Nick Bryan

writing about writing

Draft Four The Win? – The Novel Continues

by

Draft Four The Win? - The Novel Continues

I’ve just finished draft four of the fantasy novel I’ve been writing for around 18 months. This is obviously an achievement – not a top-rated one worthy of a party, but a clear rung up the ladder.

So what does finishing a fourth draft actually mean? How many more am I planning? Do I even know?

Well.

Four The Hard Way

It’s been four months since I finished the third draft, which is longer than I like to leave things when it’s just me dealing with myself. But between these two particular passes, I sent the book out to beta readers, who have been steadily telling me their feelings ever since.

The good news: they all helpfully agreed with each other on the broad strokes, making it fairly easy to come up with an action plan.

The bad news: it was a reasonably substantial action plan, some of these problems need big-time tackling and I had to go in for close and extensive surgery for my fourth draft. I’ve written a couple of new chapters, various bits and pieces inserted throughout.

Weirdly, in fact, after getting shorter throughout the earlier drafts, the novel has now ballooned to its most epic length yet. I don’t know whether I now need to go in and cut more. I do kinda agree with the two betas who said certain parts needed expanding.

In fact, here’s the numbers:

  • First draft: 99,165 words.
  • Second draft: 94,923 words. (4,242 words shorter.)
  • Third draft: 90,605 words. (4,318 words shorter.)
  • Fourth draft: 104,107 words (13,502 words longer) (Whoops)

As someone who’s been there since the beginning, this novel is starting to seem like some weird Frankensteinesque experiment. An expanding one.

But nonetheless, I’ve finished now and my creation lives. So what now?

Fivetitude

Fifth draft, I suppose? Which involves smoothing all those changes down, making sure everything’s consistent, perhaps punching up the language and involving a second wave of beta readers?

Hopefully this will be the last lot of betas. I suspect once you’ve taken it through twice, you probably start to run out of people to experiment on?

I think I’m circling around the notion of finishing, basically. I’m pretty happy with the changes, although still mildly annoyed with how long it’s ended up taking, thanks to some slightly weak planning at the start.

And on the double-plus side, I don’t have to decide whether to go straight into the next draft, as my editor sent his thoughts through on Hobson & Choi Book Two, so I’m doing those next!

Problem solved. Blog about that project soon enough, I imagine. In fact, there are a few H&C bits I need to post about.

Novels By Numbers – How I Killed My Precise Book Structure

by

My novel – the urban fantasy one I am currently editing after intensive beta reading – has a very strict structure. Three parts (because I love the three act structure), each containing seven chapters (because… I’m not actually sure). I laid it out like that when I started, and have stuck to it ever since.

In my last edit, a few conclusive plot developments got pushed off the end of the final chapter – Chapter Twenty-One, obviously – and I put them in an epilogue. Because this preserves my precious structure.

I’ve continued this game of sevens all the way to the fourth draft, and frankly I think I deserve a medal. Or at least a giant seven-shaped cake. You can probably find one in shops under Birthday Cakes For Seven Year Olds.

Still, all good things are determined to come to an end, and I don’t think I can sustain this shape any longer. I’ve planned out my new final third and am adding some major new sections to the book, important new bits, cool stuff, all thanks to good suggestions from my excellent beta people. But I don’t think I can do it within the seven/seven/seven framework – not without writing chapters that are also ten/twelve thousand word novellas, at least.

So, with a heavy heart and a grim smile, maybe ever a cinematic single tear, I am waving goodbye to the sevens. I will miss them, but anything that makes the book better is probably worth it. And I still have sevens in the first and second third.

And, ditching the faux-eulogy tone for a second, let’s be honest: if an editor, agent, publisher or similar entity says I need to add extra chapters to the book anywhere, further messing up the sevens, I’ll definitely do it as long as I agree it’ll improve the story. Hardly seems practical to get over-attached to these things. Not as if the chapter-counts are story relevant, it just worked out that way.

And it least it gave me something to work within while I got the book written. Let’s not be ungrateful.I’m glad I wrote this blog post, it was therapeutic.

Interview with me about The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf!

by

My lovely book cover!

I have not written a blog post today, but it’s okay, because Julianne Benford has interviewed me for her blog, so I can just link to that!

It’s a fun interview, I talk a bit about my inspirations and process, throw in a few jokes. Give it a look and report back.

And yes, the interviewer is also my girlfriend so there is a nepotism element in there. But don’t worry, it’s definitely addressed in the post.

Should reading that inspire you to pick up a copy of the book, here’s the page with the links. And if it reminds you you’ve read the book and still need to write a review on Amazon/Goodreads/your blog/somewhere else, that’s cool too.

Oh, and I 100% finalised my design brief for Book Two last night, so that’s looming in the distance, ready to bubble over at any moment. But for now, let’s focus on The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf. Read interview, buy, enjoy.

Dealing With Beta Readers – An Early Report

by

It’s been a few months since I last looked at my full-length fantasy novel about Faustian deals – I put it aside for a spell, both to let beta readers have a crack at it and to focus on getting the Hobson & Choi book launch in order.

But the first H&C book is all fired into the atmosphere, the Book Two work now with other people, and most of my beta readers reported, so time to start in that direction again. Yesterday afternoon, for the first time in a while, I opened up the novel Scrivener file, looked at various beta reader notes and thought about it.

So, how does it feel returning to a novel post-beta? Have I got any advice for other writers in similar situations? Let’s find out!

Time For Staggered Hatred

Everyone tells you a piece of writing will only be improved by leaving it for a while and coming back. I put this book aside for about a month (Christmas, basically) between first and second drafts, and now an epic gap of three months (almost exactly) between finishing the third draft and re-opening just now.

The good news: I do not hate it. I’d grown weary of this piece back in May, whereas now I’m ready to tear back into the words. Though does that just mean I hate it in a different way? Discuss.

Either way, hard to go wrong with taking a break, even though it’s massively counter-intuitive with the desire to get work out there right the fuck now and inflict your genius upon the world. (I recommend multiple projects as a way of controlling this urge.)

Feedback And The Fleshy Cord

And I also have beta feedback this time, so that makes even more difference than just ignoring the book for  a few months.

Both leaving time and getting feedback are ways to weaken the crusty mental umbilical between yourself and your writing. You probably can’t sever that completely, but you can take a few hacks, break it down to stringy tendrils.

Sometimes adding the feedback of non-you folk will be disappointing. I’ll hold my pasty-white hands up and admit I thought the book was a bit more Ready To Rock than it turned out to be. At first, this got me down a bit. Not a crushing lot, but a noticeable bit.

Unfortunately, as every other writing blogger/tutor/street preacher has already told you, receiving feedback is a vital part of the whole process and if you can’t do it, you’ll probably (metaphorically) die.

Still, there is a plus side: you know how you spend half your life trying to hear/read other people’s ideas without stealing them? You will often now receive other people’s thoughts specifically about your book which you can plagiarise to your heart’s content. It’s so freeing, I’m not sure I need to learn to fly anymore.

Not to mention, although it’s nice to get praise, the experience of having other humans engaging with your book and taking it seriously is pretty great regardless. So focus on that and plough on.

Planning With The Uni-Brain

The one slight problem with beta readers (assuming you have more than one, and that’s a good idea if possible) is that they tend to have different views on your work. Until the blessed day we’re all replaced by robots thinking with the same networked Uni-Brain, you need to parse your beta-reader feedback and decide which way to go.

Whereas when your betas all suggest the same thing, it’s probably a glaring problem, likely also something a hypothetical future publisher/agent will notice. Best address those points, or at least have your reason/excuse ready.

In short, I spent two hours yesterday afternoon staring at the feedback and trying to come up with a unified plan of improvement. Much as I desperately want to just hack my way in, I gotta do the planning, and I may even do a bit more before I write/edit a single word. Partly because, if I’m being honest (sigh), it was partly lack of planning which caused many of the problems in the first place.

Seriously, when it comes to the next utterly new book, I’m going to make such detailed advance notes, it will turn the writing process itself into a completely joyless exercise in joining the dots. This I solemnly vow.

But I think that’s it for now. You’ve got to admire the amount of words I just got out of sitting in a cafe and thinking for a bit. Join me at some point in the future for news on how the editing actually went!

The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf – Hobson & Choi: Case One! Cover! Blurb! Release date!

by

So. In the not-too-distant future, the first case of Hobson & Choi, my mismatched detective duo London crime series with a darkly comic tone, will be self-publishing. I have a nice cover, a sales blurb-type-thing, a new title, a release date, and I am about to declare all of those things.

Exciting stuff. Probably best to just get on with it. First up, then, is the real meat: cover and blurb time.

The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf

“If we get 400 followers, John Hobson will solve that nasty wolf-murder case for free! Fight the thing himself if he has to! #HobsonVsWolf!”

Angelina Choi was only trying to drum up some Twitter followers and make a good impression on her first day interning at John Hobson’s one-man detective agency.

But the campaign went viral and now they have a murder to solve, no money coming in, and an unwilling Hobson faced with battling some enormous beast.

With both follower and body counts rising, can they crack the case without offending everyone or being eaten by a huge dog?The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf is the first case starring Hobson & Choi, a bickering, mismatched detective duo for 21st century London. This book collects the debut storyline of the hit darkly comic crime web serial, extensively rewritten and improved for this definitive edition.

Also included: book-exclusive bonus story The Left Hand Is Always Right, grim tale from a dark corner of Hobson & Choi’s London – The Left Hand, budget pub of crime.

The What-When-How

So, that’s the what. Next important bit of news, I suppose, is when: The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf will be out on Tuesday July 22nd 2014 in electronic formats. It might take a day or two to get through to all of them, but I’m aiming to be up on Amazon, Nook, Kobo, iBooks and whatever else Smashwords will punt me onto.

For print users, there is a standard paper edition coming in August just as soon as I’ve finished back-and-forthing with proofs. Rest assured, I’ll try my best to make a big deal out of that too.

“But what about me, Nick?”

If you want to get involved now, The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf is up on Goodreads so you can add it to your to-read list and such. Also, if you have a book-review blog or enjoy posting reviews on Amazon/Goodreads/anywhere else book reviews are posted (or both of the above), email me and I may be able to sort out a proof e-copy of the book for consideration in truthful review.

In a similar vein, if you have a blog/other outlet and want to get even more involved, I am well up for talking about the release anywhere that will have me. For discussion of guest posts etc, just email me. I’m sure we can work out some kind of fair arrangement.

And if you want some new H&C material right the hell now, you can still get a complete two-thousand word done-in-one (not part of this book, an entirely standalone new thing) by signing up to my mailing list here or via the form which should appear in the right sidebar of this blog. This will, as you may have guessed, guarantee you an email when I publish The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf.

That’s probably it for now – if I’ve missed any crucial details, let me know in whatever medium pleases you. For now, let’s just take another look at the cover in attractive 3D-rendered form. Thanks to Design For Writers for their lovely work on the actual design, by the way – do contact them if you need anything similar, they’re good.

Doin’ HTML Till The Break Of Dawn – Technical Self-Publishing Time

by

MAXIMUM HTML

I have been locked in my room at my tiny corner desk, working on the process of turning my upcoming self-published book into beautiful HTML. It has taken a long time. I can neither confirm nor deny that I was up at 4AM Thursday morning, listening to the birds tweeting outside (and, for once, not tweeting much myself) working on exciting tasks such as reinserting italics.

As you may gather from this nuts-and-bolts self-pub stuff, the day of the Hobson & Choi release is getting very close now. So close, in fact, that I may put the cover up next week, announce the title, blurb, maybe even a date. I’m 90% sure that will happen.

But for now, here’s a blog post about the experience of processing a book into HTML. This is not a walkthrough, because there are plenty of those and I don’t have sufficient advice to justify bringing another one into the world. The posts I used to guide me was this one by Guido Henkel, it’s pretty comprehensive.

Hyper Tricky

First and foremost: yes, turning a whole book into HTML by hand is very boring and fiddly. To be honest, If I didn’t already have a basic working knowledge of the language from my day job in IT and working on various online projects, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. And if I had, it would have taken an eternity and come out terribly.

Having said that, it is not impossible. Even if I do have an advantage by writing on a comparatively short book (approx 50,000 words), it can be done without giving over weeks of your life. Yes, you will eventually need to trawl through your entire document for something and it will be dull, but the clever use of find/replace gets you a lot of the way. That Henkel walkthrough contains a lot of top tips in that direction.

In my case, my undoing was the em-dash/dash distinction and also the repeated tweaks to how I styled chapter-heads. In fact, you know what was the biggest pain? Persuading the table of contents to work in all formats. I only included it as a bonus anyway, I’m not sure fictional books really need one. C’est la vie, readers.

Still, I’m determined to take a stab at competing with other ebooks, and doubt an automated Word conversion was going to do it. Which meant either paying someone to do a decent conversion or launching into HTML myself.

Those of you with unlimited budgets and a hatred of technical nitpicking should definitely get someone else to do it for you. You’re not any more or less of an author if you can’t do HTML, after all. Much like I didn’t do my own cover design because I’m not a graphic designer.

(My cover design is great, by the way. Excited to blog it up next week.)

Mind-your Language

But for those of us who into this shit, there’s something weirdly fulfilling about building something and seeing it slowly take shape. It’s not dissimilar to the writing process itself, only much quicker and with the added perk of specific instructions and an easy way to determine whether you’ve succeeded.

And I think I’ve done okay, although this is my first time through, alright? So if I end up finding some enormous mistake when I go live and it turns into A Storm Of Stress, I reserve the right to recant this positive tone and start using phrases like “living motherfucking nightmare”.

For now, though, this feels like a moment of calm. A brief pause between the worries of “Oh god, have I done enough editing?” and the later panic of “Oh god, is anyone going to buy it now?”

So that’s nice. I can save loads of money on holidays in the future by just giving myself massive amounts of HTML to edit, can’t I? I’ve already got plans to do the second H&C volume in the not-too-distant future, so don’t worry, I’ve got plenty to do. Please do not send me your HTML parsing tasks – unless you are willing to pay for my time, in which case absolutely get in touch.

I think we’ve covered my emotions about HTML editing in enough detail to keep even the keenest of web-therapists happy. Join me next week for more hard facts about the release. Exciting, eh?