgia. One of the things I learned in my acting classes was the idea of character business. Typically, business is whatever the characters happen to be doing in a dialogue scene to keep the actors from having to just stand there. It might consist of pouring a cup of coffee or straightening up a desk.

Character business can help bring a scene to life, grounding it in believability. I have found myself recalling this lesson as I construct scenes in my novel. I have also found that good use of business can provide insight or commentary on a character. If you are a writer, find ways to do this. A lot can be conveyed this way, perhaps saving you from long passages of description or clunky dialogue.

You should also extend character business to the overall direction and blocking of a scene (to borrow terms a film director would use). A creative juxtaposition of words and actions can do wonders in terms of heightening the dramatic tension of a scene.

I have three examples from scenes I've written this year.

For Scene A, I needed to portray the inner conflict of a character stuck in a situation for which he could no longer feel any excitement. Essentially, all I had on my notecard for the scene called for him to sit there and think about stuff. If it was going to be an interesting scene, it needed a lot of help. It came to life when I found a way to metaphorically represent the same conflict in an external way. That was the hook that kept the scene alive. At the same time it allows the reader insight to the character's attitude by the way he reacts to the external conflict.

For Scene B, I ended up writing two scenes in one. It needed to be a dialogue scene between the protagonist and a bad girl-type with whom he shouldn't have been alone. The dialogue was important to the plot but just the fact these two were alone in the same room needed to provide tension. I accomplished it completely through character business. The business throughout the scene provides information that is completely independent from the plot stuff going on in the dialogue. Each action (the proximity of the characters, the offering and refusal of a glass of wine, the posture, etc.) tells you something about the characters and, all the while, they are talking about something else entirely. In my opinion, that juxtaposition really cranked the tension of the scene way up.

Scene C started out as two different scenes and they both would have been boring. In one scene, the protagonist was to sit down over a meal and agonize internally over the idea of turning to the bad girl for help. It would end with him deciding to do it and the next scene had to show him making his way to her and asking. Wow, that would have been boring. My solution was to combine the scenes so that he is agonizing over his decision (internal dialogue) as he makes his way to her chambers (action). Hopefully, this provides a sense of tension as he needs to hurry up and make up his mind before he gets there. 

That's about it for this post. Just remember you can layer not only conflict but information through contrasting words and actions. This business of business can help bring characters and scenes to life.