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[kais]

7 hours ago, Robinski said:

EDIT: Ok, I found it

And actually, the release of AFD was pushed to February 27th because the Trump election freaked out a sizable portion of the US publishing industry. Nice to have release dates for two of the three though!

ETA: @Mandamon can you tell me more about this indie authors group you're a part of? I saw something about it on Twitter from you.

Edited December 3, 2016 by kaisa

[Mandamon he/him]

@kaisa sure:

I actually belong to a couple. I stumbled on this one on Goodreads a couple months ago:

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/154447-support-for-indie-authors

They are very active, with lots of support. They also run big sales 3 or 4 times a year. It helps get word out for lots of Indie authors at the same time. They have a lot of really great information about marketing strategies, where/how to do promotions, Kindle and Amazon info, etc.

 

This is another Indie author group a friend of mine belongs to, and I got my books listed:

http://www.indyauthorsunited.com/science-fiction

However, they don't seem to do a whole lot of marketing for the site.

 

There's also these two sites where you can list your books for people to find. Not sure what the returns are. I don't think I've sold any through them. Booklife will let you submit your books to get a review from them. Mine was refused, though they didn't give a reason. They have a ton of requests.

http://www.iauthor.uk.com/

http://booklife.com/

[kais]

Happy Krampusnacht! Anyone joining me in watching Rare Exports?

[kais]

Anyone who is awake and online, help? I'm filling out the form for ASD's cover. Spam me with book cover designs you think might be a decent representation? 

[Vreeah]

Oh, like images that fit the theme? Or sketches of possibilities?

[Mandamon he/him]

8 hours ago, kaisa said:

Anyone who is awake and online, help? I'm filling out the form for ASD's cover. Spam me with book cover designs you think might be a decent representation? 

Spaceships are always popular for Space opera, as are weird aliens. Maybe something with the Nug pod approaching a planet? Or Ek and Mik meeting a Nug? If the first book doesn't have any of the MCs on it, would be good to get a general impression of them. All three in the pod?

Or, could use something nearer the climax and have a picture of Ard's capital and how the planet is set up in relation to the trees.

[TKWade he/him]

Question on writing strategies.

I'm listening to a Sanderson lecture and he's talking about writing a book through a whole 1st rough draft before doing any revisions. And then doing total revisions with having a whole picture of the flow and making changes, cutting characters, etc., at that point. What are everyone's thoughts on that type of process? 

I can definitely see the benefit for myself. I've been writing chapter by chapter and doing bits of revision - granted i'm not nearly as educated in writing as he was when he first started - and i find myself needing direction on my own story to resolve some of the issues i'm running into: Character development, engaging plot, making the story make sense, etc. 

Thoughts?

[kais]

Just now, TKWade said:

Thoughts?

I think this is very much personal preference, and how much outline work you do. I don't outline well. I try, I do, but my characters do what they want, not what I want, which means my outlines look nothing like the final book. That also means too that I often can't write the end of a book until I have a really defined beginning and middle. Writing through from start to finish before revising would just end up with me in a forever case of writer's block. 

What works for me is to write as far as I can (usually in about 10K chunks), then go back and revise heavily until there is clear flow. When I have confidence in those bits I move forward another 10K or so. I don't really consider the first draft 'done' until it has an end though, which is why people have noted that my early chapters often seem refined for a first draft--I've been through those chapters usually ten or so times, trying to tease out the most important elements so I can finish the story.

I also, and I don't know how many others do this, tend to over block in my first draft. I try to capture every movement, every gesture, every scene. Then in subsequent edits I cut it down for flow and tension. A first draft of a story might be 120K, and by the time it goes to press its 80K. I'm getting better at this with time (less overwriting to begin with).

Basically, I think as long as you get words on a page, it doesn't matter how you do it. Everyone is going to have a way that works for them.

[TKWade he/him]

3 minutes ago, kaisa said:

Basically, I think as long as you get words on a page, it doesn't matter how you do it. Everyone is going to have a way that works for them.

I was just curious what people have been successful with.

I find myself in this situation where - I want a complete a 1st draft by June or July and i'm just not writing fast enough. Part of that reason is how much time I've spent on my prologue and chapter 1. I sit there and think, this is silly, I'm not making progress on my story. I am, in some ways, but i'm not moving the story forward.

I then run into issues like I have in my chapter 2 where I have a scene that just doesn't make sense in the world that I have created. I'm going to have to do some major revision to that chapter to really make it work. And i'm only about 1/4 - 1/2 through chapter 3. That is as far as i've gotten.

I'm not much of a planner and i'm not extremely organized, so i think getting a detailed outline is kind of not my style. I'm a type of person that find scenes or characters in my head and think. I want to see this happen in my story - how do i get to this point?

I'm going to try writing out as far as I can to see how it works for me. Even if it's garbage i'm putting words on paper and i'm building a story that can be reshaped and it'll give me some sense of direction. 

 

[kais]

1 minute ago, TKWade said:

Even if it's garbage i'm putting words on paper and i'm building a story that can be reshaped and it'll give me some sense of direction. 

Everyone's first draft is garbage. But you can't build a story without a foundation, so garbage > blank page always!

[aeromancer he/him]

13 hours ago, kaisa said:

Anyone who is awake and online, help? I'm filling out the form for ASD's cover. Spam me with book cover designs you think might be a decent representation? 

I really like the covers for Phillip Reeve's Larklight trilogy (the old ones). It's a gauntlet of the protagonists, with several notable objects from the book behind them.

1 hour ago, TKWade said:

I'm listening to a Sanderson lecture and he's talking about writing a book through a whole 1st rough draft before doing any revisions. And then doing total revisions with having a whole picture of the flow and making changes, cutting characters, etc., at that point. What are everyone's thoughts on that type of process? 
Thoughts?

This is what I personally do, but I haven't finished any full revamp of the 1st draft yet. I'm halfway through one, and I think it works. It lets you see the full implications of anything you want to change, and what you need to do to have events happen in later parts of the book.

[neongrey]

My general thought is if you get bogged down in revisions you're never going to get forward motion. It's never really going to hurt you to make spot edits going backward but if you're continually rewriting a chapter you need to pick a version, let it fall as it is, and keep going. Once you've got more written down, you can better see the big-picture stuff that's affecting why you need to overhaul.

I outline, or I say I outline, but what works for me is a loose practice of knowing all my plot points in general and the specific route to the next one in specific. I know what needs to happen in a given chapter when I start a chapter, but I generally don't nail that down until not long before I start. I know when x, y, or z is going to need to happen but that's about it, and things can change when I get there. Other people do it differently. I've got a friend who writes totally non-linearly and if she tried to start writing at chapter 1 and stop at chapter end, she'd never get anything done.

You're not writing in front of an audience (ie, in serial), so you don't need to treat everything you've written as set in stone. But you do need to pick a point where you stop looking at a given slice of the work or else you're not going to have larger components to look at, and since greater sections of the work have different sorts of problems, you need to have them done to be able to look at them.

I dunno, sometimes the right answer is to toss things (said the person who threw out a good fifty thousand words a few months ago) and sometimes the answer is to pause midway to revise, but if you're sitting and doing and redoing the same piece of the puzzle, you're never ever going to move forward.

I will say that outline or not, you do need to know where your story is going, more or less from the start. But 'where your story is going' is a pretty nebulous thing.

[Hobbit]

3 hours ago, TKWade said:

I'm listening to a Sanderson lecture and he's talking about writing a book through a whole 1st rough draft before doing any revisions. And then doing total revisions with having a whole picture of the flow and making changes, cutting characters, etc., at that point.

I think there is definitely a benefit to this.  Having only ever finished one novel-length work (hey, I've finished a novel!), I found that having everything down on the page was super clarifying to me.  But I think the biggest benefit was proving to myself that yes, I actually can finish something!  Also, I wrote that book having already written an outline for it.  Sure, things changed as I wrote it, but if I hadn't had that guiding force keeping my plot threads from getting in a knot, I don't think I could have finished without stopping and revising, like @kaisa describes.  

3 hours ago, TKWade said:

I find myself in this situation where - I want a complete a 1st draft by June or July and i'm just not writing fast enough. Part of that reason is how much time I've spent on my prologue and chapter 1. I sit there and think, this is silly, I'm not making progress on my story. I am, in some ways, but i'm not moving the story forward.

I then run into issues like I have in my chapter 2 where I have a scene that just doesn't make sense in the world that I have created. I'm going to have to do some major revision to that chapter to really make it work. And i'm only about 1/4 - 1/2 through chapter 3. That is as far as i've gotten.

I'm not much of a planner and i'm not extremely organized, so i think getting a detailed outline is kind of not my style. I'm a type of person that find scenes or characters in my head and think. I want to see this happen in my story - how do i get to this point?

I can really relate to this.  This is how I've been writing my giant epic fantasy baby.  I'll describe where I am right now and maybe it will help you, or at least be interesting: 

Over years and years (and years) I've gotten up to 180,000 words on the epic, but the writing process is such a slog (write several chapters, go back and scrap 90%, re-write, scrap 95%, re-write my beginning again, write a new chapter, scrap it, etc...).  At this point I'm only a quarter through my overarching plot line, and I finally admitted that even though I've always scoffed at the idea of outlining, I at least had to learn how to plot.

So, I did some research about different plotting methods and came up with two I liked - the classic three act structure that WE always talks about, and something called spreadsheet plotting, which is JK Rowling's method.  I watched some TV shows and movies and plotted them using both methods.  Then I took one of my short stories that had fizzled out in the middle, and I plotted it.

Voila!  I suddenly saw the way forward!  I wrote an outline for the second half of the short story.  Using the outline, I was able to finish it.  Even though it still needs work, it was done, and it felt cohesive instead of rambling!  I used my newfound plotting skills to write an outline for my nanorwimo novel, and I was able to write it all the way through without going back and revising, except for adding a few sentences here and there.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, I would recommend that you experiment with outlining.  I think a lot of people assume it has to be restrictive, but I don't find it restrictive at all.  I use it very much like a map, maybe like what @neongrey is describing: "MC goes to his PhD-weilding cousin's house and she helps him interpret the refugee resettlement applications.  She confirms his suspicion that someone has been tampering with the applications.  They run out for coffee to process.  Next: MC calls his boss and his boss doesn't believe him, and gets mad that he broke security protocol.  As they talk, he drinks more coffee and compulsively feeds treats to his cat."  So I know what needs to get done in each scene (but not how to do it! That's still up to the characters), and I include a sentence or two to remind me why I'm excited about writing the scene, and how it brings out the character's awesomeness.  I haven't applied this to my epic yet, but hopefully someday soon I will!

All that said, if you're writing, you're improving, even if you're re-writing your beginning for the 12th time.  What you do depends on what you want to work on and where you are in your process.

ETA: Oof that was long.  TL;DR: I like outlining (but not super detailed outlining), because otherwise I have no idea what I'm doing.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Hobbit

[Vreeah]

Oh yes, it has its benefits.

Being able to ignore inadequacies as you write your first draft is highly productive. You'll be able to say your story is complete in a short amount of time, even if you can't confidently say that it's completed neatly.

The thing about revising small chapters and chunks is that there's less editing during the moment, but there will also be more opportunities to edit. It's a lot harder to ignore those opportunities if you aren't set on finishing the entire story first. You might be writing a new paragraph when you come up with a new way to describe something that happens often in your book, and you might fall in love with this method of description. If you don't tell yourself to write straight to the finish, it's incredibly tempting to stop progressing to update the rest of your book.

Inversely, when you write the entire draft first and start thinking about revision, you're faced with a more daunting task. It's tempting to edit smaller chunks because it's so much easier. An entire story from start to finish is a lot of words you need to wade through at once.

It's also like a larger version of the outline versus pantsing/discovery discussion the Writing Excuses team has brought up in its podcasts. One of the possible issues with outlines is that some authors feel like an outline writes the life out of their story, and so they won't be motivated to finish or develop it. On this scale, after you finish an entire book, you can argue that it writes even more life out of it.

It can go the opposite way, too. Finishing a story brings a feeling of closure and elation, and for some authors that feeling is a huge boost that gets them through revising.

If you never tried the method before, I'd advise attempting to do so at least once. Since writing more or less involves finding your own motivation, you might as well see if it brings out the right emotions and inspirations for you.

[Robinski he/him]

On 6 December 2016 at 2:54 AM, kaisa said:

Happy Krampusnacht! Anyone joining me in watching Rare Exports?

That film is awesome, love it, love it, love it  Enjoy!

[TKWade he/him]

Okay, new question to pose, writing about current everyday objects in a new world with no basis for those objects. e.g. a vehicle. Do you come up with a new name for this mechanical device that is altered from our reality of it or do you just call it what it is? You tend to see this often with guns or military weaponry in books. In WoT RJ called coffee, kafe, and cannons, Dragons, etc. 

So, do i come up with a new name for flying vehicles that fits my realm?

I struggle with this sometimes because words have origins and those origins don't exist in some worlds, so there would be no basis for them.

[Vreeah]

Oh, I feel very strongly about that.

All words have origins. If it's coming from another world, then by all rights they'd have their own unique language and everything. Completely different histories. However, as a novel put in front of our faces, I think we can safely stomach the other world's language and objects being translated to our language equivalents.

Yes, the word "laser" originated from "l(ightwave) a(mplification by) s(timulated) e(mission of) r(adiation)" in the 1950s in our world, but whatever word the fantasy world made to describe "beam of light" can still be translated to "laser" in our language, even if the origins of their word trace a different history.

That said, sometimes a word might break the theme of a story too much, or it might tie into the name of someone who is too famous in our reality. Whatever the reason, it the word is too uncomfortable in the middle of your story, then yeah it would be good to make something new. The question is if it comes off as a translation, or if the terms stands out too much. Rose among a field of daisies.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Vreeah

[aeromancer he/him]

1 hour ago, TKWade said:

You tend to see this often with guns or military weaponry in books. In WoT RJ called coffee, kafe, and cannons, Dragons, etc. 
I struggle with this sometimes because words have origins and those origins don't exist in some worlds, so there would be no basis for them.

Speaking of ... I recently (last week) had to name a weapon as a 'Rotatory Rifle-Cannon' instead of Gatling gun (because there is no Dr. Gatling in my world). I follow the basic principle of 'form & function', which is naming things after what they look like, or do. Gatling gun is Rotatory Rifle Cannon, because it looks like a cannon, and rotates.

[neongrey]

44 minutes ago, Hobbit said:

So, I guess what I'm saying is, I would recommend that you experiment with outlining.  I think a lot of people assume it has to be restrictive, but I don't find it restrictive at all.  I use it very much like a map, maybe like what @neongrey is describing: "MC goes to his PhD-weilding cousin's house and she helps him interpret the refugee resettlement applications.  She confirms his suspicion that someone has been tampering with the applications.  They run out for coffee to process.  Next: MC calls his boss and his boss doesn't believe him, and gets mad that he broke security protocol.  As they talk, he drinks more coffee and compulsively feeds treats to his cat."  So I know what needs to get done in each scene (but not how to do it! That's still up to the characters), and I include a sentence or two to remind me why I'm excited about writing the scene, and how it brings out the character's awesomeness.  I haven't applied this to my epic yet, but hopefully someday soon I will!

Similarly, but I tend to go in with even less (that said, doing it entirely off-paper means that there's always more associated mental baggage). Like, what I had for my 5, originally, was more or less: Lasila and Iluya meet up, drop more context for the contract terms; we find out Adrichel's getting in on the action. Awkward family scene. Lawyer battle; Adrichel and Eshrin are introduced.

Now, as we can see what actually happened is that she didn't make it to the meeting at all in 5 and I devoted basically the whole of 6 to it. Part of it's that I wanted that scene at the end of 5 but a lot of it's also that a lot of the context I wanted in 5 ended up not making it in (and then I edited more back into 5 the other night).

Or like my notes for 8, the one i'm about to start, pretty much solely comprise 'savae gets commissioned to make earrings, decides to make MURDER EARRINGS instead, kathalania is uncomfortable with this in some way; savae don't care because savae don't care (keep this to 1500 words or under gdi i need to do like three chapters in the space of one)'.

So, like, I know who's involved, I know where it is, and I know what needs to get done. If I need to get something else done that I didn't expect, I reshuffle.

1 hour ago, TKWade said:

 

Okay, new question to pose, writing about current everyday objects in a new world with no basis for those objects. e.g. a vehicle. Do you come up with a new name for this mechanical device that is altered from our reality of it or do you just call it what it is? You tend to see this often with guns or military weaponry in books. In WoT RJ called coffee, kafe, and cannons, Dragons, etc. 

So, do i come up with a new name for flying vehicles that fits my realm?

I struggle with this sometimes because words have origins and those origins don't exist in some worlds, so there would be no basis for them.

 

As a rule, if it's identical to a thing that exists as we know it, I feel like you should just call it what it is. The reader knows what you mean and you don't need to explain it then. Etymology is inescapable in any language, and with writing any fiction in general and speculative fiction in particular the goal is less for something to be real than to feel real. Usually this means using words that wouldn't actually etymologically fit. Sometimes it means not using words that would. (I had this struggle with rayon, of all things; it sounds ultimately too close to nylon which is a very famously fabricated word even though the word rayon well-satisfies my standards for acceptability. see also very antique words like mascara or descriptive words like eyeliner, which i always feel a bit odd using; I do avoid 'lipstick' and 'nail polish')

But I'm kind of rambling. The gist of what I'm getting at is for me, it's a) don't obfuscate meaning, b ) if it feels right, do it, c) if it doesn't feel right, don't do it, but look to a) first and let that be your deciding factor.

[Mandamon he/him]

Gah--freaking out a bit. Got a favorite from Sam Morgan at JABberwocky for Fruits of the Gods on SFFpit today!

@kaisa How long have you waited to query on one of these?

[kais]

EEEEEEEEEEEEE @Mandamon!

I usually query that night after the contest ends. Wait more than a day or two and it sends the message that you weren't really ready to sub.

Does he want query and first fifty, or first chapter, or what? I am about halfway through second read through but can send you the current version. I actually snipped your first fifty to a really tight fit expecting you wanted to query soon. I can offer suggestions on your query letter too if you want.
 

I AM SO EXCITED FOR YOU!

Saw you had a second <3 on that tweet as well. Was the other a good one as well?

[Mandamon he/him]

Thanks @kaisa! Trying not to squee too much...I have to run 4 belt tests in karate tonight!

That's what I was thinking on querying. Probably will try to get it out tomorrow.  He only wants a query and first 5 pages, so if you send the first batch on, I can adjust them before I send. I'll definitely run the query by you if you don't mind.

Not sure who the other favorite was...looks like another writer?

 

[kais]

1 minute ago, Mandamon said:

Not sure who the other favorite was...looks like another writer?

Yeah, I just poked your Twitter. Looks like someone who makes money helping would be authors write better. Boo on them for taking advantage of hope.

Sending you the manuscript now (noting that I'm not done with second read through, but should be tonight or tomorrow night). Send your query when you get a minute. I should be able to get to it tonight after the kid passes out.

 

(and I'm going to keep squeeeing because this agent was on my radar too and he seems awesome!) 

[Mandamon he/him]

Just now, kaisa said:

(and I'm going to keep squeeeing because this agent was on my radar too and he seems awesome!)

Very much so! I met a group of five of his debut authors at WorldCon this year (didn't get to talk to Sam directly) but they had good things to say about him.

I'll send the query on in a few minutes!

[kais]

4 hours ago, Mandamon said:

I'll send the query on in a few minutes!

I'm just going to start compiling book cover ideas for you now, so I'm ready when you request ideas in a few months (EEEEEEEEEE!!)