Category: My books

More Tricks of the Trade

I am working my way through Chris Roerden’s book, Don’t Murder Your Mystery. Today I took his recommendation to find creative ways to describe characters. I was guilty of using driver’s license type details to paint pictures of my characters in The Spanish Coin manuscript, so I did some editing this afternoon to illustrate what those people are like instead of what they looked like. After all, habits and mannerisms make people more interesting than their height and eye color.

The learning experience continues, and I am really enjoying the process!

Interview your protagonist

I devoured the July/August 2013 issue of Writer’s Digest as soon as it hit my mailbox last week. It was packed with tips and ideas that I have already put into practice as I continue to polish my manuscript for The Spanish Coin.

One idea James Scott Bell shared in his article, “Vitamin C For Your Thriller,” was particularly helpful and enabled me to enrich my book’s ending. Mr. Bell made the following suggestion: “Go forward in time 20 years after your story ends…. You’re now a reporter and you track down the character and ask, ‘Looking back at everything that happened to you, why do you think you had to go through that? What life lesson did you learn that you can pass on to the rest of us?’…. Now use all your skills to demonstrate that lesson at the end of the story itself, without necessarily using words.”

I asked my protagonist those two questions, and her response filled two pages as fast as I could write. The process gave me a perspective that no other exercises had given me. My book has a more satisfying ending, thanks to Mr. Bell’s recommendations.

Deleting Unnecessary Words

Editing my Spanish Coin manuscript has taken most of my time since my last post. I’m happy to announce that I have trimmed the word count from 114,645 to 99,979.

After reading conflicting guidelines in books and online, I concluded that a manuscript for a first novel had a better chance of landing me a literary agent if if were under 100,000 words.

It was daunting to have to cut nearly 15,000 words from my book, but the process turned out to be enjoyable. Every word had to justify itself. Every scene had to prove its purpose.

I know I have a better manuscript to pitch to an agent now.

Revisions, revisions!

In his book titled Plot, Ansen Dibell wrote, “Any story worth telling is worth revising.” That’s what I’m still doing… revising The Spanish Coin.

As I re-read every sentence, every word, I look for word repetition, unnecessary adjectives and adverbs, shifts in point-of-view, descriptions I’ve written and those I failed to include.

I’m bombarded by questions. Will my readers identify with the main character? Will they care what happens to her? Do I have too many characters? Are the sub-plots woven into the book as well as they could be? Will I ever get this published? Will people buy it?

A day in the life of a would-be author.

Editing my own work

After letting quilting and crocheting items to sell at Hickory Ridge Crafts on Etsy.com dominate my time lately, today I enjoyed getting back to editing my manuscript, The Spanish Coin. It’s been fun re-reading the fourth and fifth chapters, eliminating excess words, and searching for repetitive words. Since the book is primarily driven by dialog, I find it helpful to read it aloud. It has been several months since I last read those chapters, so I’m coming to it with fresh eyes.

Making changes in the dialog can be a little tricky when one is writing historical fiction. A character cannot say a word that was not in use at the time of the story or novel. The Spanish Coin takes place in 1771 in North and South Carolina, so I have to be careful not to use modern phrases. It goes beyond that, though, and I have relied upon a book by William Brohaugh titled English Through the Ages to keep me on the straight and narrow. Once in a while I’ve been surprised to learn that a word I thought was perfect for my character to say in conversation was not yet in common usage in the 18th century.

Using appropriate vernacular in writing historical fiction, trying to give just enough description, not using any word too often, and trying to get all the punctuation right…. Whew! I will forever be learning more about the craft of writing.

If writing were easy, it wouldn’ t be so rewarding!

Ending a chapter

I’m ending a chapter in my writing life this week. On Christmas Eve, I received an e-mail informing me that as of December 30, 2012, Harrisburg Horizons weekly newspaper will cease publication. I have written a local history column for the paper every other week since its second issue in May of 2006. I have learned far more about the history of Cabarrus County’s Township #1 than I could have anticipated when I set out on this journey. I enjoyed doing most of the research and loved doing the writing. The little bit of income this freelancing job gave me was icing on the cake.

It is time to start a new chapter, or perhaps return to an unfinished chapter as a writer. The manuscript for The Spanish Coin, my first attempt at writing an historical novel, has been on the back burner far too long. It is time to look at it with fresh eyes and get it published. It is time to look at other avenues of writing and see where that road takes me.

As I count down to my birthday in January… one of those dreaded birthdays that ends in a “0,” it seems fitting to take stock of what I have and have not accomplished and step into the next chapter of my life with boldness and enthusiasm!

A Day in the Life of a Freelance Writer

Making time to write has been a challenge this week.  I haven’t gotten enough sleep, a carpenter or painter has been here everyday, breathing paint fumes, poor air quality outdoors due to this heat wave….  It has been difficult to sit down at the computer and put any words “on paper.”

My goal for today is to take the research I did for a series of newspaper columns about an 1849 meteorite and write a 2,500-word piece to pitch to an almanac.

I entered the opening pages of my manuscript of The Spanish Coin in a writing contest this spring.  Two of the three critiques I received in return were disappointing.  It is taking me a while to get pysched up to work on that project again.

I’m currently reading The Testament, by John Grisham.  Other recent good reads:  The Help, by Kathryn Stockett (my new all-time favorite book!), The Postmistress, by Sarah Blake, several Jodi Picoult books, and Not My Daughter, by Barbara Delinsky.

It’s time for me to get to work on that meteorite piece.