I fed off a flowerperson, and I spent the next six hours watchin' my hand move.

Spike ,'Same Time, Same Place'


The Great Write Way, Act Three: Where's the gun?

A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.


Gudanov - Dec 27, 2010 5:29:44 pm PST #3799 of 6690
Coding and Sleeping

That would be awesome, thanks. This synopsis stuff is really hard, at least for me.


Typo Boy - Dec 27, 2010 9:39:37 pm PST #3800 of 6690
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.

A survey about editing processes for book length manuscripts. Once a full draft is complete I iterate in chunks. That is I will take a chunk, edit it, edit the edited verison, rinse lather repeat until that chunk is done, then move to the rest. I say "chunk" rather than section, because I do it on word length (about 14,000 to 15,000 words) stopping at the end of the logical unit that falls within that range. Reason for that word length is that it is long enough that I am not seeing the same paragraph too often in too short a length of time, and short enough that I can get through it in one sitting without losing concentration. I wonder how common this is. I can easily imagine some people prefer to edit in logical chunks, or even people who edit all the way through from beginning to end before starting the re-edit. I'll bet whether your style is to do many many edits or not affects this. (I tell people I'm not really a writer; I'm a self editor and re-writer.)

Even though I suspect this is something that will vary a lot from person to person, I'm curious as to varying editing styles, and why they work for you if you care to discuss.


Gudanov - Dec 28, 2010 4:16:18 am PST #3801 of 6690
Coding and Sleeping

Beginning to end. With some exceptions


Holli - Dec 28, 2010 7:01:32 am PST #3802 of 6690
an overblown libretto and a sumptuous score/ could never contain the contradictions I adore

Amy, it's about a group of Goth teenagers who do real magic by accident, which results in one of them getting kidnapped to a fairy kingdom and another one having to go rescue her.

One of my readers told me that it's kind of like what would happen if you sent the Baby-Sitter's Club to Mordor to destroy the One Ring.


Gudanov - Dec 28, 2010 7:10:47 am PST #3803 of 6690
Coding and Sleeping

If you are looking for some readers (at least for the early chapters, though some will go for the whole book) you might consider joining a website I'm a member of.

[link]

You've got to be a member to post chapters/stories and do reviews though since they can't be public.

Worth it just for the monthly story challenges alone IMO, I've only had time to do three of them, but I've gotten two good short story from doing them. I keep getting second place each time for some reason.


Holli - Dec 28, 2010 7:14:14 am PST #3804 of 6690
an overblown libretto and a sumptuous score/ could never contain the contradictions I adore

Ooh, thanks. I have a few good readers, but that is a good idea.


Amy - Dec 28, 2010 7:19:37 am PST #3805 of 6690
Because books.

Oooh, Holli, I'd love to read some of it.

Gud, I'm waiting for ibuprofen to kick in before I read for you, but I will get to it today, I promise.

Typo, I edit ... sort of as I go? I don't have a real process, I guess. I tend to fiddle with whatever I've written the day before, as I'm writing, and by the time I turn it in, aside from any notes I've made while writing (as in, "Go back and seed X more clearly in the early chapters") I'm usually pretty happy with what I turn in as a first draft.

Then I get revision notes and work from those.


Gudanov - Dec 28, 2010 7:22:04 am PST #3806 of 6690
Coding and Sleeping

If you do join up, don't post all the chapters at once, dribble them in every other day or so. Every posted story has to be validated by a moderator (such as me) to make sure it's legit and doesn't violate the terms of the site owners.


Gudanov - Dec 28, 2010 7:23:11 am PST #3807 of 6690
Coding and Sleeping

I'm in no hurry, I just appreciate you reading that material at all. Thanks.


Holli - Dec 28, 2010 2:52:15 pm PST #3808 of 6690
an overblown libretto and a sumptuous score/ could never contain the contradictions I adore

Amy, I forget-- are you on LJ? I can add you to my novel filter if you like.