Posted by Christine on May 27, 2007 in Publishing, Scottsdale |
I worked on the rewrites of a couple chapters that had to change to accommodate the changes in the first chapter yesterday. I think that the rewrites are truer to the characters as they evolved later in the story so that is good. Also I am hoping it makes the information I have to give the reader a little more spread out this may be good or bad depending on your point of view. In my opinion it makes it easier to take in, but it leaves the reader waiting longer for certain details. Speaking of Point of View… I have been working on that too. I have been reading several books in my attempt to become a good writer. One of these is Orson Scott Card’s book Characters &Viewpoint. I have read and re-read the section on point of view (POV) as I know this is a major point in storytelling and editing. I struggled with what POV to use in my story. I started writing in the limited third person, and then switched about midway through to third person omniscient. I knew I would have to go back and pick a POV and stick with it throughout and I am working on that now. So what did I pick? Well, after much indecision I decided to go with a shifting limited third person POV. What does this mean, in different chapters we will see the story through different people’s eyes. In a few chapters the point of view will change mid chapter to let us see the scene from more than one persons POV. I try to limit in chapter changes though to where it is REALLY necessary. So why did I choose limited third instead of omniscient. There are so many characters in the book and most of them will have at least one chapter told from their personal POV. Including Lexi, Damian, Meredith, Sonya, Farrell, Micah, Tali, Brinna and in a few places/chapters Drew, Garin, Ellsa, and Levi (I probably forgot someone). It would seem that the omniscient view would be easier to adapt to this many characters. I made the decision based on primarily one thing. A quote from the above mentioned book by Orson Scott Card in which he shares the best way to get the reader emotionally involved with your character is the limited third POV. (Characters &Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card page 162 copywrite 1988.) That is my goal; to get the readers to emotionally connect with the characters I have written. Consider this, a portion of my query letter: As an avid reader I am always searching for characters I would want to know. Often I feel let down by characters who are either too perfect to be real or to flawed to be likable. In Coradonna Lost I have created characters the reader will wish they could know. These...
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Posted by Christine on May 27, 2007 in Publishing, Scottsdale |
I actually wrote this post yesterday… not sure why I didn’t post it then. So here it is. I am finding that no matter how much editing I do I still find things I need/want to rewrite. Sometimes I feel like I am on the 100th draft of the story instead of the sixth. I have recently finished writing two new scenes I realized the story needed to lead up to some plot in the second book. Also I have been working on a complete rewrite of the first chapter. This will be the third incarnation of chapter one, which just does not seem to want to flow. BTW – Thank you to those who gave me feedback on the chapter. I found it all very helpful and I am using it in the rewrite. So where does this leave me as far as publishing attempts go. Well, I am on hold at the moment. First off because I still need to write a good, concise, complete and interesting plot synopsis boiling 100,000 words down to just about 500. I am still working on that in between rewrites. Also because I am reshaping the first chapter I have no first chapter to send out at the moment. So I am now hoping to be sending things out by the beginning of June. The good news – my early readers tell me that my writing is getting better and better. Hopefully they are right and all this rewriting will lead to an even better draft then I ever imagined ending up on the right agent or editors...
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Posted by Christine on May 22, 2007 in Scottsdale |
I posted the first chapter of Coradonna Lost it is under the excerpt tab above. Please feel free to post any comments or ideas to this blog entry. Thanks for taking the time to read it, I appreciate any feedback you have. Update – Hi everyone, thank you for those who read the first chapter and pointed out the errors, I am currently working to fix the errors and will repost when I have them corrected.
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Posted by Christine on May 15, 2007 in Scottsdale, Titles |
I finally settled on a title for the first book in the Coradonna’s Children series. The first book will be called Coradonna Lost Yeah ok nothing radical but hey it fits the story. So stay tuned an exert from the story will be published here soon.
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Posted by Christine on May 8, 2007 in Scottsdale, Titles |
So here is the deal, I have named the overarching story that runs through the books about the escape pods that launch from the transport Coradonna. The over arching name is Coradonna’s Children. Makes sense huh. However I do not yet have a title for the first book in the series. I have personally been calling it Lexi’s Story. But for many reasons that does not fit, for example, the story is about people other then Lexi and the book is really only the beginning of Lexi’s story. Also lets face it Lexi is not one of the Coradonna’s children. She never set foot on the Corradonna so titling the book after her does not really fit with the title of the series. So… any ideas or suggestions would be...
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