Month: November 2015

Slash and Burn … Part II

You hit a point during novel reduction when you honestly believe that your work is parred to the bone; there is not a single word you can take out that won’t crack the foundations of your masterpiece and leave a pile of literary rubble on the bedroom floor.

So it’s time to take a break, and while you’re having a break, you have time to read someone else’s book. Doesn’t have to be a fresh one; in fact, it’s better if it’s one that you’ve read before. This time though, you’re going to read it with an editor’s eye: look for bits you can reduce or trim away completely. This is not to say that the author would agree with you; this is entirely your opinion.

So what are you looking for? Well, exactly the same excesses you’re looking for in your own work:

  • The odd walk or journey that doesn’t lead anywhere or tell you anything new about the characters.
  • Repeating information: something that is said, and then said again, in a slightly different way, a few lines later.
  • Long, flowery chapter intros that set a nice poetic scene, but will probably get skipped over by the reader. (You’ll know them when you see them, because you jump the last ten lines or so.)
  • Long flowery chapter endings that you feel resentful for having read. (You’ll know them because you’ll think, ‘What the hell was that all about?’ as soon as you’ve finished it.
  • Sentences that seem to run on for years and years.
  • Whole chapters that you think you could do without.
  • Characters that bring a little colour to the story, but not much else.

Be brutal; in fact, be over-brutal. You’re not really criticising your favourite author; you’re getting yourself in the right frame of mind to criticise your own work … again.

Then, after another few days, go for it again. You’ll find that you weren’t quite as ‘finished’ as you first thought.

Interested in self-publishing? Read Ana Spoke.

I don’t often recommend websites, though I think I probably should do it a lot more often. I’ve been following the adventures of Ana Spoke on her path to self-publishing stardom. If you’re deciding between traditional publishing and going it alone then you owe it to yourself to spend some time on Ana’s website. What separates Ana from the vast majority of the self-publishers is that she’s done it properly: she’s spent two and a half years writing the book, has had it professionally edited, reworked it and edited again.

She’s also documenting what’s she doing as a kind of self-publisher’s diary, and it’s a fascinating insight into what  it takes to get your work noticed in a market where thousands of new works are appearing almost every day. Ana has listed the places where she’s tried marketing her book (It’s called Shizzle Inc., by the way) and tells you (with graphs, no less!) what pricing models have worked best for her. There are some lively discussions there too (especially concerning grammar and the use of editors, and if pricing your work to low devalues it in the readers’ eyes).

The biggest takeaway for me? Marketing yourself as a self-publisher takes time, effort and it can’t be done for free.