I finished my novel!

I finished a complete draft of my novel, The Hero of Gucci Gulch, the day before yesterday, did a spell check and a light editing for grammar.  Of course, there are still a few small holes to fill in the text.  And now the editing process begins.  I expect to read through the entire manuscript at least 10 times during this process of tearing down, rebuilding and moving things around!

I’ve read about editing in an excellent book on writing and publishing novels entitled Give ‘Em What They Want, by Camenson and Cook.  That book is mainly about finding an agent for a work of fiction and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to market their novel.  The authors recommend that each edit be focused around a specific issue, rather than just a series of general readings.  They suggest a number of things to look for.  From their list and other sources, I’ve put together the following list of items to focus on.

1. Does the beginning of each chapter contain a “hook”?
2. Does the ending of each chapter contain a “cliffhanger”?
3. Is there deadwood–material that doesn’t move the story forward?
4. Can the story be improved by reorganizing the text and moving sections around?
5. Does each chapter contain a good balance of dialogue, action, introspection and description?
6. Are the characters’ traits well-developed?
7. Is the tone of the text consistent from one chapter to the next and from the start to the finish?
8. Is there too much “blow by blow” description of minute actions by the characters?
9. Can the language and phraseology be improved?
10. Are there typos and grammatical errors?
11. Is there repetition in word usage and are there similar words used too close to each other?

I’ve listed these in the order I plan to tackle them, leaving grammatical issues to the last so that that review incorporates all the other changes I’ve made up to that point.

I expect the editing process to take at least two months, perhaps longer.  But I’m eager to dive into it, knowing that I can’t start my search for an agent until I have a completed manuscript.

If you have written a novel or are in the editing process, I’d love to hear from you about what you look for in your edits, especially if there is something you do that I have not covered in my list.

Emotional Involvement with My Writing

I’ve discovered something in writing my first novel that I hadn’t expected–I get emotionally involved in the happenings!  For example, when my hero’s cat was killed, I had him going through various stages of grieving–denial, bargaining, anger and grief.  And the funny thing is, I experienced those same stages as though it had really happened.  As another example, my hero is being pursued by the villain of the piece and is scared for his life.  When I wrote that part yesterday, I got really nervous, as though it was happening to me.  Maybe it is normal for writers to feel the pain and joy of their characters, but it’s new to me.

I Strangled My Cat Today

I strangled my cat today. He’s dead. But before you conclude that I’m a vile person, read on.

It was the cat in my novel. And I am not the one who strangled him; it was the villain of the piece who did it, out of revenge. You see, I’m digging around in somebody’s business and someone else doesn’t like it.  I’ve hit a nerve.  Me, I’m a Washington lobbyist just trying to get a good piece of environmental legislation passed.  But a fellow lobbyist, a beautiful young girl, was strangled to death.  I’m on the trail of the killer because the police are missing the boat.  And, I have gotten to close to the truth.  That’s why my cat was killed.

My book is called The Hero of Gucci Gulch.  Why that title, you may well ask?  Gucci Gulch is a name for Capitol Hill, where all lobbyists are presumed to be patrolling the halls of Congress wearing, you guessed it, Guccis.  Except my hero, who can’t afford them.

I’m in the middle of the tale now and, true to form, I don’t exactly know how it’s going to turn out.  Except that my hero really will be a hero. Otherwise the title wouldn’t work, would it?

Anyway, I’ve included a photo of my cat Q-Tip, on whom I based the (dead) cat in the story.  He’s really sweet and very loving.  It was hard to write that section of the book.  I really got into the emotions and genuinely grieved him when I was writing about it.

I’m finished with 16 chapters so far and am looking to write about 30 in total.  That means I’m just a little over half done.  The writing is going quickly.  I love to write.  I’m turning out two to three chapters a week.  At this rate, I should be done with a first draft by the end of the year. 

While I’m a fast and fairly accurate touch typist, I am writing the first draft out in longhand.  Why would I want to do that?  I have a collection of fountain pens and love to use them.  So, I write out my chapters, then dictate them into a handheld recorder and transcribe the text using Dragon Naturally Speaking software.  It works very well. 

I’m not done with this subject.  I’ll write more about my book as it progresses.

I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Norm