Time for a new weekly writer’s roundup of my works-in-progress and those ready to read!

I finished the new chapter four for Vivian’s Last Cigarette late Sunday night. Coming in at 4,400 words, it contains a lot of interaction between my orc protagonists and several minor characters. This chapter definitely relays a feel for the town of Buford, something that was missing until late in the book before. It also shows them dealing with several levels of ugly behavior from assorted “normals”.

Poor, friendly Gronk gets put through an emotional wringer this this chapter as his belief in the better nature of people is challenged by his first major encounter with anti-changeling bigotry. :-( Then on top of that he feels the sting of finding out that he’s lost a friend because of his transformation.

The big guy is, of course, too good natured to do anything but get emotionally bruised and quiet. But Viv silently witnesses his rejection. Having been an orc longer than Gronk, she’s grown thick-skinned and canny in dealing and (particularly) avoiding a world that usually sees her as a monster. But writing her reaction to seeing Gronk go through rejection like she did in the past was a good scene.

Her feathers are ruffled, and the display of growing empathy and protectiveness for Gronk I wrote for her doesn’t bode well for his former friend. Viv knows how to play the role of the monster many see her as, and delivers the most intimidating pizza ordering scene ever as a result.

I’ll stop talking now, before I start dropping spoilers. ;-)

I’m at a point where I can start to judge how much of a gap remains to be bridged to weave the old chapter two back into the new narrative. I’m thinking it will take me an additional two chapters to do that, making what was once chapter two the new chapter seven.

Once that’s done, minor edits, additions and reworking will need to be made to most of the other old chapters (3-17) to get them in line with the new events. Chapters nine and seventeen will require more extensive rewrites, but I’m not expecting any big migraines. If anything, I’m excited to be putting in some revisions that will tie in the new part of the book that I’ve grown.

I also worked on my blurb for the novel. This was actually quite a bit of work, —because blurbs are hard, man— and I devoted my free time on Friday and half of my day Saturday to the task. Some of you may remember that back in November I spent about a month coming up with this version.  I got multiple feedbacks on it last week that were less than stellar, so I tried a different approach in a new version:Thoughts? Impressions? I like it better than the old one, and those that disliked the first version felt this was much better.

Over the weekend, I also had a new idea for the book: I’m strongly considering ending the novel differently. What is currently last chapter would remain, but it would be followed by a short epilogue of a few thousand words closing the story. This epilogue would call back to the new material I’ve written in expanding the opening of the novel, and unify its new whole. It would end the book on a stronger note, and set up a possible sequel much more definitively. Not quite a cliffhanger, but I defiantly think that those reading it will want to find out what happens next. :-)

In summation, a good weekend of progress made. Outside of my efforts, Lauren completed her feedback/notes on the new chapter three said she really liked it. And my second beta reader Jessica finally finished the last of her notes on the second draft after many tumultuous months that required her to delay. So now I have those chunks of editing to work on as the book keeps shaping-up!

Alright, time for me to stop blogging and get back to writing some more fiction! Take care!

A super friend was inspired to make this from a quip I wrote in my latest chapter. ;-)

Time for a new weekly writer’s roundup of my works-in-progress and those ready to read!

After all the roadblocks I encountered last week, this week was a lot more productive! Getting much of my blog work done ahead of time granted me bonus hours to write on Vivian’s Last Cigarette, and with that added time I finished its new chapter three early Friday evening.

At 6,750 words, it ended up being the second longest chapter in the book so far. The number one spot still belongs to the climactic chapter of the novel, if only by 20 words. However, like the climax, there’s a lot of action and thrills so it reads quite quickly. Combined with the revised first and new second chapters, they form an exciting short introductory story arc of about 15,000 words.

This new opening puts the focus right on the two protagonists for some time. It also makes me confident that readers now will have enough investment in the characters by the time the story shifts into a different gear and terrain during the mid-book chapters.

My weekend hit, and Saturday was a full day. I started by editing the first chapter notes of Lauren L. Garcia, my ever awesome 3rd reader, into a sixth draft of chapter one. Thereafter I got Kim’s feedback on the new chapter three, and after making a second draft of it from that I sent the third chapter over to Lauren.

I then started work on editing the new chapter two into a third draft. Once again this was based on feedback from Lauren, and with around a hundred and eighty items to review and take action on, the edit took the rest of the day. However, I did finish it by the evening. And between editing, I was also interviewed for a writing podcast that blogger and author Bryan Aiello is trying to launch as a series. I don’t know what will come of it, but we had a good conversation all the same!

Sunday was entirely about getting the new fourth chapter started, and I got a bit more than 1,700 words done for the day. That’s a decent showing for me, given that I had to stop and think-out several parts along the way. I discovered that, although I have a good idea about what I want to happen in chapter four and have done some planning with that… I didn’t have its opening plotted very well.

This proved particularly tricky, because the chapter features a big shift in setting and tone. Some themes that have taken a backseat since the first chapter are entering center stage again. The initial opening I had in mind was far too abrupt, and a jarring change of gear.

And it really is a radical transition. Going from an abandoned deathtrap of a paper mill –where the focus is completely on the orc protagonists on their own– to interacting with “normals” (some with biases towards them) in a small mom and pop convenience store. That’s quite a shift, and my initial idea to open with them literally walking into the store just didn’t cut it.

So I took a different approach. Instead of the abrupt open, everything I wrote on Sunday was a segue to bridge the change from three to four.

I think it turned out well. I say this because I also used it as an opportunity to highlight and show a few things along with doing a longer and gentler transition. It gave me a chance to illustrate some signs of improvement and a couple of stumbles involving Viv and Gronk’s growing friendship. I also found some opportunities to show more details about protagonists, ideas that I’d had in my head as parts of the background, but hadn’t found a place for in the novel until now.

Lastly, I worked-in some foreshadowing of themes that get more attention later in the book and some that are just about to play out.

All-in-all, I think it’s a good start. It does make me concerned that the material I wanted to cover in two chapters may require a word-count more fitting of three instead. That doesn’t bother me insofar as making the novel too long (I could fit-in several more chapters if I had to), but it would mean a little more work and time needed to finish the revisions.

I’m content to see how things unfold with the storytelling, and modify my plans from there.

Even after the weekend, progress on the novel continued in the form of getting the feedback from my second beta reader on the climactic chapter of the novel (formerly chapter fourteen and currently chapter eighteen). Then I received a check-in email from my book cover artist, advising me that we’re still on schedule for her to start shooting me ideas and cover sketches this weekend.

That’s some news that has me SUPER excited! :-)

Alright, time for me to stop blogging and get back to writing some more fiction! Take care!