September 18, 2021

A new child...

Done. Gestation period, nine months. I wrote the final sentence to the first full draft of Jaysin’s Song today: 108,000 words. That’s the easy part finished. Now I begin the first full edit.
 
The last month of this project, representing probably around 10,000 words of writing, has proven difficult, moreso because it demanded time to read back over parts of the growing manuscript and reference further back to the previous two books leading to this one. I mentioned that part of the editing process about to commence will be ensuring consistency of all aspects of the story across all three books now. Reaching a conclusion in the third book forced me to do more work on the consistency and linking process than I planned to do, but I should have expected it because this will be the fourth fantasy series I’ve written, and every series demands the care in ensuring characters and places and languages retain accuracy across the series.
 
But, for now, the first draft exists, and I’m satisfied.
 
The editing begins almost immediately – well, maybe in a couple of days. Apart from factual consistency and spelling and grammar, what will I be looking for? The far from exhaustive list includes:

• The story arc – will the reader have a story that takes them through an emotional and intellectual experience that initially interests them, then challenges them and finally satisfies them in terms of the outcome?
• Plot structure – will the reader find fluency in the plot or be annoyed by plot holes and incongruencies? I need to make sure the plot, even with magic and fantasy, retains logic and makes sense.
• Character empathy/sympathy – will the reader find Jaysin worth spending time with to learn about him? I need to check that Jaysin is actually interesting.
• Character growth – does Jaysin grow, change, and will the reader follow this and accept and enjoy the character’s growth?
• Unnecessary repetitions – do I overuse the same words, images, descriptions? I need to ensure there is sufficient creative diversity in the writing and vocabulary.
• Descriptive imagery – apart from above, do I evoke sense of place, atmosphere, emotion, tension effectively throughout the story? Will readers be able to see, feel, imagine places and events and characters from how I describe them?
• Tropes, stereotypes – have I used/overused the common features of fantasy stories in ways that will annoy or bore readers? Is there sufficient originality and creativity in the story to set it apart from other fantasy tales?
• Cadence, pace – do the story events move at a speed that will keep the reader engaged? Is the story too slow in unfolding what is happening, or too fast?
• Highs and lows – do I give the reader moments of exhilaration or concern, and do I balance those moments with time to reflect and recover emotions? Like cadence above, do I pace the highs and lows effectively?
• Foreshadowing – do I give the reader sufficient preparation for a change or unexpected event or decision, or do I give too many unnecessary clues?
• Show or tell – related to the above, do I tell the reader too much, or am I showing the reader and thereby allowing the reader to unpack the story?

And there are many additional things I will review, including:

• The new languages and cultures
• Political and social and religious structures and rituals
• Seasons, weather, geography
• Source and logic of magic used

 
I’m laughing, reading the above, because it makes me want to walk away and not do the hard work ahead, but that’s the key part of moving writing from a creative escape exercise into a crafting process, taking the detailed palette sketch and refining it to move it toward a full painting – 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration.
 
Once the first raw edit is done, it will be on to some trusted beta readers who will let me know what extra editing and work is required.
 
Okay. I have work today.