Nancy Famolari's Place features articles on writing. The articles are designed to help new writers by providing tips from published authors.
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My novel, The Yellow Diamond Caper,
wasn't going anywhere. I couldn't get the sequence of the plot the
way I wanted it, and I was having trouble fitting in all the
technical information without doing an information dump. I stewed for
awhile and then enlisted my favorite critic, my husband.
I prepared for the brainstorming
session by writing a detailed plot summary. This helped with some of
the places where things weren't working right, but it wasn't there
yet. My husband is a wonderful, long suffering, collaborator. My next
step was to read him the plot summary. He identified the places where
it didn't work for him. Then we talked about how to fix them.
Two heads are definitely better than
one. It would have taken me a long time to see the gaps he
identified. I took notes while we talked and then rewrote parts of
the summary. Now I feel like I can move ahead.
If you plan to use the technique,
preparation is important. I couldn't have gotten good responses
without a very detailed plot summary. It's also good to have someone
who thinks slightly differently than you do. My husband understands
technology better than I do. He could easily point out areas where
what I was suggesting wasn't feasible. As soon as he pointed them
out. I knew he was right, but I wouldn't have seen them as quickly.
When we hit a place where neither of us
was quite sure how to procede, we talked about a variety of ideas,
listed them and then analyzed how they contributed to moving the plot
forward. The whole process took about two hours, but from my
standpoint it was worth every minute. I'm a firm believer in working
through most of the plot by yourself, but there comes a time when you
need help. The only caution is: Don't feel threatened by what your
collaborator suggests. Nothing is set in concrete. Feel free to
explore ideas and reject those that don't fit your image of the
story. After all, you are the one in charge.
Today my guest is Magdalena Ball, author of Black Cow. MagdalenaBall is
the author of the newly released novel Black Cow, Sleep Before
Evening, Repulsion Thrust, and a wide number of collaborations,
anthologies and poetry chapbooks. Grab a a free mini flip book of
Black Cow here: http://www.bewritebooks.com/mb/BlackCow/BlackCow.html For
more information on Magdalena visit:http://www.magdalenaball.com
I asked her some questions about writing the book.
How
did you get the idea for Black Cow?
Moving
to an inexpensive house in Tasmania and becoming self-sufficient was
actually something my husband and I looked at doing a number of years
ago. In the end, we decided not to pursue that, but the idea
stuck with me as rich fodder for fiction (especially since I still
get the odd real estate brochure from an agent that has yet to remove
my mailing address), and I do sometimes like to intellectually play
with taking a different path in my fiction. I’ve always been a fan
of the BBC show The Good Life as well, and although I didn’t model
James and Freya on Tom and Barbara Good (though I definitely pictured
them in my head from time to time as I was writing), I liked the
black comedy aspects of the self-sufficient dream. For me too,
I was drawn to their desire for simplicity, for cutting down on
rampant consumerism, and for getting back to a more coherent and less
chaotic lifestyle. For a long time my working title was the
“secret greenie book.”
Did
you have any problems writing the book, ex get stuck somewhere? have
to change the plot? characters wouldn't behave the way you wanted?
For
me the problem is almost always about time management. There
were times when I got distracted away from the writing altogether –
to poetry (my favourite diversion), to short stories, to plotting a
different novel, but whenever I sat down and forced myself to focus,
to set time goals, and to write to schedule, I didn’t have too many
problems.
You
chose a traditional publisher. I know you've also used
self-publishing for your poetry. Could you discuss your reasons?
Though
there are strong reasons for self-publishing today and I’ve enjoyed
self-publishing my poetry books, I do find that traditional
publishing still offers some significant benefits that I wanted for
my novel. One of the key ones for me was distribution.
It’s certainly not impossible, but it’s hard to get decent
distribution channels if you self publish. With big, time
consuming labours of love like a novel, I felt that the need for this
kind of mainstream distribution/exposure was important. My
publisher BeWrite Books (www.bewrite.net)
has a strong distribution network, particularly for ebooks, and I
certainly didn’t want to have to try to recreate that myself.
Quality control was a key issue for me as well. Having
professionals edit, format, and pull together the book was important
for me. Yes, you can buy much of that these days, but not only
is it expensive, it’s time consuming and I didn’t want to spend
my time doing that (would rather spend the limited time I have
writing). I did choose a relatively small indie publisher (the
same as for my first novel Sleep
Before Evening)that
I knew would provide the kind of attention that authors like me who
aren’t celebrities would rarely get at a large house.
My Review of Black Cow
The Archers are
ensnared in the golden chains of their affluent life style: designer
clothes, an expensive home, luxury cars, private schools for the
children, and it's killing them.
Black Cow is a
beautiful story of changing gears in midlife. On the surface, James
and Freya have everything. But their world has turned upside down.
The recession has hit both their industries, James , the CEO, has
to lay people off. Freda can't sell expensive houses. Finally, health
concerns, their failing marriage and out of control children force
then to reevaluate what constitutes happiness.
Ball presents a
sensitive picture of a family struggling to stay together and find
fulfillment. The characters are well drawn and believable, the kind
of people you know. They could be your family. This beautifully
crafted story explores the question of whether changing your life can
bring the happiness you seek. You can change where you are, but you
can't change who you are, or can you? Can you get back to being the
person you once were?
I highly recommend this
book. It presents a modern dilemma in very readable terms that will
allow you to look at how one family solves their problem. It could
change your life.
Years ago, I wrote a short story that I
liked very much. I couldn't find a publisher, so the story sat in my
drawer for a couple of years. An opportunity came along to write a
romance novella for inclusion in an anthology. I still liked the
story, so I dragged it out and revised the word count upward by
adding a new ending.
When the anthology project fell
through, I began to think the story was jinxed. I liked my revised
plot, but it needed more excitement, so I added a different ending
and turned the romance into a romantic thriller. Still there were no
takers. So the novella went back in the drawer for a couple of
years.
I just finished a major project and
didn't want to start a new book immediately, so I pulled out the
novella, printed it out and reread it – not bad, but not great. So
now the question is to spend the time revising it or to let it go.
My choice right now is to revise. It
promises to take more time than I expected, but I think in the end it
will be a good project. Some of the faults I found in the manuscript
are:
The opening is slow and doesn't
have enough foreshadowing to pull the reader forward. I hope to
solve this by putting more of the mystery up front.
The middle of the story doesn't
work well now that I've changed the ending. Some of the scenes and
characters are superfluous.
The ending is too skimpy. I rushed
it because I didn't have a good handle on the outcome.
It need significant changes.
So can this story be saved? I think so.
Al least I will try. The first tasks are to make a good time line.
The events have to lead into each other since this is now a mystery.
The second task is to revisit the character profiles and make sure
the characters fit. This includes adding some new characters and
deleting others. I also need a good plot summary. It should fall out of the other two tasks.
It's going to take work, but I think it
will be fun. I'll keep you up to date on progress.
What a thrill to receive the Liebster
Blog award from Annie on her blog (The Slow and Steady School ofWriting). I'm honored. Check out Annie's blog. She has wonderful
articles on writing, writing competitions and writing picture books,
plus good interviews.
The Liebster Blog award originated
in Germany.Liebster
means
dearest or beloved, and Liebe
is
love. The award is meant to encourage readership of small, lovable
blogs with fewer than 200 followers.
In
accepting the Liebster Blog Award, the recipient agrees to:
*Thank
the person who gave them the award and link back to that perosn's
blog.
*Copy
and paste the award to their blog. I'm putting it in a permanent
place on my sidebar.
*Reveal
five snippets about themselves that readers may not already know! So
here goes:
I
love rain and cloudy skies.
I
have six grandchildren and another coming in April.
I
love palm trees and have about 150 of them.
I
love mystery novels, particularly writing them.
I
love figuring out how to do things with the computer, like make address labels!
I'm thinking about proofreading today
because I”m doing a final read of the next book in the Montbleu
Murder series, A Dead Novelist at Canterbury Falls.
Proofreading well is probably one of the most important things you
can do for the success of your book. Of course, you need an
intriguing plot and likeable characters, but many people are turned
off by a poorly edited book. In saying this, I can't claim to have
conquered the problem, but I'm working at it.
I review books and belong to several
book review sites. It's amazing how many people comment on the
grammar and poor editing of books. It turns some people off an author
completely. I have to admit that it's not fun to be distracted from
reading by finding errors. They tend to leap out at you. So here are
a few suggestions.
Finish your book, put it away for
awhile then take it out and do a thorough review. I thought my
latest book was finished until I put it away for three weeks. The
errors just leaped off the page.
Proofread in a different format.
If you wrote the book, or article on 8x10 double spaced pages, try
6x9 single spaced. The new format doesn't let your eye skip words
the way it does when you're familiar with the text.
Read the piece aloud. This does
two things. Reading aloud lets you hear as well as see the awkward
places. It also slows the eye so you're more likely to catch errors.
Proofreading is particularly important
for self-published authors. Readers are more likely to consider you
incompetent, if the book is riddled with errors. I have seen books
published by major publishers that contained a fair number of errors,
but somehow people tend to forgive this more easily, possibly because
they're supposed to be experts.
I hope these tips are helpful. I'd love
to hear your tips. I could use them on my next book.
Whoever said revision is what makes
your book is, in my view, correct. I like to write the book quickly.
I do plan the plot first, but I find that it changes as I write, and
for me, that's a benefit.
However, it leaves me with a manuscript
that is far from publishable.
These are the three steps I use to
clean up the manuscript:
First, I print the book and read
it as though it was a published book. I mark the places that don't
work and note any corrections that leap to the eye. This usually
identifies places where I lose the thread of the plot; where scenes
are lovely, but don't contribute to the forward motion; and where I
lose focus on the characters.
Second, I remove the chapters or
scenes that don't work; rewrite where necessary; and add new scenes
or chapters. I usually find that I have to add more than subtract. I
have a tendency to race through the plot leaving out scenes that the
reader needs to understand the ending.
Third, I do a thorough reread and
make editorial changes. This is the place to fine tune wording, make
sure typos are corrected and generally clean up the manuscript.
I don't know if this method would work
for everyone, and I'm not completely consistent. I'll make wording
changes on the first reread, if I think of them, and on the third
pass, if a scene doesn't work, it goes.
The process is time consuming and makes
you think of your work as if you were asked to critique someone
else's, but that's the important point. Once you've finished the
ecstasy of initial creation, the rest is work, and lots of it.
Characters need to be consistent. Scenes need to add to the flow of
the story, typos must be corrected. I find this works for me. Tell me
about your revision strategies.
I recently read Carolyn Howard
Johnson's The Frugal Book Promotor. I loved the book, but I
came away slightly dizzy thinking about all the things I could do to
promote my books. Like most of us, I have a limited time for
marketing, if I want to eat, sleep, clean house, and most importantly
– write, so I can't do them all. Helpfully, Carolyn pointed out
that I don't have to try them all, she's already done that for me.
That's great, but how do I decide how to focus my energy. The answer,
difficult as it is, is that I have to set goals.
Goal setting is constricted by several
factors which make it both harder and easier to set goals for
yourself.
Where you live – I happen to
live in a very rural area. Book signings are great, but we only have
one bookstore. With only a few thousand people in my immediate area,
I'm not got to get many sales unless I branch out. Therefore, I have
to rely primarily on the Internet.
How much money you plan to make –
The sad fact is that unless you have a blockbuster novel,
tantalizing non-fiction, or are a celebrity, you're not going to get
rich. On another group, someone quoted the statistic that a really
successful writer without a publisher, or with an indie publisher,
can expect to make $300.00 a month at the high end. Probably more
realistically it's less than a $100.00. Those kind of numbers mean I
can't send a lot to advertise my book unless I want to use income
from another source to subsidize it. So I need lots of free
advertising.
What sort of a book have you
written – Most of us are, I suspect, writing genre novels:
romance, mystery and scifi. Therefore, we have to get to where the
readers are. Other writers are one source of sales, but probably not
as great as fans of the genre. Therefore, we need to be involved in
groups devoted to the type of fiction we want to sell. We may not be
able to do crass marketing there, but we can get out names in front
of readers. On-line retailers are another source. Amazon does a good
job identifying the types of books their customers are buying and
making suggestions. Plus there are Amazon lists and other tools for
getting your work noticed.
As a result of this analysis, I decided
to concentrate on on-line activities: book reviews, yahoo groups, and
on-line marketing. Or course, I have a website and blogs, but these
are areas I have branched out into.
What are your thoughts about your goals
for marketing? I'd love to hear your plans.
