Tagged: editing

2018 – The Year That Was

To the shock of both of us, last year’s forecast for 2018 was spot-on. We wanted to finish up the Science Novels, outline the middle Music Novel, and begin talking about the Ghost Novels, and that’s pretty much what we did. The one place we missed the mark was in predicting (or hoping) that the first Science Novel would be released in 2018. It wasn’t. But we have the best excuse! 2018 was the year we got an agent! And that put our self-publishing plans on hold while we talk to him and figure out what makes sense in this new landscape.

Here’s how we spent 2018 on the blog:

January and February were devoted to writing Grandson of Science Novel, whining about missing self-imposed deadlines and target word counts, a brief break to clean our desks, and an update to our chain story’s cast of characters.

In March we mused about whether a protagonist should learn of ALL of the villains evil doings (“No.”) And we had the joy of setting up new computers.

April brought several rounds of critique group advice, and we finally reached the end of the first draft of Grandson of Science Novel. Break out the champagne!

But don’t drink too much, because we still had some work to do before the Science Novels could all be considered Done Enough. We spent May plugging holes and strengthening descriptions. Oh, and we got a puppy.

On June 1 we declared ourselves done for realsies, and hit the ground running on that Music Novel outline.

July and August were devoted to brainstorming, outlining, and research for Sibling of Music Novel.

In September we pulled back from Music Novels and dove straight into the Science Novels again, reading through all three of them in preparation for edits and cover design.

The Science Novels remained our focus in October as we worked to get them ready for our beta readers. Plus we passed a major milestone: 1000 blog posts!

When the Science and Music Novels are done, our next project is going to involve ghosts. We spent November taking various road trips and using the time on the road to lay the groundwork for this whole new story universe. Plus we tossed some old audio equipment outside during a blizzard and took pictures of it. As you do.

Which brings us up to the present. December. We GOT AN AGENT! And since he’s going to be selling the first Music Novel for us, we really need to turn our attention back to that series and get the middle book done. We were a bit rusty when we sat down to our brainstorming, but with a little bit of WD-40 and a couple of jumper cables we’re now purring along like a vintage muscle car.

We hope your 2018 went well, and your 2019 goes even better. Happy New Year!

Fear of Details

Rune Skelley’s process is pretty intensive with the supporting materials, as regular readers here are well aware. It’s a system that has evolved as Jen and Kent have worked together on numerous novels over the years. We talk a lot here about the textual elements: rainbows, outlines, and stubs. What we don’t mention so often are the visual aids, but it turns out those can be just as important.

In addition to seeking inspiration on Pinterest and stock photo sites, and “casting” our main characters by including a pic in their bio, we like to create maps and diagrams. Cities, buildings, ships, underground complexes — you name it, we draw maps of it.

Usually.

It might be because we’re so eager to get the current WIP wrapped up, or maybe we’ve just become a little too comfortable with ourselves, but we neglected to draw any pictures of a key locale that figures in the finale. We talked about the place a lot, made good notes. But Kent noticed something about the first draft that he thinks is due to skipping the actual floor plan: he’s hesitant to enrich the scenes with sensory details.

This is a first draft, and of course we’ll address any such deficiencies during revisions. It’s not a disaster, although it might end up being more work than if we’d prepared the visuals up front. (We’re big on up-front preparation.)

Kent’s theory is that this “fear” of details arises from there being two of us working together without concrete documentation of the locale. We’re each making things up as we go, and we might not make them up exactly alike. Mentioning anything specific, like saying the door is on the right or the table is black, creates a potential continuity issue. The logical conclusion then? Don’t mention any details! That way we can’t contradict each other. We can literally keep our story straight. Straight, and devoid of texture or context.

It’s too vague, too loosey-goosey. If only we had a tool to fix that problem…

Wait a minute, we do! The Rune Skelley Writing Toolbox contains numerous strange implements, among them a pair of wrenches. There’s the familiar monkey wrench, meant to be thrown into the gears when everything feels like it’s running a smidge too neatly, and then there’s the goose wrench. That one’s more subtle, and its job is reduce chaos without making everything too rigid. It’s usually deployed during the outlining stage, keeping the plot from losing its shape, but it can also manifest as visual aids that keep the setting (and characters, and props, and so on) in focus.

Remember, Kent: righty-tighty, lefty-loosey.

Shining A Light

We went to a lighting design center this week, and the main thing that we learned is that a lighting design center is a dangerous place for us to be left unsupervised. In addition to all the stuff in the showroom, they also have big, thick catalogs of amazing and weird stuff that you can hang from the walls and ceilings of your actual house and connect to the wiring therein.

There was a not insignificant chance that we would have decided to remodel our entire house (again) so we could have excuses to buy all the fun things. Perhaps it’s a good thing these items are so expensive, as that might be what brought us to our senses.

We knew what we were shopping for when we went in there: something modern and sleek for above the dinner table. We knew what the dining room looked like, and we knew we weren’t really going to redo it. Yet, all the pretty lights in other styles (craftsman, deco, neo-Victorian, space-age retro, regular retro, and vintage industrial {which, let’s be honest: that’s steampunk}) tempted us sorely. In the end, we stuck to our program if not our budget, and ordered a minor masterpiece of modern elegance that will harmonize with our home’s style.

The experience reminded Kent of something he’s heard said about font design. “Not a bunch of pretty letters; a pretty bunch of letters.” The same applies to the words those letters create.

Writing fiction is a lot like decorating a room. It’s less about how cool, or how gorgeous, any individual element might be. It’s certainly not about how many nifty things you can festoon the page with. It’s about the overall effect. You have to know when a humorous beat is needed, and when to lay off the rimshots and allow the moment to breathe. When you’re choosing a strong verb, you must choose the one that matches the flavor of the scene and the personality of the character doing it.

It’s hard to take out the stuff that doesn’t belong. When it’s good stuff, just not the right stuff to bring the room together, the killing of the darlings can feel literal. But you don’t really have to kill them. Just send them out of the room.