Tag Archives: #amwriting

Best Endeavours Technical Best: Jane Cable On What Happens After You Sign That Digital Publishing Contract

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Jane Cable, publishing, writingBEST ENDEAVOURS

Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.

TECHNICAL BEST

I feel as though I know every word of The Seahorse Summer off by heart. And that can’t be a good thing. My real battle with editing over a short period of time is coming to the manuscript fresh and able to concentrate on what’s actually on the page, not what I think is there.

It’s just as well I’m on the last lap now, the technical points which are often overlooked. None of them rocket science but mistakes which are all too easy to make and not so simple to spot: a ‘by’ for a ‘my’; a missing indefinite article; and the multiple perils (for me at least) of punctuating dialogue. Yes, I could leave that to the proof reader but I’d like to submit a manuscript which is as perfect as possible.

I have another task for this week too. Quite some months ago I was asked to judge the Autumn Writing competition for one of the better writing groups. The subject matter – A Ghost Story – poetry or prose – and now the entries are sitting in my inbox. To be honest they will be a welcome distraction.

Best Endeavours Technical Best: Jane Cable On What Happens After You Sign That Digital Publishing Contract writing, amwriting, publishing

Most helpfully the group’s website gives a critique guide which can double as a framework when editing your own manuscript and for anyone embarking on the process I thought it would be useful to summarise:

Plot
Is the plot believable? Is it too fast or too slow? Too simple or too complex?

Characters
Too many characters or too few? Are they real people, or flat cutouts? Is it easy to confuse one with another?

Setting
Too many locations or too few? Too much description or too little?

Dialogue
Too much or too little? Do the characters have different voices? Are their words believable?

Viewpoint
Do we stay in one viewpoint, or change? Does the chosen viewpoint work?

Ending
Is the ending too sudden or too slow? Does it follow logically from the story? Does it leave the reader satisfied?

Technical Points
Are there errors in grammar, spelling, layout or punctuation? Are there factual mistakes?

Having some sort of structure helps you to step back from your own work and see it more as others do. Not an easy task, by any means, but an essential part of the writing process. If you don’t belong to a writers’ group you may well have completed your manuscript in glorious isolation. If you aren’t against a deadline, put it down for a few weeks, read something else, get out into the real world for a while so you come back to it fresh.

At the very least, pick up a few ghost stories and settle down with a cup of tea to enjoy them.

Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. The Seahorse Summer tells the tale of how two American soldiers born sixty years apart help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love. Discover more at www.janecable.com.

 

 

A Day In The Life of CJ Carver

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Being an author, people think I get up around midday, go for a long lunch and return home to bang out a few pages before pouring myself a glass of wine and finishing for the day.

Hmmm.  Nice thought.  If only it didn’t take me quite so long to bang out those pages . . .

A Day In The Life of CJ CarverToday I’m woken by the bin men at seven-thirty.  Eyes closed, I’m lying in bed listening to them crashing and banging down the road when, seemingly out of nowhere, an idea begins to form about the next book.  I let it drift.  I don’t try and pin it down.  Gradually it takes a firmer shape and I study it carefully before letting it drift again.

It is this state between waking and sleeping that I find the most valuable for creative thought.  It’s almost like meditation, but not quite, because instead of being clear of thought my mind is occupied with the story I’m trying to tell.  By the time I’m fully awake, I’ve made a handful of notes and am ready to leap into the day.

After a shower, breakfast and a brisk walk, I get stuck in to emails, wanting to clear my mental desk before I start writing.  I’m working on the sequel to Spare Me The Truth, or at least I was until my postie arrives and hands me three parcels, each containing a brand-spanking new hardcover book.  They all look fantastic and although I know I have to read them – I’m on several panels at CrimeFest in Bristol this year with the authors – I really shouldn’t start now.  Or should I?  I flick one open and am immediately captivated by the first page.  This sort of temptation is ever present being self-employed, and I have to force the books away and out of sight.

pic 2 Carver, Caroline 2 credit Steve Ayres

Credit: Steve Ayres

Soon, I’m completely absorbed in my work and don’t notice the time passing until my email pings.  It’s from a psychologist who is helping me research the psychopathology behind serial killers.  Another arrives, this one from a detective inspector in Manchester.  I know it drives the police crazy when writers get things wrong, so I do my utmost to get my facts right, but I have to be careful with research as it can be so riveting, I never get any writing done.

I work on my manuscript until early evening when I have a quick look at Twitter (another terrible distraction) before deciding whether it’s cold enough to light the wood burner.  Or shall I go to the pub?  Writing is a solitary occupation and aside from the postie, I haven’t spoken to anyone all day.  I’d better go to the pub, I decide, and talk to someone or I might go quite mad.

 

©CJ Carver 2016