Writing Process Blog Tour!

I'm so pleased to be part of this blog tour - big thanks to Sally Poyton for tagging me in! 

Sally and I met at the excellent writing group, Abingdon Writers, whose members write in a large variety of genres. You'll note that my tagged authors are also members of Abingdon Writers and write in different genres to both Sally and I. 

If you're new to my teeny tiny corner of the internet, I write contemporary romance and am currently waiting to hear from an agent who requested my full manuscript a couple of weeks ago - eek! The same manuscript is out with a couple more agents who I am hoping might ask for the whole thing too... Fingers crossed. 

Anyway, onto the subject of the blog tour and the how and whys of my writing!

What am I working on? 

Well, I have a first draft of my second novel locked away at the moment waiting to go through a first edit - as suggested by Stephen King in the excellent 'On Writing', I'm leaving it to sit for a while before I go back to tear it apart and tidy it up. 

In the meantime, I'm working on the first draft of a spin-off novel based on a secondary character from my first book. This character was so popular with my lovely test readers that it seemed only right that I give him his own story. He is enormous fun to write and I'm having a great time writing his story. He's a bad boy and a bit of a man-whore but he is incredibly loyal to his friends and would do anything for them. 

How does my work differ from others of it's genre?

This is a toughie. I suppose it's all in 'the voice'. That unique way of telling the story, the characters you choose, the way you progress your story line and develop your characters. 

I also tend to have my couple get together early on and deepen their relationship until something or someone tears them apart. Then I can explore their responses and the reader really gets to know the characters as individuals. Getting them back together often shows how they have grown and learnt something about themselves along the way. 

Why do I write what I do?

I love a good romantic comedy - they can make you feel the whole gamut of emotion. Sadness, happiness, love, lust, excitement, tension, frustration. 

I want my readers to feel all those emotions when they read my work - I want them to cry and smile. I want their hearts to race and their stomachs flip over. I want them to laugh out loud and make faces when the characters do something stupid. My aim is for the reader to live the book until the very last page and beyond!  

How does my writing process work? 

Hmmm, writing process. I don't really have one! 

I'm definitely a pantser and not a plotter. I usually have an end scene in mind and let the characters guide me to the finish. 

As I'm going along, I keep a rough time line of events and I write character bios so that I'm consistent with eye colour or height, etc. These will also include personality traits, a bit of family background, education, relationship history, likes and dislikes, that kind of thing, and will get constantly updated as I write. 

After the first draft is complete, I leave it a month or two before going back for a first edit. Nobody gets to read a first draft! I print it off and make notes as I read it through. Some characters get cut completely, scenes get deleted or written in, back story gets dispersed more evenly, dialogue replaces bits that are telling and not showing. 

Once the first edit is done, I send the whole thing to my guinea pig readers and await feedback. Once all that wonderful constructive criticism comes back, I make amendments, fine tune the spelling and grammar and make sure everything makes sense and characters are behaving consistently. 

Ta Dah! A complete manuscript ready for submitting when I feel completely ready for the emotional trauma and agony of waiting for responses. 

Please check out my tagged authors next week on Monday 31st March:

Robin Triggs

Rob has been writing seriously since 2005 and is still grumpy. He writes cross-genre fiction, blending crime, science fiction, adventure  and psychological thriller. He favours the catch-all term 'speculative fiction', which just goes to show. He's also extraordinarily bad at cricket.

In 2003 he came in the top 500 of the Dublin International Poetry Competition and is inordinately proud of this achievement. No one knows why. You can find his (not) winning entry on his blog - www.robintriggs.wordpress.com, along with assorted writerly ramblings. You can also stalk him on Twitter @RobinTriggs

Marissa de Luna is an up-and-coming young author with a passion for writing, travel and adventure. The Bittersweet Vine is her second novel which has been published by Thames River Press after Marissa successfully self published her first novel, Goa Traffic. She lives and works in Oxfordshire. 

Find her at www.thecoffeestainedmanuscript.blogspot.com

Five tips for editing your novel!

Many writers dread the editing process and, I freely admit, I used to be one of them but you know what? After three edits of the same novel, I have finally discovered that it can be quite fun. Yes, fun!

Okay, well maybe not THIS much fun.

When you've left a novel alone for a long time, revisiting it is like meeting up with friends you haven't seen for a couple of years. Things have changed in your life, you have new experiences to talk about, different stories to tell. Everything is good and glowing and exciting. You rediscover their funny little quirks and find that you really missed their self-deprecating sense of humour.

And then you introduce a new friend to the equation and they love your old friend. They love your old friend so much, they keep bugging you for more get togethers. They tell you things about your old friend that they've noticed - things you hadn't thought about. Seeing your old friend through your new friend's eyes really helps you appreciate all the good things about them.

Of course, the new friend also likes to gossip about the old friend pointing out (in a totally non-bitchy way, natch) the annoying things about them too. And their flaws. But this is all okay because, once you know all the things that aren't quite 'right' about your old friend, you can set about changing them. At least, you can if the old friend happens to be a book you wrote (or maybe if you're a psychiatrist. Do they even have friends?!?)

So, this is where I'm at right now. Having given a friend my manuscript to read (purely as a reader. She doesn't write which, I think, is a really good thing), she's given me a different perspective from previous writing buddies that have read it and a few things that require clarification or beefing up a little. To that end, my top tip is here, at number one in the list:

1. Get somebody who has never read it before to read through it. Fresh eyes are the best! Believe me, they will pick out things that are missing like WHOLE SCENES. Good grief, you say, how can you miss out entire scenes? Well, after a brutal editing round last time and all of the story residing in your head, it's easy to 'think' bits in when you, the writer, are reading through your own story.
2. Print it out in a different font/size/colour to whatever you typed it in. Apparently, this tricks your brain into thinking it's something fresh you're reading and not the book you've been working on for the past eleven years months.
3. Jot down the main points of each chapter as you read them. Then you can check that continuity is alive and well in your novel and someone isn't enjoying a beautiful scenic bike ride through the English countryside when, two chapters previously, they were talking about how they never learnt to ride a bike and haven't learnt how to in the in between chapters.
4. Read it out loud or, at least, read aloud your dialogue. If it sounds stunted and clumsy when you read it out, then it needs to be changed. You can get programmes that will read text for you - try a free trial and see if that works for you before splashing out on it or check out this free text to voice software.
5. Have lots of chocolate on standby. Let's face it, this is just a top tip for life in general.

Stick your face in one of these when it all gets a bit much

And, if you have no idea how to even begin editing, then take a look at these links:

http://writerunboxed.com/2012/12/08/a-simple-approach-to-revisions/

http://helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/weeding-or-editing.html

I like Writer Unboxed so much, I'm adding it to my regular blog visit list - loads of really informative and succinct articles and interesting author interviews, etc. Go and check it out!