@janeshuff
Active 3 years agoForum Replies Created
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Wow. So so much interesting and useful stuff, @Libby ! It would make a brilliant checklist for anyone. It will take me a bit of time to assimilate it all. I will say though, with my ‘Being betaread’ hat on, that I wouldn’t expect a beta reader of a whole novel to cover all that for me in one go if anyone is feeling a bit daunted.
@athelstone Why do you say you’re a terrible beta reader?Let me throw this out as a thought. We write for readers. I have asked people with no knowledge of the craft of writing to beta read my books and to tell me where they got bored or confused. Which bits they enjoyed. Which characters they liked or felt strongly about and which they forgot about straight away. I ask them to tell me what happened in the book (very illuminating btw!). Just straightforward stuff. Obviously they can’t give me any insight into why they felt as they did but nevertheless their comments are gold.
So I don’t think anyone can be a terrible Beta Reader. I don’t think there is only one blue print for beta reading.
That’s enough for now – going away to cogitate a bit more.
Ha ha! I write like Stephen King! I think Libby is right though and the program looks at content mostly as this was a particularly horror full section!
Random comments:
Yes to Beta Reading, but, time permitting, I’ve always been a keen beta reader. I honestly think the beta reader learns as much from the process as the writer, but I’m not keen on the financial aspect. I know Thea posted a request for beta readers recently. Did anyone respond @thea ?
And on that subject, I’d welcome a discussion about beta reading. What’s helpful and what’s not so helpful etc. I suspect we’re all different but it would be interesting to know.Also, although I haven’t had time to contribute much recently, I do read everything that’s posted and I’m sure I’m not the only one!
My thoughts… I agree that the format doesn’t help and I’d love to see it changed. Maybe to something that would encourage more idle chat. Something about the format makes me feel I need to have something particularly worthwhile to say in order to post. I think idle chat is important for keeping relationships going but I may be in a minority here!
I definitely agree that I’d like to see the Den keep going. And I 100% think that this past year has been difficult for everyone. On a personal note my whole life has moved onto Whatsapp and Facetime and Facebook and Zoom and phonecalls. Lockdown has meant various members of my family have needed me to communicate more frequently and some days I’ve barely been off one virtual medium or another. So please lets definitely give it another year.
On a different note, I am one of the ‘going to be published’ authors albeit by an indie press and I don’t think it means you stop being interested in how to write and be published topics. It’s not like crossing the Rubicon. I am really aware as I struggle to the end of the shitty first draft for my next book that I know little more than I knew before.
That’s all for now, but I’ll come back if I think of anything else…
Fantastic review and blog, Sandra. She really understood your book and your writing! Bravo and well-deserved.
You brought back so many memories Richard. Begging for my own radio so I could listen to Radio Luxembourg at night. Was the Power Play a RL thing? Anyway thanks for the chance to remember my youth!
Interesting. I would have said it is perfectly acceptable to use contractions such as I’m, He’d, don’t etc in narrative writing. In fact I think it’s fine to use anything you want provided it doesn’t obscure the meaning. It’s all down to what the voice and style require.
Good article @dougk.
For anyone looking to submit to Indie Presses in the UK and Ireland, the Indie Press Guide produced by Mslexia is a good place to start. Also, if you don’t have an agent to check a contract for you, the Society of Authors in the UK will check it at no charge. I’ve found them VERY thorough!
Thank you @athelstone @janette @raine @thea @libby @sandradavies.
Verve are a small imprint of an indie press so there’ll be no books on shelves in Waterstones but they’re lovely people and the fit feels so right. The indie press route has worked very well for me and is well worth a try. They’re often more open to books that don’t quite fit into what the big trade publishers are looking for.
Yes, @sandradavies it is the same book you read some years ago. Just shows how long it can take and how much work!
Jesmond, @raine is where I was born. No one likes my name which is actually Shufflebotham. There’s another crime writer in the US called Jane Gorman (my married name) and when I suggested Jane Botham, the publisher said there was someone already publishing under that name on Amazon. I had a quick look and it turned out to be a porn film star!
2021 is going to be an exciting year with Raine and Kaz both having debut novels published!
You’re quite right Richard. Although the lack of hoovering and the pile of christmas cards still waiting to be written might point to a different conclusion!
I’ve just wasted an hour, thanks to you Richard, trawling through the internet searching for Brian Patten who was my particular favourite and ordered a copy of Little Johnny’s Confession which I am sure is the book of his I used to have. Fingers crossed.
Weirdly enough it helps my way of working which is to do intensive bursts of writing and then let myself be distracted for a brief while before I attack again!
Lovely story, Richard. Funny how some people stay with you over the years while others disappear from your memories.
I think most writers are also great readers and have acquired an instinctive grasp of story structure. That doesn’t mean a bit of conscious knowledge won’t help. But sometimes you have to trust your unconscious.
Ooh what an interesting conversation!
I think it’s quite hard (impossible for me) to tailor a novel according to a detailed framework and I will often start with only the inciting incident, the external problem the MC has to fight/solve and the antagonist forces, whether they’re people or circumstances, then let the story develop a first draft from there. That said, however, the mid point (or change of direction or intensifying of the problem as I like to think of it) does normally swim into view early on and the climax will become clearish before I get to needing it.
I’ll probably spend time between Draft One and Two trying to tighten up the structure but it will be more a case of checking each story ‘strand’ has a clear shape. By that I mean the main plot, all the sub plots, the MC’s internal journey and the journey of any other characters who are significant.
The most interesting book I’ve read on story structure is Dara Marks INSIDE STORY: THE POWER OF THE TRANSFORMATIONAL ARC, but I’ve never sat down and tried to apply it to a novel I’m writing. I think my head might explode. I have found Shawn Coyne THE STORY GRID useful though. Particularly his thoughts on how different genres have different obligatory scenes and the way he analyses scene structure which I find very helpful when trying to keep the pace of a book moving.
I haven’t heard of the 7Cs but I’d like to know more?? @seagreen? Is it part of Saving the Cat?
The starting point for every book has been different for me and my process has changed as well. I used to plan very little but now I do try and start with the main thrust of the plot clear in my head otherwise I risk wandering too far down interesting paths that lead nowhere. But I need the actual process of writing words and sentences to stimulate all the other ideas so after a period of trying to plan sensibly I still launch myself into a first draft and see where it will take me!
Hi Andrew. The only stupid questions are the ones you don’t ask and it doesn’t matter how ‘far’ along the learning the craft of writing journey you are, there are still more things to find out about and old things to be reminded about.
Emma Darwin’s blog The Itch of Writing has a host of useful blogs if you haven’t come across it already. This one on showing and telling is very helpful
https://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/showing-and-telling-the-basics.htmlalthough Kate’s summing up above is spot on.
I like character questionnaires but I don’t do them slavishly. If there are questions where I don’t know the answer and I don’t care, I leave them. However other questions may provoke a stream of thoughts that go off on a tangent and I follow them. I find they are a useful tool (and that is all) when I want to work on a particular character and help to bring things I know unconsciously into focus. Occasionally they throw up delightful nuggets of ideas that are tremendously useful.
@Dougk there are lots of character questionnaires around. I personally haven’t found any particular one to be better than another. Let me know if you can’t find them and I’ll send you a couple of links.I have to agree with Ath, they were a wonderful lot of entries this month. Congratulations to Libby and to everybody who took part. Fingers crossed I might get an entry in this month!
Congratulations Raine. And thanks to everyone for their stories and the pleasure they gave me as well as John for the competition.
Oh Hilary and Janette, I feel for you. Somehow it’s much harder when your hopes have been raised. I guess they’ve got further to fall.
@Janette. I understand that agents receive zillions of submissions everyday and can’t respond personally to each one but I do think, when they’ve requested a full or asked for edits to be made, they could at least reply and send a few lines of response rather than a form letter. It’s so tough and ‘ghosting’ is exactly the right term for it.I’m of the same opinion as everybody else @hilary that the agent should have been clearer about the reason for the meeting. However she does sound very interested. She met you. She knew your book. She mailed you notes afterwards. She said she would look at it again if you revised it. These are all huge positives.
