Val Neil

Dark Fantasy Author

writing process

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.

ABC: Always Be Crafting

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If you’re unfamiliar with ABC (Always be Closing), it’s a reference to Glengarry Glen Ross. Alec Baldwin can enlighten you here, but it will probably make some of you cry.

I’m in the middle of rewrites. I think we can all agree that editing is a slog, but I’m doing a developmental edit on myself which has been particularly painful. I had to gut chapters 10-18 and pretty much write them again from scratch.

I was looking forward to the next section of my book, which is pretty solid plot-wise and follows my new throughline nicely. I’d only have to do minor tweaks to sentence structure and stuff. Piece of cake. Right?

And then I see the first line of this chapter, followed by the cringe-inducing “he protested” as a dialogue tag. Ugh. I looked at the snapshots and saw why–this chapter hasn’t been touched since mid February, and it’s now mid-July.

ABC

How much better could I have gotten at writing since February? Better enough to recognize my failings in this opening. This much better:

 

ABC2

Now there are probably typos in there because it’s a first draft rewrite, but the writing itself is much better.

As a writer, you should always be working to improve your craft. So how does one do this? Read great books, read craft books by successful authors, read editing books, follow blogs on writing/editing, and follow YouTubers (take this last one with a grain of salt as a lot of them are newbies).

Critique partners are incredibly helpful, but only if they know what they’re talking about (I’ve had at least one who was recommending grammar “corrections” that were flat-out wrong). Try to find partners who point out different things. Some are great at tightening up your writing but cutting out redundancies. Others will let you know when you’ve got talking heads or white room syndrome (two of my issues). One of mine is all about strong verbs in place of “small, choppy sentences.”

Don’t be afraid of criticism! It’s better to hear this stuff from other writers than it is from your readers after you publish. If you get your manuscript edited prior to release, which you should, it will help minimize the cost because they won’t have as many issues to fix.

When do you have time to do all this research? I’ve found that some times I’m just less productive on the writing end. I’m sick, or it’s been a long day (I’m way better at writing in the mornings), or there are just too many interruptions to focus. Those are perfect times to read up or watch videos on craft. It’s a relaxing activity but you’ll still feel productive.

Copyright © 2019 Val Neil. All rights reserved.

Writing Characters

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I realized recently that my creative process for characters varies a lot from other people. Maybe this is due in part to the fact that I’m mostly a pantser. I see all these character sheets online and they are absolutely useless to me. Eye color? Favorite color? Astrological sign? Who cares! How is that relevant to who the person is?

If you’re likewise frustrated, here’s a quick and dirty of how I create characters.

Start From What You Know

Medea is autistic, because I’m autistic, and her sensory issues are roughly the same as mine (though I crank up the sound sensitivity a bit). Dawn is biracial (white and Vietnamese) because so is my niece. She’s fiercely protective of her friends because she doesn’t have many, which makes them precious. It’s the same way I viewed friends growing up, and while I never clocked someone for it, I did get into trouble for defending them and Dawn takes that to the extreme. Harper just wants to do good and make people happy, because that’s what my spouse is like.

I’m not saying copy everything about people you know, but cherry pick aspects of them for your characters. It will make them more real.

Look at Characters you Love

What draws you to them? Is it because they’re honest and always do the right thing? Is it because they’re a wise-cracking smartass? There are plenty of character archetypes out there for you to use, but this goes deeper. One person’s version of the mentor is going to vary drastically from another. Uncle Iroh is not the same as Yoda or Dumbledore, though they all fall into the “wise old mentor” category.

As an exercise, take a character you love and tweak them until they become something new. Maybe keep their moral code, but give them a different backstory, look, and mannerisms.

Start From What Interests You

Psychopathy is fascinating to me, and I dug in deep researching when writing Nikolai. I also love villain characters, especially the charismatic, polite, manipulative kind. While Nikolai ended up being a bit more sociopathic, it made writing him extremely fun, because his reactions to situations were so far from what I would do.

Figure Out Where They’re Broken

This is my favorite method, and it’s absolutely terrible. Give your character TRAUMA. All my characters have varying degrees of Bad Shit in their past which influence how they perceive the world. Nikolai has odd quirks around food and appearance. Medea goes from 0 to 100 when triggered. Dawn just wants to be loved.

Pick a situation that has the potential to fuck up your character and stick it in their backstory. Did they grow up poor? They might suck at managing money, or they might be very frugal. Did they grow up with excess? They might have no concept of what things are worth. Were they abused? Bullied? (If so, why?) Were their parents there, but emotionally distant?

Once you have a concept, write a brief scene or just think about…

How They React

People can have wildly different responses to situations. Let’s pretend your character’s father has a chronic illness that’s going to kill them. Does your character take on the burden of caring for them? If so, are they resentful? Are they so empathetic that it wears them down? Or do they leave the care to another sibling? Do they place their parent in a care facility?

When the father dies, how do they grieve? Do they cry and take a week off work because they can’t function? Do they bottle things up and go about business as usual, but break down later in private? Do they get angry and take out their pain on the people around them? Do they emotionally withdraw? Or maybe they had a poor relationship with their father and don’t care at all.

How your character reacts to things tells you a lot more about who they are than random physical descriptions. Put them in hypothetical stressful situations and see what they do.

Physical description should be the last thing you touch, unless it is relevant to the story itself.

Copyright © 2019 Val Neil. All rights reserved.