Well, when I say “hard at work”… well when I say “hard”, I kinda mean “meandering on”.

So everything that used to be available here like the flash-fiction and poor excuses for photography, all that will be available again. Soon. What’s more, the new site will hopefully coincide with the self-publication of my first short story, though at the moment I’m still deciding which of two I’m going to publish first.

As far as the novel (that thing called “No Shelter from Darkness” ) is concerned… In the last post (all that time ago) I wrote about how I let a literary consultancy’s feedback push me toward the decision to give up on looking for representation and simply go it alone. At the beginning of that post I noted that at the time of posting, something had happened that made me second-guess my decision yet again (so it was more like third- or fourth-guess).

Hold your horses—I haven’t got an agent.

However, I did have interest. Just on the off-chance, I sent some words to an agent expecting no response. A week later they requested my full manuscript. This was after a literary consultant told me “no agent or editor would be interested in my work”. Incidentally it was after he said this that he suggested I take part in his £2000 mentoring service.

Ultimately, the interested agent declined to represent me. However they did so with a quite charming letter, saying they thoroughly enjoyed the book but they didn’t think they’d be able to find a gap in their market.

So now I’m working on a final proof of the novel before I send some more words out to more agents (and then ultimately self-publish it ), while readying one (or two) short stories for publication on Kindle.

And in a nutshell, I think that brings us up to speed.

I hope you all had good and belly-bursting holidays like I did, now let’s see if 2012 is really as bad as the Mayans predicted.

"Un-Decided" by Gilad

Profound apologies once more.

If you are a regular follower of this site, then I do sincerely apologise for the severe lack of absence as of late. There are many reasons for this, but none worthy of forgiveness. However, I shall now present you with the third and final part of “The Professional Opinion”. When I wrote it, I believed every word. But something happened before I got around to publishing this, contributing to the delay. It changed my views once more, but this original article shows where my mind was at the time…

…stay tuned for my complete backwards resolve…

Following on from Part 2: The Feedback, I thought it only fair that I share what decisions I’ve made based on the feedback I received. I think this may also shed some more light on what I said in that previous post, in case you were thinking of using such services yourself.

I guess my biggest fear regarding my manuscript was that it was all a big pile of [insert profanity here], and that I shouldn’t be let near anything capable of turning the words in my head into words on a distributable medium. This is a factor in why I chose the cheaper “quick review”, as I thought (and still do think) that if this was the case, it would be picked up in a few hundred words, let alone a few thousand.

In this regard, the review served me well. My editor cited that talent was evident, and while he opinioned that my writing could be better, he noted where it was letting me down and there was nothing that I disagreed with or what was otherwise a showstopper.

Though he didn’t critique the synopsis, he had read it and here too there was no major drama. As much as a one page synopsis can reveal about a book, there was nothing bad he could say about it and even had a positive remark about my “twist” on a very tried and tested genre.

It is because of this feeback mentioned so far that I ended my last post saying that if I were to save up a grand or two, I wouldn’t use it on a full manuscript review. The story I’ve told I can’t imagine telling any differently, and with the editor noting no apparent problem with my cast of characters, I’m confident about the overall plot and pacing. So what would I spend that money on? A line-editor.

I’ll explain that a bit more in a minute, for that hyperthetical decision is based on all of the feedback I received. The main conculsion of the report was that due to the changed publishing world in which we now live, where even published authors are finding it hard to get published again, I’d find it hard to get an agent. Though he didn’t state the exact reason why, he implied it was due to my use of language which he’d previously commented on–and with which I agreed.

Agreeing with his criticism of my writing has made life a lot easier. Of course I want to be the best writer I can be, and so I will go through my manuscript one more time and finely tune it, to try and iron out those moments of wrinkled writing.

Then I intend to send it to a line-editor, to pick up on all those tiny mistakes that I’ve missed on every single draft. And then I’m going to self-publish my book.

Am I ever going to try sending to agents? I might, but if I do it won’t be because it’s a priority and I certainly won’t be resting any hopes on it. If anything it’ll probably be to get that long sought-for rejection letter.

And so, for now, I leave you with my intention: No Shelter From Darkness. Coming early 2012.

"Exam Fever" by ~kael360

I posted not too long ago about my decision to send some work off to a literary consultancy. Just over a week ago I received the report.

As with part one of this post, I won’t divulge the name of the consultancy I used. However, I will say that it was one that offered what they call a “Quick Review”. For this, you send them a query letter and a synopsis, and then the first 5000 words of your manuscript. The selling pitch on the website implied that the report I’d receive would be a review of all these things, as one would expect.

The first thing that happened was for an appropriate editor to be assigned to me. This is apparently done based on what you’ve sent, so your editor should be someone in or with experience of the genre in which you write. My eyebrow raised for the first time upon learning that my editor hadn’t written anything in my genre, and who went on to state in his report to not having experience in it either.

At this point I’d like to say that this might be a simple misunderstanding on the part of whoever assigns editors. Perhaps from the material given they couldn’t be certain (although the query letter clearly states the genre and intended audience). Another possible factor could have been that this was a quick review, although I hope this wouldn’t affect the service, especially as you’d likely keep your given editor were you to “upgrade” your review type (plus, as far as I’m concerned, even a quick review put a dent in my wallet).

Having said all that, the editor I got was a very capable person. In general, the report I received was informative. My editor highlighted a couple of things that I need to keep an eye on and I’m grateful for that feedback. For example only, this included my habit of using superfluous words, and also a type of sentence structure which, in his eyes, I used too much.

I was disappointed at the volume, however. I know quality is better than quantity, but my editor only reported on the first 2500 words, not the 5000 that I’d sent. He also said absolutely nothing about the synopsis, and only mentioned the query letter as a reference when critiquing the manuscript.

So of all the material I was instructed to send, I received feedback on less than half of it. Now perhaps the synopsis was good and didn’t need feedback, but I wasn’t told that. Maybe the one reference to the query letter was all that was required, but again this wasn’t noted. And perhaps all that’s wrong with all 5000 words was what he’d noted about the first 2500. But again, this wasn’t confirmed.

Yet, I am glad I did this. Hearing a professional opinion about one’s work can never be a bad thing. However. I am grateful for what feedback I’ve been given, and I will use it, but I do feel that I got a little less than what I’d paid for. I also have no doubt that had I paid for a full manuscript review everything would be far more indepth. Had I the money to do this comfortably I definitely would, but this writer would have to save for a long time to afford such a service. I think that for me, that money (once saved) would be better spent on something other than a manuscript review.

One final thing I will say, is that everybody needs to get paid. It would be naive of me not to wonder whether comments made were done so in order to attract me to spending more money.

SPOILER ALERT: If, for some unfathomable reason, you’ve not yet seen LOST but are planning too, it’s only fair I should warn you that there will be plenty of spoilers coming up in this post.

Everything has a beginning, a middle and an end. Except LOST. One of its greatest storytelling tricks was to use the bane of many a writer’s existence—flashbacks. LOST firmly started in the middle of its story, with so much important stuff happening before Jack first opened his eyes after the plane crash.

That very first scene, nay, that first shot of one of Jack’s eyes opening, laying in amongst a field of bamboo, was iconic, and from that first shot one of LOST’s main themes was introduced (eyes). It was the first of many, and along with the unending list of questions that every episode seemed to ask and the aforementioned storytelling technique, it was a recipe for an overnight hit.

I can still remember the trailer for the first season here in Britain, with the actors dancing with each other on the beach, all bloody and injured, with the burning wreck of the plane as the backdrop. It was haunting, and cool. It immediately told you this was no ordinary show, and it wasn’t.

Fastforward to my second viewing, and I found myself feeling an equal amount of shock and awe from the very first episode. But it was different. For this time I knew what the island was and I knew why the survivors had been put on it. This put an interesting spin on an already intriguing series. As it had been so long since I saw those first few seasons, I found I’d also forgotten exactly what happened next, remembering things only as they happened.

You see, the big overall storyline is easy to remember, but it’s the small things you forget. Like when, in a very early episode (possibly episode 3) John Locke is introducing the young Walt to the game of backgammon. He says it’s a battle between two sides, one black, the other white. Wham! I sat up and took note. Right there in one of the very first episodes, a character has effectively told the audience what the whole series is all about.

That’s another theme, by the way, the whole black and white thing. At one point two of the biggest themes are merged when John Locke appears in a dream with one black eyeball and one white. Genius, and only one of so many examples of foreshadowing.

As I watched season after season, there were many times when I picked up on the smaller things that would’ve been missed first time round. There were so many hints to things that would come, it was a pleasure to see just how completely the whole story had been planned.

There were quite a few haters who insisted that the writers were making it up as they went along from a very early stage. Obviously with serial television where you (the writers) don’t know if there’ll be a next season or not, there has to be a certain amount of this. But I truly believe after watching it all for a second time that the overall story was always planned out.

A lot of criticism was thrown LOST’s way in the 5th season, for example, with the whole time-travel thing. Yet, watch it again, and you’ll see that it was hinted at for quite a while before it happened. A lovely little hint very early on that time-travel would play a part was when Hurley and Sayid picked up a radio signal, and it was playing music. Sayid wonders where it was coming from. Brilliantly, Hurley wonders WHEN it was coming from.

There was actually SO MUCH stuff that happened which related to later events, that it couldn’t all have been fortunate coincidence for the writers.

And so finally I got to the controversial final season (it was never referred to as season 6, always The Final Season). By this point we’d had the flash-backs and the flash-forwards. Now we were introduced to what was quickly tagged as the flash-sideways.

An alternate universe was what everyone thought these were, and so adament were they that the real question wasn’t so much what the flash-sideways were, but how they would convene at the end with the original thread. I think this is why the finale was such a Marmite moment (love it or hate it). When it was revealed to be the afterlife there was nothing short of a nuclear fallout.

I must state at this point that I am not religious. I don’t believe in God and follow no religious movement. However, I loved the finale, and found it very emotional (possibly more-so second time around after watching the whole thing in such a short period of time). But even then, it was so wide open to interpretation. Christian (Shephard – Jack’s father) states that it was a place they all made together so they could find each other, and at no point is faith or religion or God actually mentioned. Perhaps, then, it’s not the afterlife as such, but something unique to those who have been on the island.

Having said all that, the only part that was a little cheesy and spoilt it a little for me was when Christian opens the doors of the church and there’s nothing but white light beyond. Hmmm.

But again, this whole afterlife thing, it’s something that’s foreshadowed throughout the series. The most obvious hint (besides certain characters saying they’re all dead) is Desmond’s favourite saying; “See you in another life, brother.” It’s first said in the second season, in the first scene we ever see of Desmond. He repeats it thoughout the series, and even in the finale it’s referred to when Jack says it back to Desmond. And of course, the beauty here is that it’s Desmond who brings them all together in the “afterlife”.

So then, to all the haters, how can it be a copout if it was the plan all along?

Another big complaint was that it didn’t answer all the questions that it had asked over the past six years. Firstly, I think it’s good that it didn’t. There should be some things left open for interpretation. But secondly, I think there were far fewer questions left unanswered than people think.

Again this was an advantage of rewatching. The problem was that almost every episode asked a new question. Only the questions answered within a relatively short space of time would be remembered. But other questions weren’t answered for so long, that by the time they were, viewers had forgotten what the question was… they just knew that there WAS a question. Take the moment in season 5, for example, after young Ben is shot by Sayid. He’s taken to the Others, who take him and heal him, but we don’t see how. We only see him being taken to the outer wall of a temple we, the viewer, still haven’t seen.

How was he saved then? We don’t find that out until season 6, when it’s Sayid who’s taken to the temple, into the healing fountain. When I saw that first time round I’d completely forgotten about young Ben being shot. But second time round, when he’s taken to that outer wall, I’m in my chair going “ohhh, of course!”

So to end this essay, as it seems to have turned into, I’d like to state for the record that I still think LOST was one of the best, most intriguing series ever created, with stunning character development made better by stunning performances from every cast member. Never before have I been so into a series. Even on this second round of viewing I wanted to watch the next episode more than anything else on TV. Now that’s gotta count for something. (Plus, y’know, that Kate’s a bit of alright.)

If you’re interested in all things LOST, may I direct you to the LOST Encyclopedia. And if you have any ideas on theories or just wanna give an opinion, comments are always open.

I’ve also embedded two versions of the now infamous Channel 4 promo, the first being the only one I can remember with the actors claiming what kind of person they might be. The second is a version I didn’t see until searching for the first, and is a more complete cut of the video. Apparently this promo alone cost millions to make.

* my opinion only… I’m well aware it’s not shared by most

© Dan Piraro

So, when you’ve finished your manuscript, what do you do next?

It’s a question I was asking myself for a long, long time. It wasn’t because I didn’t know what the choices were, but because I didn’t know which of them was right for me.

It transpired that I was wasting my time–at least it felt like it–debating with myself whether to send it off to an agent or to start preparing to self-publish. Why was I wasting my time? Because either way, I didn’t know if my MSS was truly ready yet.

You may have been there yourself, where friends and family give you blazing reviews and say that it’s ready to be sent off to an agent/publisher. Naturally they expect the first one you send it to, to snap it up and to see your book on the shelves in time for Christmas. In effect, your friends and family take the place of what you were like when you first decided to put pen to paper. You remember? When you first started planning your tale, thinking the idea was so great what publisher wouldn’t want you?

As we all know, it’s not about the idea, at least a large chunk of it isn’t. It’s about the writing, that is after all what you are/wanting to be… a writer. Really, it probably was never about whether your idea was good enough, it was and is about whether you can write a good story with great pacing and fully-developed characters.

The problem is, it’s those kind of things that your loved ones might be willing to overlook. They’ll be over the moon that you managed to write a few hundred pages, and may even expect that those character-shaped creases will be ironed out by the agent, or the editor, or whoever it is “you writer’s send your book off to”.

That’s not to say that those loved ones don’t know what they’re talking about at all. No doubt you’ve received feedback from some of them that has changed the way you’ve written parts of the book, or perhaps even changed the story. I think I’ve been extremely lucky with my test readers, for they’ve given me some really good advice including their critical feedback on pacing. This helped a great deal and has shaped the first third of my book quite considerably. Yet, even after all this feedback that I feel is worth its weight in gold, I’m still left with that doubt in my mind that my book isn’t ready.

The reason is quite simple. My friends and family aren’t literary professionals.

For me then, before I decide which publishing road to drive down, I seek professional validation that my MSS is ready in the first place. You may think this isn’t quite so important if I decide to try traditional publishing, for if the book’s not ready the agent will say so. From the sounds of it, however, I’d be lucky to get that kind of feedback from an agent. A nicely worded rejection letter would be all I’d expect if anything at all in this rapidly changing book world.

As such, I likely wouldn’t know why my MSS was rejected. But even if it was rejected with “IT’S NOT READY YET” stamped on the front, it’s still spoiling my chances with that agent for the future. Best then to make sure that the MSS isn’t a large piece of amateur bullshit before sending it off.

The need for this professional opinion is far more obvious and self-explanatory when self-publishing, for there is no such thing as rejection. Even though I’m confident about my story and my writing, I wouldn’t be so bold as to assume the MSS was definitely ready, or at least “professional”, without that tip of a hat.

And so it comes down to that need for professional validation (or not as the case may be). There are lots and lots of companies out there who will give you honest, critical, professional feedback for a price. It’s a big step, because if you’re a first-time writer chances are you won’t have too much money to throw around.

My advice then, if this is your first time dealing with literary consultancies (as they seem to be bracketed as), is to find one that is first of all reputable of course, but also one that does a sample of work. Again this won’t be free (though I think there may be a couple out there who offer to do a small sample for free), and the one I’ve found and decided to go with has an option to send your query letter, synopsis and first 5000 words of your MSS, all for a set price.

This seems perfect, as you’re in effect asking them to check exactly what you’d be sending to the majority of agents if you choose that route. And this is what I’ve done.

What am I expecting? Aside from honest, professional feedback, I hope that what I receive is a clearer idea of what further work my MSS needs in order to be of professional quality. This may mean that there’s so much wrong with the first 5000 words that I need to pay full whack for a complete editorial overhaul, or perhaps the only thing that’s wrong are small grammatical errors that require nothing more than a line editor.

Whatever the outcome, I’m looking forward to having a better idea of what my next step will be, and I promise even if the feedback is dream-shattering, I’ll report back here… after a bottle of whiskey.

Cover for Issue Three by Scott Cole

If you’ve not yet come across this little gem (pun intended), go and explore. 5×5 Fiction is a site dedicated to a specific breed of micro-fiction, where all stories must be written as 5 sentences of 5 words each.

Angel Zapata is the genius behind the idea and the site, and is the editor of the quarterly issue. Each has a certain theme, though the stories that authors submit can be anything. The 25 that are chosen for each issue just happen to have a common underlying tone or theme that seems to tie the whole thing together, like fate had a hand in the writing.

The latest issue is Issue Three: Avoidance, Allowance and Animosity. It can be viewed on the site or downloaded as a PDF, and I can vouch that every story is worth reading, with some truly stand-out entries.

Go read, be inspired, and write your own piece of 5×5 fiction for consideration for the next issue.

It really is a shame, for I really do learn more by having to go through all these posts and articles than I would if I was reading them at leisure, per se. Unfortunately, it takes a hell of a lot of time to read through hundreds of items to pick just ten every week, and it’s got to the stage that it’s time I no longer have.

With an increase to working hours in my day job, what remains of my spare time I need to dedicate to this whole writing thing.

It’s not the end, though. Like I say, it’s indefinite so I do hope to bring it back one day. On top of that, I’m still very much wanting to carry on with the irregular posts, and in fact this week I’ll be sending some words off to a literary consultancy, so that’s an exciting “Book Update” post to look forward to.

For now all I can say is thank you all for reading the past Week in Writing posts, I hope they were helpful, and of course thank you to all those awesome authors out there who wrote the posts in the first place.

I will see you all soon for the next post, so don’t be a stranger.

"Camera Man" by Pansa Sunavee

There are hundreds of articles out there in the blogosphere about point of view (POV), so here’s another. Only kidding. Well, kind of.

As we know, there are loads of different options. Okay, maybe “loads” is a bit of a stretch but there are a few.

The first choice we’ll get out of the way is the second person POV. This is where you, the author, might write something like “You pull out your gun, hoping he won’t notice the sweat on your forehead. Your life depends on him believing you still have bullets left.” I’ve yet to read a fiction novel told in this way, but it’s popular with those old role-playing books where a roll of the dice decides your fate.

So then we’re left with first- and third-person perspectives. Using pop culture, the first-person are the Twilights of this literary world, while the third person would be the Harry Potters. In essence, it’s “I” versus “he/she”. But wait, there’s more, for the third-person can be either close or omniscient.

To make it really simple, with a close third-person you can describe a character’s thoughts and feelings, while with omniscient third person you can only describe what others can see (you can see a brow furrow in worry, but you can’t hear someone’s worried thoughts).

I could go a bit more into the differences, for in reality it isn’t quite as clear-cut as this, but what I want to focus on here is deciding which to use, or rather how I decided which to use.

So, admission time, I actually wrote the entirety of my first draft of my first book with no regard to POV. Hey, we’ve all got to start somewhere. However, I had made the first decision without even realising it. Even though I didn’t pay any attention to POV, I naturally wrote in the third person.

This, I think, is the first choice: first or third? You may already know what the pros and cons are with first person. It’s very emotional and the easiest way to get your reader attached to your character, because what your character goes through and feels and thinks is what your reader goes through and feels and thinks.

Personally I feel far too restricted writing in the first-person. There are times I would use this POV, and I have done for a recent short story, but I knew that for my book I wouldn’t be able to do certain things. First-person usually implies the whole book is written from one character’s perspective. “The Time Traveler’s Wife” succeeded in using two, but at the beginning of each chapter you, the reader, were told who it was who now had the spotlight.

With my story, it’s told from the point of view of five different characters (though two of them have very little page space). Because of the way the story works, I wouldn’t be able to do it from one singular point of view; I need the reader to know certain things that the protaganist doesn’t. I also wanted to explore the thoughts and feelings of three characters, not just one.

And finally, it came down to preference. I simply feel more comfortable writing in the third-person, and while it’s good for a writer to try different things, I think writing your first book is enough of a challenge to justify using the methods that are easiest for you.

It was when I began the second draft (all that time ago), that I finally pinned down the whole POV thing. After doing some research I decided on a close third-person as opposed to the omniscient. It was a simple choice in the end.

In the first draft I used both, but I was wrong in doing so. As already stated, the omniscient POV creates a distant relationship between the character and the reader. You, the reader, can be made aware of everything, but you won’t know what a character is thinking.

Because my story is about the personal development of the characters, I needed to be able to go into their minds and explore their emotions, as you can do with first-person, but be able to pull back and show the bigger picture at times. Action scenes are perfect example of when you’d want to pull back, so you can focus on what’s happening and not be restricted by a single character’s incoherent fear.

Close third-person is therefore perfectly balanced between first-person and third-person omniscient; the best of both worlds in a way. But it’s the story that chose the POV, not me.

Original Image "Book of a Wizard" by st3to

It was all quiet on the markaeology front last week, but not by choice. I’m working on a couple of posts at the minute, both returning (finally) to the subject of writing, but alas I simply couldn’t find the time to post either last week. So stay tuned this week for at least one of the them, the first being my own foray into the well-written subject of POV. As always I aim to bring something new to the table, and I find speaking from personal experience is a good way to achieve that.

I’m also thinking of posting a new batch of my photos from around the world, and as it takes me down memory lane it’s something I always enjoy doing, so I hope to find the time to do that this week, too.

Anyhoo, moving on from self-promotion to your regular Monday programming, and here for you are my hand picks from the last seven days of writing-related posts and articles.

In The News

Novelist Ditches Publisher at Book Launch: I thought this a pertinent article, highlighting how, even after you’ve achieved your dream of traditional publishing via self-publishing, the latter can still be the right choice for you.

Publishing

Publishing Information Right Here!: Over on Rachelle Gardner’s blog is this helpful post collecting all her publishing wisdom.

Marketing & Promotion

6 Compelling Reasons Why Authors Need to Blog: I think most of us know that an online platform is a must if you want to give yourself a good chance in WordWorld… but why?

The Writing Process

25 Ways to Plot, Plan and Prep Your Story: Always a joy to read Chuck’s posts, and always worth while.

Oh, Now I Made it Worse: When Editing Goes Astray: If you’re anything like me then you’ve at times wondered if things might have been better before you took a red pen to that sentence.

What Are We Looking For In Characters?: It’s the characters that make the story, so they’re pretty important to get right.

Beaming Blogs

Netflix for Books? Riiiiiight.: A very intuitive post with good analysis of Amazon’s fabled move to offer a library service.

How To Make A Living As A Writer: What we all want to know, whether we admit it or not (I’m admitting it!).

Janet Reid’s (Closed) Contest: I know what you’re thinking, what’s the point of posting this when the contest is closed? Because it’s such a good one that it can be used as a fun exercise in writing. Failing that, you can just look at the intriguing and sometimes brilliant entries here (part 1) and here (part 2).

And Finally…

Resuming normal service with the funnies this week is the tale of a hacker, or rather what said hacker managed to get onto the website of Trinity College; Conan the Barbarian’s Brief Tenure at Trinity College.

Stay safe and well, people.

Original Image "Friend Book" by Dr. Photoshop

Okay, so I’m running a wee bit late today… tonight, even, but I’ve got there in the end.

Some really good reading this week, so we’ll get stuck in from the off.

The Writing Process

• How To Write Fight Scenes With Alan Baxter: An awesome post. That’s it, that’s all you need to know. Awesome. Now go read it.
• How to Make Your Readers Run: This is aimed at the bloggers amongst us, and those using the online platform as a means of promotion and/or marketing.
• The Consequences of Writing Without Reading: I may be a slow reader, but I read and know that by doing so I continually improve my writing. Yet that’s not how everyone works… apparently.
• The Art And Craft Of Writing And The Dilemma Of Self-Publishing: A very good analysis, raising good questions. It made me think.

The Reading Process

• Do Spoilers Really Spoil Anything?: A very interesting post about spoilers, and how there’s more of us than you may think who enjoy a story more knowing the outcome.
• Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 Book Trailer & Free First Chapter: Always a fan of free previews and the like, here’s what I’ve found for this week for all you Murakami fans.
• The Man Booker Prize 2011 Shortlist: With two debut novelist making the cut this year, it should prove to be an exciting year.

Contests

• Malice Domestic Grant to Unpubbed Writers: Here’s an agent-recommended contest for all you mystery writers out there.

Beaming Blogs

• Photofile: Eastern State Penitentiary: I love pictures, I do, and these are inspiration-worthy.

And Finally…

• Recovery in Pieces: A Study of the Literature of 9/11: I leave you this week with an appropriate list of reading to commemorate and learn more on this 10th anniversary of that tragic day.