23 April - Week Behind and Week Ahead

Winner of the autographed copy of Quests has been emailed.

Last week found me finishing the setting draft of The Micro-Manager Murder and still finding little glitches in the plot line. Discovered or always knew one doesn't only do one thing when doing a draft for a particular part of the story. The good thing is that I'm close to the 60% goal I set for the length of the book. I also began and tore up the first chapter of a new romance series called The Guild House, This story is called Lines of Fire. Tearing up the first chapter and prologue was the best thing I ever did. I had made one of the beginning writer mistakes I often see when I'm judging contests. I'll address that later.

During the coming week, I'll finish the first chapter. I need that so when I'm able to work on this story again during breaks from the book I intend to finish by June or July, I will have a foundation to continue and finish this story. One might say I'm working on two stories at a time and I suppose I can. Fortunately they're so totally different there will be no carry over from one story to the other. Once this first chapter is done I'll move into the Character draft of the partly finished murder story. Why doing the character draft after the plot and setting one. Plot, especially in a murder mystery is very important but for me it's what drives the characters to act and react. Setting is my weakest part of writing and thus it comes second. I remember earlier comments from editors in the days when they wrote lengthy rejections. My characters existed in a vacuum. At the time I was writing 'nurse' romances and the settings were totally familiar to me that I forgot they wouldn't be to the reader.

Now a bit about my beginner's mistake. I the writing of the prologue, I had written BACK STORY. Pages of it in the prologue and the first chapter. Now this was information as the writer I needed, but the reader didn't need huge blocks of this shoved in their faces. I've written a new prologue and am writing a new chapter that has hints about the backstory but now concentrates on the main character. Sometimes I make other beginner mistakes and I'll write about them when I find myself doing them.