Into the future

Hey anyone who may be reading. This is just to let anyone know that I have not forgotten about this. In fact I have big plans and changes I intend to implement in 2009. A lot of work has gone into developing this plan. I think it's good, and I don't think there's another blogger out there who will be covering the same subject matter as I will. Servant Writer will go, and be replaced. The blog will still be writing related, but there will be another over arching theme to it. I want updates to be regular, and that means a lot of prep work on my part. This could take a few months, but it will be cool if I manage to pull it off. I'll post a more precise explanation sometime, but don't want to until I'm sure exactly how the blog is going to work. Here's hoping it will be good.

Have a Merry Christmas.

Taylor

Michael Crichton

In the midst of the Presidential campaign many people missed an important piece of news. Michael Crichton died battling cancer. I’m not too sure what type of cancer, or exactly what age he was, but this is huge to me in so many ways.

I was part of the generation of children who grew up on JURASSIC PARK, a book Michael Crichton wrote. I remember being so excited to see that movie, and loving every single moment of it. Crichton introduced the world to the Velociraptor, and gave virtually every person a new favorite dinosaur. Sure, Spielberg helped, but the movie wouldn’t have been made without the wildly popular book. In my senior seminar class for my English major I was required to make a list of books I thought were new classics. I put JURASSIC PARK on that list, and I meant it. It’s an amazing book that inspired an amazing movie. I saw JURASSIC PARK so many times, and it inspired me.

There are so many other bestsellers he had, so many other great books with great movies based upon them, and a great TV show he created called ER that has stayed on the air for quite a while, but Jurassic Park sticks out to me the most. That and THE LOST WORLD that followed it mean the most to me. Most forget about THE LOST WORLD because the movie was just okay, but I would not say the same thing for the book. I read that when I was in sixth grade, and loved it. If the movie had been based on the book more I would have loved it just as much. Those stories were amazing for very simple reasons. Everyone loves dinosaurs. Michael Crichton realized that, and really just wrote a book based on “what if dinosaurs were in our world?” What a simple, brilliant concept. It did so well not just because kids loved it, but because everybody loved it.

As a writer I truthfully owe a lot to him. I know I’ve revealed very little about VALDEN’S HEIR, the book I’ve written, but it’s his success with JURASSIC PARK reminds me everyday that it’s a great concept. Dinosaurs play a very large role in VALDEN’S HEIR. Michael Crichton’s success with the JURASSIC PARK series is one of the main things I can point to as a reminder that people love dinosaurs. Books with dinosaurs can be huge. I may not have ever written VALDEN’S HEIR or gotten the original idea that inspired the entire series based in the world of VALDEN’S HEIR without JURASSIC PARK. I would have kept my love of dinosaurs a secret passion, and might never have realized that I could use them quite successfully as a writer. I owe that knowledge largely to Michael Crichton, and if I am ever lucky enough to be published I will not forget that debt.

So, I may not have written the most eloquent eulogy that anyone can. I may not have gone into the finer points of his career, and life. I’m sure others have and will, but that’s not really what I was trying to do. I wanted to be simple because a simple, brilliant concept is the reason I first loved Michael Crichton. He was an amazing writer with a beautiful imagination. His loss is a blow to all of us who desire to take readers on a journey to strange yet familiar places filled with exotic creatures. He will be missed.

Taylor

Synopsisilizing

Well, I took a brief break from the agent research to do something actually related to it. I wrote a synopsis. I did this because a lot of the agents submission requirements listed a desire for one. So I did it.

Now for those of you who know very little about writing a synopsis I'll tell you the most basic rule. The shorter, the better (I'll get into formating in a later post). I tried to keep this in mind when I wrote my first draft on Monday, but my synopsis somehow ended up running 12 pages (double spaced)! This was not good. Unfortunately, I lacked the time to tweak it then, and waited until Tuesday. I did, however, think about what I could do the rest of the day.

It soon became obvious to me that I talked about subplots far too much, and talked about stuff directly related to the main plot way too much. When I went back to edit my synopsis on Tuesday I found that it was impossible. The whole thing needed to be rewritten. So I did so. By hand. Not something I enjoy, but it was necessary. Helped me compress my thoughts. When I finished the synopsis it certainly seemed a lot shorter, for it only took up two pages of paper. Today I typed it into the computer, and found that it was in fact a lot shorter. It was 3 pages! That's 75% shorter! Celebrations abound! Now I am fairly confident in my synopsis, and won't be afraid to show it to a prospective agent.

On another side note, I did a review of my word count for VALDEN'S HEIR. Found that 120,000 words seemed like too much. Using some math expertise (ya, I can do math) I discovered that it is more likely around 115,000 words. A major shift that I believe is a very good thing since most say 120,000 words is the maximum length for a first time fantasy novel. Now that I'm below that I'm feeling pretty good.

Taylor

The agent search, part 2: preliminary research

I just finished doing my first step of the research process on those 56 names I mentioned in the previous post. This step of research is very general. I'm not looking to find out the information I need to know to make the query more personal. Instead, I'm trying to answer two questions that every author should try to know the answer to before querying anyone:

1. Is this a legitimate agent, or someone who might try to rip me off?
2. Would this agent be interested in what I wrote?

Those are the two main questions all should ask themselves. I had some others such as "does this agent accept unsolicited manuscripts?" Here's the end result.

Initial number of agent names: 56
Current number: 35

This number won't fall much more. I'll only remove someone now if I find out some new disturbing fact about them. My next step is to do in depth research on each of these agents so that I can figure out who I want to query first. I think I'll pair them up in two groups of 12, and one group of 11. I'll have to do stuff like make sure I'm not querying two agents in the same agency, and stuff like that. Have to tailor my query letter, synopsis, sample chapters, and other things to each one. Sounds tough, but it really shouldn't take very long. I'll post again when I can update on any of the things related to this whole writing and submitting process.

Taylor

The Agent search, part 1: Getting names

Now that I've finished writing and editing VALDEN'S HEIR, and since I've sent it to a few people I know to read, the search now begins for an agent. I expect this entire process to take around a month (finding names, doing research, writing and editing queries, etc.), which is why I've started already even though I just sent out my book for others to read. I told them to try and finish the book within a month, and if at least a couple of them do I'll have their comments about the same time that I'll be ready to fire off query letters.

Anyway, I just finished the first step in the process. Getting names. The first thing I did in this process was go to the blogs of agents I am already familiar with (will provide links to these one day). I found which ones represent epic fantasy (since VALDEN'S HEIR is just that), and put them at the top of the list. Then I went to Agentquery.com, and searched for agents who represent fantasy. 134 names came up. I wrote down 56.

The most common reason I didn't write down a name was because the agent didn't accept e-mail queries. I prefer to e-mail for free before I have to pay the now more expensive postage to mail anything. Second, I didn't write down names of agents who don't accept unsolicited manuscripts. There were some other reasons beyond that, but those were the two main reasons I didn't write down a name.

The next step in the process is researching the names I have. I need to find out who works at the same agency (it's a rule to only query one agent in an agency at a time), who is an AAR member, who's actually a real agent, if the agent is actually enthusiastic about representing fantasy, and a number of other things. I'll go in depth about this stuff in a future post, but right now I just have names. I'll post again when I've done some research.

Taylor

Finally! a final edit

After much work I have finally finished my final edit of my book. Well, the final edit before I allow others to read it.

Initial page count: 485
Initial word count: aprox. 150,000

Final page count: 413
Final word count: 121,000

Just 1000 words above my goal, but I still managed to cut about 30,000 words, and that is significant. I believe this is worth celebrating. I suppose I can reveal something for the first time. The book's title.

Valden's Heir

Hey! It makes no sense to anyone besides me, right? Well, it will if you read the book, or once I decide to release more information. Sorry, but I'm paranoid about releasing too much information too fast. This is a very original idea, and I want to ensure it is never stolen.

Well, with that said, I've got to tweak a little guide I made for the book (mostly change page numbers), and then I have to decide who I will let read it, and what my parameters are. Don't want them taking a year to read it or anything. Have to make sure they know that.

Taylor

Unexpected edits

Here's another tale of the winding adventures of a writer to tell you about.

I thought I was done editing my book. Seriously. I had it at 475 pages, 140,000 words, and while I thought that was long I really didn't think I could do much to shorten it. I let my wife read it beginning to end, during which time I worked on other projects. A thought kept poking into my head, however. Want to know what it was?

Make it shorter.

I know, crazy. I thought it was already as short as can be, but that thought kept pestering me. Then I read this entry on swivet (a blog by an agent, not an agent blog) followed by this one and I knew that I was right in thinking I needed to shorten it. Suddenly, thoughts of a million major ways to make the book shorter began coming to me. So, after my wife had finished reading, despite having already done the BIG edit, and despite feeling like the book was good as it was, I sat down to the task of making it even better by making it shorter.

I'm happy to say that I succeeded. I've finished this edit I did not expect to do, and now the book is 429 pages and approximately 125,000 words. That is a lot of editing! Keep in mind that the book was almost 500 pages when I first wrote it, so I've cut nearly 20% of my original material. There are also more cuts to come because there were some BIG things I wanted to change, but I couldn't until I saw what changes would need to be made at later points in the book. I hope to have the book below 120,000 words when all is said and done, but I'm not going to force it. Every edit I've made, every sentence I've cut, every scene I've replaced by a shorter one has been in an effort to make the book better, not just shorter.

So this post is me trying to teach by example. The writing process doesn't always end when the writer thinks it does. Sometimes unexpected edits come up, hate it or love it (Fortunately, I love editing). Those edits need to be done. This doesn't mean edit your book forever. Don't get in that vicious cycle. Just don't be afraid to do an extra edit if neccesary.

Chapters that hurt my head

I will give simple advice tonight that I think is very useful. Don't make chapters too long! Readers hate it. I hate it.

Sounds simple, and perhaps even amateur to some, but it's advice that should almost always be followed. I understand the temptation of writing very long chapters because of how scholarly it seems, but long long chapters are just annoying. I don't want to have to read 50 pages or more just to get from chapter 1 to 2. Twenty-Five pages should be a maximum, and I can't say what should be a minimum. I would have said five once upon a time, but the success of writers like Dan Brown with their frequent 1 page chapters shows that a writer can be successful with really short chapters.


Obviously, there are always exceptions to the rule, but there aren't many. Long chapters are usually unnecessary, and always bog down the reader. Many readers that get bogged down don't finish a book. Readers that don't finish a book don't recommend it to others, and that's sometimes how a book ends up in the bargain bin at the dollar store.

Taylor

Editing

Before I get started talking about a painful topic I will make a note about the change in my blog title. I inserted the word servant. That means that I will now be more dedicated to aiding others then I originally intended. I'll explain more about what this means later.

Onto the painful topic at hand. Editing. Something few writers want to do, but something all must do. There's a science to it, and no one quite understands it. In this post I will present what I do when I edit. May not be the best process for another, but it's worked out well for me.

My editing process for a short story is pretty simple. I write it as fast as possible, and edit it once immediately after writing. I put spell check to good use, and then I leave the story alone for a while. Leaving it alone for a couple of weeks is preferable. This enables me to forget some things, and means that I edit better when I get around to it. I then edit it many many times until I feel that editing any more will be useless. Then I'm done.

Novel editing is far more complicated. I start editing before I finish the book. My first edit is immediately after I finish the first chapter. This is because the firs chapter is the foundation of the entire book. If it's screwed up the rest of the book is screwed up as well. After that I throw in some small edits here and there. I edit at the half way point, and if I'm about to get to a point where I ned to tie up loose ends I may have forgotten about. Then I finish writing the book, and I edit it quickly afterwards.

Then I leave it alone for a long time. Somewhere around 2 months. As with short stories, this enables me to forget a lot of details about the book. When I do finally edit I do not do it on the computer screen. I print the manuscript out, and read out loud. This takes a long time, but it is extremely effective. I catch a lot of mistakes this way. After that I put the edits into the save file.

Tht step is followed by the step of letting others read it. These new sets of eyes provide important insights, and I make the neccesary changes in the edit that folows this step (note: I'm in the process of this step. Have only really done it with short stories as of now). I then do another edit if I thnk it's necesary, but that's about all that's useful.

There. That's my process. It's important to have a process for editing because of just how annoying editing can be. Make sure to have one even if it's nothing like mine.

Crazy agent alert

I am excited to announce that there is an agent here on blogspot who is certifiably insane. His name is Nathan Bransford, and he is having a first page contest on his blog. This is a great excuse to tinker with the first page of any manuscript, or to make a new one up. I entered after a lot of thought (when last I looked there were around 250 entries), but decided that the opportunity was too good to ignore after a while. There are good prizes and everything. Go to his page (http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/), and enter if you'd like. All contest rules are there. Be sure to enter under the contest post, and not under any of those that followed.

On a more personal note, I may celebrate tonight because I finished the long edit of my book only minutes ago. You may not know what the long edit is (though it's close to what it sounds like), but it is a complicated process for me. I'll explain more about this important step in a later entry (maybe tonight), but for now I just wanted to promote the contest.

Good luck to all who enter.

Taylor

Formatting novel manuscripts

Tonight I decided to make good on my promise to help out other aspiring writers, and I am sharing what information I have gathered on how to format the manuscript for a novel. For those who need clarification bear in mind that novel almost always means fiction. I will try to cover nonfiction in a later post.

Much of the information I have gathered comes from a useful book, Formatting and Submitting Your Manuscript, 2nd edition, by Cynthia Laufenberg and the Editors of Writer's Digest Books. I recommend this book highly. It's well worth the $19.99 you'll pay or a new copy, and you can probably find it cheap used. Knowing this stuff is important because formatting your manuscript properly can easily give you an edge over a lot of the unpublished writers out there who play fast and loose with the rules. Sticking to proper formatting greatly increases your chance of getting published.

With that out of the way I'll get to the topic at hand. There are specific formatting tips that I would recommend that any aspiring writer should stick to. Remember, while creativity in writing is appreciated, it is universally hated in formatting. Stick to what is common. Otherwise, you risk alienating any potential agent or publisher. Having said that I know some books require odd formatting, but most don't. Avoid it whenever possible.

Stick to 1 inch margins on all sides. To change those in Microsoft Word you need to go to file, and then Page Setup. You can change your margins there, and can make it easier on yourself by setting 1 inch on all sides as the default.

It is also important to include a title page. I'll specifically address the formatting to this seemingly simple but surprisingly complicated page in the future.

Number the pages of the book. Not the title page. Start numbering with the first chapter, introduction, prologue, or whatever is the first official part of the book. It is common to put the page number in the top right corner of every page.

On the same line as the number (in the page header) your last name and book title should be on the left. Example- Smith/KILLER MONKEYS FROM SPACE. Yes, I am aware I capped the book title. I meant to. It's proper formatting.

Never have two chapters on one page. Start each chapter on its own page, and one-third of the way down on said page.

Also, a good way to make sure that each chapter stays on its own pages is bY using CTRL+ENTER. By doing this as the end of each chapter it automatically inserts a page break. It can save lots of time in editing.

The first part of each chapter page should be the chapter title, and the chapter name (should one exist). Example of this in proper formatting: CHAPTER 1--KILLER MONKEYS EAT BRAINS Once again, all CAPS is intentional, as is the two hyphens.

After the chapter title begin the first paragraph of the chapter four to six lines below the chapter title. When indenting for each new paragraph, indent five spaces. It's possible to get your tab button to automatically indent five spaces so that it is not necessary to press the space bar five times each time. I highly recommend taking this step.

If something in your text needs tO be italicized then it should be underlined in the manuscript.

This should be obvious, bu don't single space. Double space. Always double space.

The final, and perhaps most important formatting tip, is to use a standard font. It is commonly accepted to stick to 10- or 12 point Times New Roman, Arial, or Courier. I'd recommend sticking to Times New Roman because some agents and publishers are biased against anything else. Times New Roman is quickly becoming the standard.

There you go. Those are the basics for formatting a novel. Don't ask why these are the rules. There is not a reason. They just are the rules. Follow them, and it will help you out. If I didn't answer any questions you have about formatting feel free to ask me. I'll answer the best I can. Also, feel free to correct me if I was wrong about something. I don't want to lead anyone in the wrong direction.

Taylor

Stamina

In my last entry I talked about something all writers must do (prioritize). This time I'll talk about something all writers must have that is equally (perhaps more) important. Stamina.

I'm not talking about physical stamina here. I'm talking about stamina as a writer. Any writer cannot write two hours in a month and be exhausted after that. No writer can write even an hour a week, and feel that is enough. The natural instinct of the mind and body is to be lazy, and any successful writer must fight the minds lazy instincts to pretend that writing very little is okay. It's not okay. It never is.

Stamina is something some writers just have naturally. They learn to write, and they write a lot from the start. Others, like me, have to teach ourselves to have it. In order to do that we must understand what kind of stamina we must have. Think of writing like a full time or a part time job, depending on your situation. If it's full time then think of how often one works at a full time job. 40 hours, and usually 5 days a week. Make this your goal. If part time then your goals can be lower. Somewhere between 10 and 30 hours throughout the week should be good depending on the situation.

This may sound daunting, but that's just an excuse. A full time writer that can't dedicate full time hours to writing is just lazy. If it's your full time job then work it like a full time job. If you refuse then you should get another job. Dreams must be worked for. Truthfully, putting this kind of time into writing is quite easy. Remember that writing involves more then just writing. It often involves research, reading, planning, and editing. The things we read don't even have to be related to what is being written. One could write a blog entry, research for a historical novel, edit a short story, and read a romance novel in the same day. It can be easy, but it takes stamina in order to do this.

It doesn't matter if you don't naturally have it. I didn't either. There were a couple of years early in life that I just didn't write much. Eventually I realized that I needed to be more dedicated to it if I hoped to spend my life doing it, and I built up the needed stamina in order to make being a writer an integral part of my life. I'd recommend all writers do this same thing. Decide if you consider your writing to be a part time or full time job, and put the appropriate hours into it as a result. I can almost guarantee this this will help any writer become a better writer.

Taylor

Priorities

I've returned from my long break, and I do so with a new laptop to use. I'm currently typing this entry on the laptop, but I have yet to get used to doing so, and I ask that you excuse the occasional error that will certainly be caused by my inexperience.

Now, I will explain why I was absent because it is directly related to my newest post. Since December 22 I have been busy doing Christmas stuff, spending time with family, and doing many things that didn't involve writing. Make no mistake. I edited my book, but not nearly so much as I would have usually. Why didn't I? Because for about a three week period I had different priorities, and that's the subject of tonight's post.

Every writer must prioritize. Every writer must decide just how important their writing is to them. A writer that cannot usually does not write. A writer that does not is like I was a couple of years ago. A writer who rarely writes. This is a sad thing to be, but any writer who doesn't prioritize can be like this.

I don't necessarily mean that writing must comes first. I mean that everyone must know what is more important and what is less important then writing. I'll use my own life as an example. I'm a man of faith. I'm married. I have a job. I have a family. I play video games. I eat. I write. These are just the main things. I must prioritize these things. I must decide what things are important in order to live a complete life. Usually, it's easy. I am blessed to usually have the ability to incorporate all of these things into my life. Often my days go eating, praying, writing, working, spending time with my wife, playing games. This isn't exact (I obviously eat more then once a day as well as other activities), but it's a simple example of my common day.

I set up this schedule for the benefit of my writing. I had to realize writing was important, and make it a priority. It's that simple. All writers must do the same, but it won't always be so easy as described above. Sometimes it is difficult to keep priorities where they should be. I mentioned the three week break I took because of family stuff. It's times like that when priorities must be known. When time is tight what will any of us choose to do? Write or read? Write or spend time with a loved one? Write or work? Write or pray? Write or eat? Sometimes there simply isn't time to do everything, and without priorities ones entire life can be sacrificed to things interfering with the schedule. Specifically, one can give up writing completely if one chooses to do something besides write too often.

A writer must find a balance. A writer must prioritize. A writer must be careful to ensure that writing doesn't consume their entire being. A writer must also be careful that just the opposite doesn't happen, and ensure that another aspect of their life, whether a job, a marriage, or a hobby, doesn't keep them from ever writing. A writer that isn't careful to make sure that doesn't happen becomes someone who one day looks back on the days that they once had a family before they let writing consume them, or looks back and remembers the ancient days when they used to write. A life without priorities can get horribly out of whack, and this is especially true for a writer.

Taylor