A merry-go-round of characters

Following on from the advice I am slowly (and continuously) gleaning and incorporating into my fiction writing repertoire, I've spent some time considering Tarreck's story at a more summarised level. Each chapter considered as a whole, and then the parts within.

It isn't enough to have these changes enhance my plot. I know I need to work on the characters.

In my first ever book, about half way through Nanowrimo in 2008, I realised I had two characters the wrong way round. One should have been in place of the other and vice versa. So what did I do? I swapped them, in the very next scene, without explanation. If it had been sci-fi or fantasy, I might have been able to get away with it (Stephen Baxter does this in his book Time, although with slightly more explanation). Shame it was a spy thriller, really.

At my first attempt to edit Tarreck and his companions into something worth reading, I realised I had done the same. Before I had read anything on the subject of fiction writing, I knew it would be better to have these two characters swap places to up the ante for my protagonist and make his journey that much more difficult.

So I've re-read some of the book I wrote in Nanowrimo's coffee fuelled haze, and the further I've got through the messier it becomes. There's one point where (again) a character's location miraculously changes for no good reason. You'd have thought I'd have made a note, but I'll be damned if I can find it.

And now I find myself looking at two more characters and wanting to swap them round again, this time more to bring them out of their respective shells and fully blossom into the people I know they can be.

In the end I suppose I'm taking the necessary measures to improve my work like any other author, but I can constantly hear the advice of the pros in my head again - structure, outline, develop.

Maybe this November, I'll be better prepared.

Starting my journey...

...as always, from the middle. Truth be told I've been writing fiction for years, but only just started pursuing a publishing deal in earnest.

I've never been one for new year resolutions. The cynic in me - probably the loudest and most frequent voice in my head - rolls his eyes and shrugs at other people making their pledges once a year. Why should someone need that impetus to start eating right? Or to do more exercise? Or to learn a foreign language?

If there's one thing I've learned from writing fiction, it is the value of time. Underestimate it and it will swallow your ambitions with your youth and your pride. I write pretty much all my fiction in the month of November every year. If you're in fiction writing or publishing world you'll know all about Nanowrimo, and if you're not or you don't you should definitely check it out. The guys at The Office of Letters and Light bang the drum of the deadline's power but often overlook that of the kick-off, the starting pistol or project start date. No change can be meaningful without trying to accomplish it by a deadline, and what good is a deadline if you don't openly and actively commit to starting something.

That's the value of the new year resolution right there. The fact that you're committing to starting something.

My resolution wasn't made on January 1st. In fact, it didn't happen until I took the time to listen to a Nanowrimo webinar that featured Kami Garcia, James Scott Bell and K.M. Weiland. They spoke of structure and character, and something clicked. I always struggled with editing, but here were the experts passing on their knowledge and highlighting every one of my mistakes as they did.

(If you're in a similar position to me on the struggle against editing, I would strongly suggest checking out K.M. Weiland's Structuring Your Novel. I'll be reading one of James's in the near future too so I'll be sure to check in here afterwards.)

I found an energy for writing (and more importantly, editing) that I had not felt in years and it made me realise what I needed to do. I needed to edit one of my books to a quality good enough for publishing, but more than that -  I needed to make a resolution. So here it is: this is the year I will get published.

I set about looking through my back catalogue for my favourite story. Not my best work, or the one that would require the least polishing, just the story that held the most promise. The interesting characters and fully fledged plot ready to be nurtured into a publishable novel. I've settled on a book all about the redemption of a dark mage that I wrote a few years ago.

This blog is going to be where I keep track of the journey, the editing & the struggle to become a published author. I hope it makes good reading for you.