Val Neil

Dark Fantasy Author

editing

My Drafting Process

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There are a few different ways I write scenes. The method here is when inspiration strikes, not when I’m specifically sitting down to craft a scene.

Crafting

When I’m inspiration writing, I tend to start with straight dialogue. Some people struggle with dialogue, but for me, the character interactions are what make the scene. I have a movie playing in my head of the characters talking, so I just write that down.

If I’m super busy, sometimes I’ll dictate to my notepad on my phone and email it to myself. This means I’ll have snippets of dialogue, often with no quotation marks or indications of who is speaking (though from the voices, it’s usually very clear), let alone setting. The scene building is generally done later, unless I’m writing in order and starting a scene “from scratch.”

Below will be some excerpts from book 2 that I’m working on. Please be advised that they contain major spoilers from book 1, and minor spoilers for book 2.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

[Read more…] about My Drafting Process

The End

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I finally finished the latest draft. I’m a pantser and a newbie, so when I sat down to do a developmental edit on manuscript it need a LOT of work. This last draft has taken forever. I waffled endlessly on adding Medea’s POV and when I did, it made some significant changes to the storyline.

file names

New advice for writer’s block: If you get stuck, write the same scene from another characters POV. You may think you had them down, but their insight will drastically change the tone, possibly even the dialogue.

With the addition of Medea, I’d added a new character loop and made her rules a lot more clear…which was messing up my original ending. I tried to pick up where I left off and it wasn’t working. So I followed my own rule (back up and try something else). I started writing a whole new ending.

It was epic and fun and very Hollywood with a Home Alone vibe. And while the scene was fun, it absolutely did not complete my main character’s arc (cue Sacha Black‘s voice telling me to close those loops), which made it hollow. It worked for Medea, but not for Nikolai. To learn his lesson (finally), he needed the original ending. I found a way to sidestep Medea’s rules and make the original ending work. I will probably save the alternate ending and use it as a reader magnet for my mailing list (it IS a fun scene).

So what now? Well I still have micro editing to do. I kept changing the year, from 1956 to 1953 to 1955 so I have to check the timeline continuity. Gotta check my crutch words (if you’re an author and don’t have a crutch word list, make one!). Gotta find a new round of beta readers wiling to read 128k.

My brain is already springing forward to NaNo. I need to prep for book 2 so I can get it written, hopefully by the end of the year. I’m taking a week vacation in October just so I can write. Not sure how much I can get done in November this year, but I’m going to try.

Copyright © 2019 Val Neil. All rights reserved.

 

Almost Done!

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I’m up to chapter 35 of ~37. I’m in the home stretch with my edits! And that is scary as hell. This last pass has been super hard. I did a developmental edit on myself, cut multiple subplots, added in a new POV (along with her subplots)–progressall while trying to stay a few chapters ahead of my critique partners (that didn’t work).

When this draft is done, I need to do a few more sweeps:

  • Knock off To Do list of minor fixes
  • Go through my crutch words and replace
  • Run chapters 10+ through Natural Reader

Once all that is done, I can get my manuscript out to more beta readers while I look for an editor. I need to find one that knows fantasy.

With any luck, I’ll be able to start writing book two for NaNoWriMo, though I hope to start even earlier. In October, I want to fuck off for a week to my mom’s house (6+ hours away) and just WRITE. I did a lot of writing last Thanksgiving and Christmas, because I was sick and able to “rest” upstairs (writing is resting, right?) while other people tended the kids. I need that kind of uninterrupted focus again, where I can churn out 2-3k words a day.

With all the subplots I cut, I already have 30-40k of words going into book two. The next two books are going to interlock pretty heavily and I’m not sure where to cut off certain plot points, so I may have to do the dreaded outlining thing.

Copyright © 2019 Val Neil. All rights reserved.

The Importance of Accountability

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Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. – George Orwell

Writing is hard. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. As with all things difficult, where one is tempted to give up and run screaming through the streets when you just can’t take it anymore, it’s good to regularly check in with others who are on the same journey as you. Here are some of the ways I keep myself on target.

In-Person Writer Groups

I’m lucky enough to have a pretty active writing community nearby. My town even has a writer’s guild. Search online and see if you can find other authors nearby. Shut Up & Write is a great organization for this. They host regular meet ups where everyone introduces themselves, checking in on current projects, then writes uninterrupted for one hour (or longer). It’s a great way to meet a variety of people who all have a passion for writing.

Facebook Groups (WITH GOALS)

The key here is ACCOUNTABILITY. While there are plenty of Facebook groups dedicated to writing, very few have weekly check-ins. Sacha Black runs a group called 13 Steps to Evil – Villain Masters, which has a regular check-in on Mondays.

Accountability Buddies

Pick a writer, any writer, and agree to check-in with one another a couple of times a week. I had a buddy after NaNoWriMo last year. We communicated via Facebook and entered our word counts every day in Google sheets. The only problem was that it got harder once I started editing and he fell off the writer bandwagon. If I had to do it over again, I’d probably use a different tracking mechanism and add a few more people for increased accountability.

Word Count Trackers

If you’re not stuck editing, I highly recommend a joint word count tracker like I mentioned above. If someone has nothing input for a few days, you can send them a PM asking what’s up.

Critique Groups/Alpha Readers

If your writing is relatively solid, you may choose to share your manuscript as it’s being written. I personally wait until I at least have a complete draft, but I know several people who use critique and alpha readers very early in the process. It works because you have someone breathing down your neck (hopefully) waiting for the next chapter.

For myself, I found this gives me a much-needed boost during the editing process. Editing is rough, and seeing your story land with people is a real incentive to keep going.

Copyright © 2019 Val Neil. All rights reserved.

New Rule

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Me two days ago: I made it work! That sounds terrible to say, like if I had to “make” it work, then it shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Me today: New rule. If you have to force it to fit the plotline, it doesn’t belong there.

Did I make some of my tricky scenes fit? Hell yes I did. Do they belong? Eh…

Here’s the issue. My manuscript is currently sitting at around 123k words. That’s after cutting 5300 words yesterday. But it’s fantasy! Fantasy is supposed to be long (I tell myself). Well yes, but the beginning of my book swelled from five brief chapters to nine based on reader feedback. I was moving too fast, not bothering to immerse the reader or even really explain the magic system because I was in a rush to get to what I thought of as the meat of the story.

Now that my beginning itself is meatier, the bulky subplots make the rest of the text seem bloated. I mean I could pull a George R.R. Martin and do almost 300k words right out of the gate, but this isn’t high/epic fantasy and I really need to do a good job of capturing readers with this first book, which means pacing is extremely important. Readers going into book 2 should be more invested in the characters and I’m probably safe to meander a bit, though that didn’t help with Holy Sister, which did so much treading water that I moved on to something else despite my love of Nona.

So I’m going to cut out the whole telepathy plotline and a lot of other minor training sequences, for several reasons:

  • The first subplot I cut played heavily into this other subplot, and left gaping holes upon its exit.
  • These two plotlines really work better if kept together.
  • These subplots are so large that they’re taking time away from the core conflict, which is not only killing tension, it’s causing me to briefly mention things in narrative that really need their own scenes.

cuts2

Combined with the scenes I’ve already trimmed, if I cut these I’ll have roughly 28k of cool stuff going into the next novel, which makes me feel a lot better honestly. It also gives me wiggle room if I want to add Medea’s POV

Copyright © 2019 Val Neil. All rights reserved.

 

Finished revising Chapter 21!

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7/26/2019

I made it work! That sounds terrible to say, like if I had to “make” it work, then it shouldn’t have been there in the first place. But damnit, writing is pretty much nonstop making things work. As much as I hate editing, there’s a real beauty to it when you see how the story evolves and gets better. Like “hello good story! I knew you were in there somewhere!” Polish that turd, people.

I had to go back to Ch 20 and add a couple of paragraphs to head off the “Medea’s reading his mind” issue. Now Nikolai at least has the tools to block her. Although she did leave those tools where he can find them, so who’s to say how effective they are?

Approaching the midpoint in my revisions. I’m definitely considering moving the Predator/Prey chapters to book 2. When I wrote the sequence I had writer’s block, and I used the old trick “have your protagonist get attacked by monkeys/ninjas.” In my case, Nikolai gets jumped by witch hunters. It’s a fun sequence that shows his darker side as he has no real reason to hold back. The scene did indeed help me get over the block and provided a great segue for bullet training (which has since been punted to book 2).

The problem is it doesn’t fit the throughline for book 1, and would actually fit the story for book 2 a lot better. When I started writing this series I had a general idea of how many books it would take and what would be in each. But I hadn’t yet written a novel. I worried about having enough content for book one. As I started writing, I realized that book 1 had content for like three books. When all is said and done, my projected 8-book series may end up being longer. I hope I can streamline my writing/editing process over the next few years so I can get them out at a decent rate.

Copyright © 2019 Val Neil. All rights reserved.