Tag: feedback

To the edit! Second drafts abound.

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blank sheet in a typewriter

 

Hello,

Since last time, I have received some hints and tips regarding the planning and execution of a romantic tale. Giselle Marks, author (most recently the Fencing Master’s Daughter. See the link for more details https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fencing-Masters-Daughter-Giselle-Marks/dp/1492815276/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8) and all round lovely person, provided useful guidance, which I will be looking to use when I tackle the second draft of that story. I’m planning to review my romance after leaving it for a few weeks to stew.

Speaking of second drafts, I’ve managed to start to edit two other short stories. The edits have been fairly successful so far but I still have plenty to do. I have managed to pull up some more questions about each piece of writing. Particularly, what is the theme of my story? Have I conveyed this theme well enough? Have I managed to help each character grow and develop throughout? What are the challenges? What are my characters goals? Why did I even write the thing in the first place?

Now, I know most of the answers to these questions but in some cases, particularly regarding theme and growth of characters, I have found that I need to add more detail. Thankfully I do not think I need to add too much but I know more is needed. For instance, with my story about an immortal man in Manchester trying to find his reason for being, I have focused on this but only realised at the end of the story that the other two main characters in the story, a would-be love interest and another immortal who wants more than to just help our hero find his place in the world, do not have much in the way of growth. I have described them but not provided them with any depth.

I have also found in the other story, concerning the end of the world and those who wish to take over it (giant worms) and those who wish to survive it (a recently broken up young couple) that two out of the three main characters have enough character growth. At least it’s more than the other story, right? Anyway, I again now know what to change, or at least where to begin changing, when I continue my second drafts. I always used to look at second drafts as a thing to sort out grammar and punctuation but I know now that is a separate edit altogether. The second draft is a big and powerful thing.

I have had help along the way as well. I’m currently reading Stephen King: On Writing (A Memoir of the Craft). He goes into sweet detail about how he thinks the second draft should go and it has been very useful. I have not been approaching my second drafts with the mindset and that’s where I’ve been going wrong I think. Though, that probably does not fully explain why none of my previous competition entries over the years have failed. Or maybe it could? Three cheers for progress. I just wish it had come sooner.

Okay. I’m going to go back to it. Have a good week.

Bye!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An excerpt from my story The Searcher’s Want.

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Hello

As you may know I’ve been editing my NaNoWriMo 2012 novel The Searcher’s Want throughout November and into early December. I had always planned to share some of the story with you and here some of it is.

I’ve always liked writing action scenes so I’m going to share part of one with you. It has only gone through one edit so keep that in mind if you’d be so kind. The Searcher’s of my novel have been searching and killing demons across the planet for years. And after years and years of the demons having their way the searchers started to slowly take them apart. The demons have now gone from having underground palaces in freedom to having to live in sewers in fear. All this led up to a great battle between a collection of demons, mostly made up of the ripper demons that desired destruction more than any of the other three types of demon, and the searchers looking to stop them. Aaron Watch is our hero along with some searchers close to him Abraham Smith and Breaker Smart. Aaron is still only a few years into being a searcher whilst Abraham is the second oldest of all the searchers and Breaker is second in command to the Searcher General.

Any feedback is welcome as long as it is constructive. Thank You in advance.

‘

“Searchers! Form the line.” The general shouted as the fight was getting into full swing. Each searcher had been called in after research had showed a herd of rippers was approaching Manchester. Aaron and a few others had searched the demons out and led them to an old field on the outskirts of Manchester City Centre. They had managed to stop the rippers from killing anything up to that point.

“Searchers! You have nothing!” the lead ripper growled as his herd stood behind him. They were all twitching and itching for the searchers to bring the fight to them. The general was not the type to fall into a trap easily. The searchers had now formed two lines opposite them in contrast to the randomly placed rippers. The only one of them in any kind of position was their leader.

“This line doesn’t move until I say it moves. Once I give the order, take them all out.” The general ordered. All the searchers cried out in acceptance of this and stood side by side with their great swords up before moving them back behind their shields. The searchers numbered around three hundred from all over the world to the rippers five hundred. They braced themselves and Aaron remembered what he been told some two weeks before. ‘Rippers get annoyed easily and will attack after long’ Abraham had said to him. He stood in front of Aaron on the first row of the line.

“Watch them searchers. They are quick.” The general said. Aaron had been a searcher for six years but had never seen this many rippers on mass. How the local police hadn’t noticed them was beyond him.

The ripper leader was the only one stood still. He was scanning the two lines of searchers and looked to be trying to locate a weak spot. The two lines were tight together and nothing was going to move them apart. Aaron glanced around and saw that some of the searchers around him were complete strangers. The only thing he knew about them was that they had had the same training he had. He stared forward at the rippers the length of a football pitch away.

Suddenly, one ripper broke from the herd and charged at the searcher lines. Wild and completely out of control the ripper was picking up speed and storming towards them. The ripper leader didn’t even flinch. As the ripper drew closer to them Aaron looked to the general who was calm and collected. Then in one swift movement the general launched his great sword at the ripper, piercing its brain through its jaw. The ripper’s body slid toward him and stopped at his feet with the sword handle pointing upwards. The general then calmly removed his sword, cleaned it on the clothes of the dead ripper, and returned to his stance in the line.

The ripper leader lifted his arm and the herd went quiet. He held this for a few seconds before throwing his arm forward towards the searchers. The ripper herd let out a collective raw and charged. Aaron noticed that the ripper leader did not move.

“Why does he stay?” He said. A few people looked to Abraham for the answer as they were thinking the same.

“Because he likes to see how the battle is going before he enters it. When we start winning he’ll disappear. He’s does it all the time but that coward can hide. He can hide well.” Abraham said keeping his eyes forward. “Focus searchers.” He shouted as the lines tightened slightly.

Aaron wasn’t gripped by fear but by a heightened sense of things. He was aware of his feet and arms more so than usual. He gripped his great sword and watched as the rippers came closer.

‘

Thanks for reading.

Bye

To be rude or not to be rude?

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Hello

Over the past week or so I’ve only done any writing on one day. I know it’s not very much but I found myself either busy, hung-over or doing chores. I probably could’ve done more writing in-between but I’ll make up for it over the next week. Don’t you worry.

Within the writing I actually managed to do, I found myself with the task of writing an ‘after sex’ scene. I had contemplated writing an actual sex scene but I prefer to let the reader imagine what went on between the sheets. Although on second thought I’m not so sure.

This scene was from my vampire myth story and concerned the main female character and one of the chief male support characters. Amanda and Peter are having an affair behind their friend Marks, and other chief male support character, back. They all work at the same Admin Company and were all friends with the lead male character of the story, Bruce. Bruce knew about the affair but kept it a secret as he was close with Amanda. Now that he has become the End Solution and the United Kingdom’s only recognised vampire (of sorts), Amanda has chosen to try and find him to make sure he is ok. Mark is willing to help her But Peter is not. Even with all this Amanda continues to see Peter. I think you know enough now.

It starts inside a room of the hotel they usually use. Both are discussing Bruce and their particular views on the subject. This is mostly to enhance Amanda’s need to find him and to show that Peter is against it. It’s all about character building people! Anyway, throughout the scene they are naked as I don’t think two people, who only really have sex and barely don’t do anything together when Mark isn’t there, would be too bothered about walking around in such a way.

Now I’m getting to the title of this here post and the end of it.

I was considering re-writing the scene with a bit more happening as they are naked. But I don’t think this is in keeping with the tone of the whole story so far. However, it could act as I a bit of a twist in the tone that could set up the same kind of twist in tone sporadically throughout the book for impact. So, my question is this…

Do you think it’s a good idea to be explicit, shocking, drastic et al in stories just for effect or should it always be in line with the tone of the story?

Your feedback would be awesome.

Bye

 

Hello feedback my old friend. How I cherish thee.

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Hello

After posting a short story I’ve been working on for a bit in my last post I received plenty of feedback. This was all quite helpful and very much needed. After going back over the story with the feedback in mind I could see where the story needed to be improved. Thank you to all those who commented on it. I’ll be reviewing and editing said story soon and I’ll probably post it back up for more comments.

I haven’t had any of my stories critiqued in a while so this was all very refreshing. I received some good comments about the story as a whole. Lori Fetters Lopez gave some very valued feedback indeed. Thank you Lori. I also received some good, honest and straight to the point comments about my grammar and use of commas from a few editors that frequent the Facebook writing groups I’m part of. David Neely, Sean Cleary and Roy C. Booth thank you for time and words.

If I could give any advice about being a writer it would be to embrace all kinds of feedback and take all the good parts from it. If you find yourself on the receiving end of someone’s rant about your story just so they can use a whole host of long and not needed words then just laugh at it and pick out the bits you can actually use.

Right, I’m going to get back to it. And if there are any grammatical errors in this post, either let me know or leave me to find them later.

Cheers

The glory of the laptop.

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Hello

I would like to start off by saying that I ticked off something from my bucket list this weekend. I completed a 10k run in under an hour ( 54 minutes 50 seconds ). I’m hoping to do next year’s run and try and keep it up for the next few years at least. Wish me luck.

Ok. As you may or may not know I’ve recently embarked on a quest to write two stories at once without getting confused. I’m happy to say that this quest is going very well. Writing two stories side by side (ish) is keeping my mind fresh and I haven’t found myself struggling to write any of them at any time. By that I mean I’m not just writing to get my word count up I’m writing what I feel to be good stuff. Obviously this may be all completely binned come the editing stage but I’m quietly confident.

As for the title of this post, I recently acquired a laptop which is going a long way to helping me to try and get a writing schedule that I can realistically keep to. Since the New Year I have wanted to keep some kind of schedule for my writing. This would (or should) allow me to write on a regular basis and to read other authors stories on a more regular basis as well. I have always enjoyed reading other stories and having the people who frequent the websites I use (http://www.protagonize.com being the main one amongst them) give me feedback. It’s mostly useful feedback I have received so far as most of them are in the same position I am.

My laptop looks is looking like the perfect tool to help get this done.

Just the other day, I found myself waiting for my food to cook and wondering what I could do. I felt like writing but knew that I only had a certain amount of time in which to do so before my food was ready. Then I remembered my laptop. Just sat there on top of my printer waiting to be used. I managed to write a full page for one of my stories which, though it could turn out to be completely useless, has got me a lot closer to being able to make that decision.

So, officially following on from my last post I have prepared a rough schedule for my writing. This currently amounts to whenever I post on this very blog I will look to participate more in the online writing groups I’m part of and the websites I’m a member of. On any other week day I will try to write something towards my two current stories. This all leads me to a question…

What is your current writing plan?

Good pie

 

 

Acting on it. Feedback I mean

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Hello again

It’s been a while since I updated this thing as I’ve been in the process of looking for a new flat and subsequently moving back to my parents house whilst I look. As you may know moving home is not a thing to rush into. I’ll take my time me thinks.

Now, for the writing.

I received some feedback from the website I use http://www.protagonize.comfor my story The End Solution. Well, to be specific, E.V.Mick who reminded me of something I’d apparently forgotten. I always liked stories that only revealed what was needed and didn’t give too much away too quickly and try to cram it all in. I at one point desired to write such a story but have as yet not got round to it. Miss Mick spoke about putting too much information in my story and making it confusing in the process. As I read back over it I could see her point. My short story The End Solution was trying to tell everything at once. I have since gone over it and made some changes which are taking it closer to being a story I want to read and not one that looks like my brain puked up all over the page. I will post it again on the site and on this blog. Thanks again Mick.

I kept on with writing my point of view chapter for the villain of the book I’m writing perspective last week. It’s getting harder but better with every word I write. This does however have me worrying a lot about missing things out. I’ve not done much recently so once I’ve signed a tenancy agreement and got myself set up again, I’ll write more of these things and of my story.

Thanks for reading and your comments are welcome.

Bye