December 23, 2019
How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?
I started a list of everything that changed about my writing after publishing my first book, and realized this post could get quite long if I included all of them. So, we’ll start from the “biggest” changes and work my way through a few of them.
Probably the biggest change was I started paying attention to chapters. Yes, Wolves’ Pawn started life as one long story with no breaks. I wrote the prequel and kept on going. When I completed the story and decided that hey, maybe it was good enough to publish, the first editing I did was to add chapters. It’s harder than it sounds, to find the right place to break into the action without leaving the reader hanging. (or hanging so they want to keep reading!)
Next up – head hopping. I wasn’t even familiar with the term until I shared the first chapter of the book with a critique group. For those of you who don’t know, it means bouncing from one character’s point of view to another’s. Yes, I was guilty of it. I don’t do it any more (much) and normally catch it when I slip. The sad part is that I’m much more aware when other authors do it, and mentally take imaginary points off for the transgression.
Let’s mention editing in general. It’s a lot of work. But as I’ve done more of it, with each new book, I find myself catching mistakes before they get put in the document. It slows down my writing speed, but then I take less time editing. Seems like a fair trade-off to me. Same with passive voice. I don’t use the word ‘was” near as much as I used to in my writing. Along with trying to banish ‘had.’
What’s the most unusual (in my mind) thing I’ve learned? The proper use of the hyphen (-) the en-dash (–) and the em-dash (—). I didn’t even know about the existence of the last two before getting ready to publish Wolves’ Pawn. I don’t claim to be an expert, but at least I have a concept of how to use each of them. (I’ll spare you the boring details.)
But the most important thing that has changed since publishing my first book? I no longer write my stories out by hand. Yes, gone are the days of notepads with page after page of handwritten words, with slashes through paragraphs and notes written in the margins. Which translated to additional time spending hours interpreting my own writing and transcribing it on the computer. It took effort, but now I’m comfortable creating my first draft on a computer.
Phew! That feels like a lot of changes, so I’m going to stop here. But before I go, I want to wish everyone who is celebrating this week or last week or next week a Happy Holiday. May your days be cheery and your nights warm.
Now I’m off to check what the other authors on the hop have changed in their writing process.
December 23, 2019
How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?
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Ah yes, head hopping. It’s very easy to do when you’re a beginner. I think we all make that mistake at first. However, in a couple of my novels I purposely write each chapter from a different person’s perspective whilst carrying on with the story.
Almost as bad as omniscience. Got to watch out for that one, too!
The characters or ourselves (lol)?
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My first novel had 79 chapters to begin with, once I had reduced it to 38, it read so much better. I still write what’s in my head but I spend a lot more time refining it afterwards.
79 chapters is pretty impressive!
There were far too many, they broke up the rhythm of the story. That was another lesson I learned
Writing a novel by hand?! Wow!