Sunday, September 12, 2010
Pizza for Mayor at the Old Y
Friday, September 10, 2010
My Journey Through the Editing Process - Part Two
In May, INK member, Susan Calder, signed her first book publishing contract for her mystery novel A Deadly Fall. She spent the summer editing the manuscript. Here is Part Two of My Journey Through the Editing Process.
On Tuesday, August 24th, I finished the major edits for my novel A Deadly Fall and e-mailed the revised manuscript to my editor, Frances Thorsen. She will read the novel in one swoop for overall effect and send me any further comments. Then, it's off to the copy editor. After the copy edit is done, I'll have a couple of weeks to proof-read the final version before the book goes to press.
Frances and I began our editing journey in June. I may be one if the few Calgarians who didn't mind our summer of less-than-wonderful weather. I rarely longed for the outdoors as I tapped away at my desk, editing my manuscript chapter by chapter.
Frances divided the novel into chunks of ten chapters. Using the Track Changes feature of WORD, she e-mailed me her suggested changes and comments one or two chapters at a time. I replied with my agreements or counter-suggestions or further comments. She'd volley back her replies. We'd keep going with this until we more or less reached a consensus for that chapter(s), at the same time moving forward with edits to the rest of the story. When chapters 1-10 were done, we worked on 11-20. My original novel had 33 chapters. It now has 32. We cut most of Chapter 20 and combined the remnants with a new small scene and the former chapter 21 to create one long chapter that seems to work.
Overall, I'd say Frances and I were in agreement about the story's major points. She understood all of my characters the way I did; we saw the story arc the same way. We sometimes differed on smaller points, such as word choices and punctuation. I deferred in cases where I wasn't sure what was right or felt her change wouldn't make a significant difference. These were relatively easy matters in terms of work load. More time consuming was writing new scenes and figuring out how to handle the effects of a deleted character and subplot.
Frances also raised questions I hadn't considered. These led us both to research such things as cell phone call tracing, Calgary transit schedules and criminal code terms.When we were done, my task was to re-assemble the edited chapters into a new whole. This was harder than I'd expected due to my poor organization system. I also felt a need to read the novel through once again to check for errors due to the changes we'd made: references left in that should no longer be there, details inadvertently removed with the deleted character or subplot and extra spaces, double periods and crossed out letters left behind from the Track Changes.
Between the additions and deletions, the edited manuscript is about 6,000 words less than my original. I believe it's more focused and interesting to readers.
Now I get a brief rest before plunging into the next book. On September 9th, TouchWood publisher, Ruth Linka, has arranged a conference call with Frances and me to discuss future novels in the mystery series. I'm almost glad I had to wait three years to find a publisher, as this gave me time to write and revise a sequel. I feel a step ahead, rather than panicked about facing the blank page. As a result of this editing experience, I'd like to do another revision before sending the sequel to Ruth and Frances. Meanwhile, I'm mulling ideas for novel number three.
I had to push myself to make the September 1st target for the edits in the midst of my summer activities: hiking, visitors and short trips. The push has paid off. The day after I sent Frances the edited manuscript, Ruth Linka contacted me. A mystery novel scheduled for spring 2011 had to be postponed. Frances told her the editing has gone well. How would I feel about moving my fall 2011 publication date forward six months to spring 2011, possibly March?
I feel excited and scared. March isn't so far away. This book is really going to happen.
For Part One of this series, see Susan's previous post.
Learning Opportunities
Gail Bowen: Writer-in-Residence for Calgary Public Library from September through November, 2010. She will evaluate manuscript pages and consult with you on your writing’s strengths and weaknesses.Get your submission in early to ensure her schedule doesn't fill up.
September 25: Chris Roerden, author of “Don’t Murder Your Mystery” and “Don’t Sabotage Your Submission,” offers a full-day workshop, “Learn What Editors Want,” at the Greenwood Inn, Calgary. Sponsored by ARWA.
Online Class: Starts September 29. Crime author Kris Neri teaches “Committing the Perfect Crime: Writing Your First Mystery” online for 10 weeks through UCLA Extension Writers’ Program
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Gail Bowen: Welcome Reception and Book Launch at the Library
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Ink Presents the Speaker You've All Been Waiting for!
Det. Sweet will talk about how the detectives of the Homicide Unit handle cases, from the first report until the case is wrapped up and the accused is headed for court.
Please note that there will be some slides of crime scenes that may disturb some viewers.
Ink members, if you have questions you'd like to get answers to, please add them as comments to this blog. We can't guarantee that any of our speakers will address all of the questions, but we will pass your questions on to the detective.
This will be a terrific presentation for all mystery writers. During the summer, Det. Sweet and I met, and he explained what topics he'll cover. This will be a remarkably comprehensive overview of the work of the Homicide Unit, given the time limitations of our meeting.
Meeting time: 7-9 pm on Thursday, September 9. Doors will open about 6:30.
Venue: Owl's Nest Books at 815A 49 Ave SW, Calgary.
Cost: Members: This year, the annual membership fee is a mere $25! Please bring your cheque made out to Mystery Writers Ink, or cash, to pay your membership at this meeting. As you all know, we have an extraordinary volunteer, Jayne Barnard, as our Treasurer. We'll make her life as Treasurer much easier if we renew at the September 9 meeting.
Non-members pay a drop-in fee of $5. If you drop in to this meeting, pay the $5, and find that you like what you see of Mystery Writers Ink, you can sign up for a year's membership by paying the additional $20 at the end of the meeting.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Bringing Dead Politicians to Life
I was working in Toronto, helping my husband run his pool hall, and not writing at all. I vaguely still dreamed of writing one day, but after trying to write one book in my twenties and junking it, I was pretty sure I had no talent and could never make it a career. To compound my negativity, I was fed up with the way local government seemed to be on a sabotage mission to put our bar out of business. Since I normally hate the helpless victim role, but for some reason at that moment I felt powerless to change things, I decided I should kill the mayor.
I have never dived more happily into a project. My fingers flew across the keyboard, creating a secret society with a murderous mandate, a young cop who could speak her mind more freely than I could, and a supporting cast I wanted to spend time with. In my fantasy world, I could kill anyone. I didn't care anymore about the socialist hypocrisy running rampant in the real world; I had my personal power back.
I wasn't a very good writer. I'd taken one writing class in high school fifteen years before. I signed up for a workshop course at Humber, and I was matched with a group of enthusiastic and honest critics. They helped me transform Clare from a beat cop into a rookie undercover, which later helped me shape the series. They suggested making her younger, so she'd blend in more convincingly with the students-another bonus, because starting her young means I can play a lot more with her learning curve. (Belligerence can be amusing at 22, but might be immature at 28.) And - probably the most significant part of the course - they took a lot of my bad writing habits, slaughtered them, and replaced them with real skills.
I also learned at Humber that writing isn't some elusive Shakespeare-or-nothing dream where you either have heaps of talent or you might as well pack it in, but a series of steps (like anything else), where we can start where we are and get better over the course of our lives.
I left that week-long course buoyed with confidence. I didn't suddenly think I was a fabulous writer, but I felt-finally-like publication was an attainable goal. I took a few night courses, moved to Vancouver (we ended up closing our fun but ill-fated pool room), and made it a mission to turn my first twenty pages into a kickass crime fiction manuscript.
This was my favourite time of all: the writing part. My amazing husband told me to take a solid block of time and devote it to just writing, and we'd figure out in a year or two if it was worth continuing. So when he went off to work, I worked, I shaped, I deleted, I despaired. I Rollerbladed into the nearby fishing village for groceries most afternoons. I stared out my window at the North Shore mountains when I couldn't figure out where to take the story. And I found out that this is exactly what I want to do with my life.
I'm thrilled that my first book is actually going to hit shelves this September. I love the people I'm meeting and the things I'm learning about the industry. But I miss the year I had to myself - the year I started writing.
Robin Spano
Don't miss Robin's great Virtual Book Tour, coming all month to blogs only a click or two away!
Friday, August 27, 2010
An editor on the editing process
One of my authors says that when I point something out as weak, he either cuts it (knowing I’m right) or re-doubles his efforts to make it work. I think that’s a great response to editorial feedback.
Andy Meisenheimer
From "Novel Journey"
Posts
