Christina Goebel's Blog - Posts Tagged "drafting"

It has been a while since I viewed writing with the thought that it is right or wrong. Since I have worked with the Chicago Manual of Style, AP Style, and the New York Times Manual of Style, I learned that writers disagree on the proper way to write things. Do I spell out forty-five or use the number? Which manual of style are you using?

What makes a book painful to read is when its language, organization, or punctuation usage loses the reader. In some cases, if the writing has errors, then misspellings and improperly used punctuation can torture the reader. Advanced writers may ramble in an abstract way that thwarts or bores their audience, or they may not organize their writing in such a way that it can be followed.

This is why even advanced writers need editors and proofreaders and no self-publishing author should neglect that detail. Having said this, I have read manuscripts where the author used an editor, proofreader, and Grammarly--and the manuscript had so many errors that I was stunned and little mad at the world.

Here's what you can do to avoid catastrophic reader dumping. Hire or recruit your team carefully. Have them review the book and make corrections. Then, ask someone with a writing degree to look over a couple of chapters. English teachers can do this with little effort. Journalists are trained to minimize meaningless words and get to the point.

Though many authors write because we love it, foremost in our minds we should consider the reader's experience.

Our book is our home. We are inviting our readers into it. Let us welcome them well.

During some recent editing work, I encountered a book that had multiple verb tenses. To complicate issues, the novel had multiple character timelines. Having wrestled with this problem before, I opted for the past tense. Why?

First, understand that there are certain things that readers accept without noticing, such as the common dialogue tags "he said/she said." We read those without considering them, but when we encounter "he extrapolated," that gets our attention. This is why journalists stick with he said/she said so that their message gets through and the reader's focus isn't shifted to which fancy tags they use.

Verb tense is similar for readers. Most books are written in the past tense. When we happen upon a book that uses present tense, our attention shifts temporarily to the writer's verb construction. I do believe that setting a book in the now creates a special experience for readers, just like writing with a first person narrator does. However, when you're writing a book and verb tense is all over the place, revert to the past tense--the most common form we experience--and save the sophisticated verb usage for times when it feels right and is easier to implement. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...#

Each of my books has a unique story and Birth Right: Galak's Rising has the distinction of being the only book I've written so far that I saw as a movie first. Yes, as a movie.

I was attending college in Miami and had a heavy traffic route each day, and during that time I listened to music during my commute. While I listened, I saw images play out in front of my eyes. For months, parts of this movie played out before me until one day, it was impossible not to write it.

In fact, I knew Birth Right would never give me peace until it was written. So I typed up the story and just when I had finished 315 pages, my computer hard drive crashed. Let's just say I don't buy computers from companies that begin with C anymore, lol.

Though everyone had told me to save my writing, I didn't. I considered letting Birth Right end right there but then I wondered if I could try writing it again, only better. After all, in screenplay writing class and my writers' group, everything I redrafted was better.

So I rewrote Birth Right and it was a stronger novel.

Now that today it's officially on sale, I'm thankful for everyone who entered the giveaway for the book that almost wasn't.

Authors aren't encouraged to respond to readers, I just learned, and I wish it wasn't so, but I'll say thanks here. Without readers, this book would have been a movie that no one else ever saw in their minds.

It hurts a little to carry a book around in your heart and think that others won't read it--like being a toy maker and producing toys that no children will own.

Only in your hands does my book have a purpose and a home. ~Christina

Birth Right: Galak's Rising Galak's Rising

I've already begun working on the sequel to Birth Right: Galak's Rising. In fact, I wrote a full chapter of the sequel to include as a freebie in the back of Galak's Rising. When I realized that the book would be 380 pages, I decided it was long enough.

Since then, I've revisited the sequel to continue writing on it and currently, I'm resting from it. When I reach page thirty or so in a novel, my characters start to take over, except in the case where things get complicated.

Birth Right has a large cast of characters, including twelve main ones. I introduce them gradually, so no worries. When I started the sequel, I realized that I had to go back and catalog everyone's physical description and history. It's not a fun thing to do and is better to do before the first book of a series. That way, at this point, I would have been halfway through drafting the sequel.

The second strategy I am using is to accept what comes. Whenever I pause in writing, characters and storylines are developing during that time.

Everything happens for a reason and this weekend, I'll most likely complete work on the Birth Right audiobook with six other readers. I'm narrating my book and the others are reading parts. It's pretty intense.

Next week, I have a book promotion coming, so stay tuned.

As I mentioned in the back of Birth Right, I saw it as a movie first and I've seen some of the movie images from the new book in my mind's eye and they are shocking. Books two and three take the plot to a larger scale. I'm going to do some crazy things with history that may surprise you.