Tag Archives: equestrian

Rising from rejection: the search for recognition

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The Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger shortlist has been announced – http://www.thecwa.co.uk/daggers/2012/index.html – and I didn’t make it into the chosen few.
Am I surprised and dejected at what at first felt like rejection when I was desperate for recognition?  Part of me is – the part that thought Spiral of Hooves had been honed into a version worth entering into the Debut Dagger competition back in January. But now I’m seeing flaws everywhere: from the sport background creeping into the foreground which creates a mid-novel slump, to the 2012 setting when events in my story have been rained off in reality. Plus there could be other things IF I do yet another rewrite.

Moral: Keep the main plot focused and the sub-plots in the background.

Getting the basic preparation right

Do I want to do another revision after 12 years of working on the same story?  My mind has moved on to other plots that are already drafted, like Wyrm Bait which I have just re-read and done the ‘Overview’ edit of.  Will tinkering with Spiral of Hooves rescue what is the result of listening to too much advice and making changes that play to critics’ whims?  The original story is in there somewhere, but I’m no longer sure where.

Moral: Learn to recognise constructive criticism and ignore everything else.

Telling it like it is

Do I count the first novel as experience and just move on?  I could just resign myself to doing one final edit, an attempt to remove the worst offences and then self-publish in a minor way.  I have a low-key strategy that would be more about developing my platform than about selling books worldwide.  However for those who need to know what my first novel is like, it will at least exist in more than a bottom drawer.

Moral: The bottom drawer is for work in progress.

European Championships at Blenheim

What do you think as one of my readers and as a fellow writer? Am I giving up too easily or is the idea dying along with my enthusiasm?   Constructive criticism and advice invite here.

Of course I could burn the offending manuscript like Robert Louis Stevenson and from the ashes a phoenix would rise….  However I’m ready to move on and work on one of the newer fresher stories already alive and trying to fly.

From the ashes

And yes, I want recognition for what I’ve done but my wife already gives me that – then there was yesterday. We went to the Horse Trials that I revived in 2005 at Borde Hill with the help of a knowledgeable friend. Due to my MS I handed the reins to a new team of organiser at the end of 2009 but was made the President. Sitting with my First Lady having lunch we were joined by various officials including the British Eventing CEO.  In things said there was recognition for what I had achieved as an event organiser; also reflected in a silver salver that I received in 2008 from BE for everything I had done over 14 years in the sport.

So I’ve got recognition and the writing will follow suit.

Borde Hill and sculpture

Editing that Novel

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Originally posted on http://www.rolandclarke.co.uk on 17 May 2012

As I embark on editing my second novel, Wyrm Bait, it seemed a good moment to reflect back on the lessons I learnt editing the first one.

Editing was one of the reasons why Spiral of Hooves took 12 years of writing before I had a final draft that I had confidence in.  Sounds like I kept on re-writing and in a way I did, but in totally the wrong way – I call it back-editing or back-pedalling.  I would write a few of the early chapters and then show them to other writers, mainly reading short sections aloud to the novel group I belonged to.  They were anxious to help and I failed to discriminate between constructive criticism and comments to discard.  So I kept going back and re-writing the same chapters, even re-reading the same scenes to the poor group.

Eventually I saw the error of my ways and began to be more selective in what I listened to, although by then my characters and plotline had gone through major changes.  When I finally had a complete draft that I could begin to revise, a lot of the novel in terms of structure, chronology and scene order as well as character consistency was all over the place.  Revising that was a massive scissors & paste rewrite but at least I then had a draft that began to flow – so I could then go through and hone the actual words.

While going through all these drafts I read somewhere – apologies if I don’t know where – that one should start with the overall picture and work down to the level of the individual words with each rewrite.  Hopefully after the chaos that was Spiral of Hooves I might have an easier time editing Wyrm Bait and enjoy what is meant to be as much fun as the writing.

I envisage 3 phases to Editing:

1.   The Overview:  ensuring that the overall structure of the plotline works and even surpasses the original intent of the plotting done before I even started writing.  When my partner/No 1 critic-reader read the finished novel aloud, I made notes on what didn’t work BEFORE putting the novel in the bottom drawer; so those notes are my starting point.
It helped having the background & detailed characterisation worked out even before I devised a detailed scene by scene plot using cards plus my novel writing software. I also wrote the second novel (and subsequent ones) without back-peddling EXCEPT each day I re-read and made minor changes to the previous day’s writing before I wrote the next chunk.  Also I kept ensuring that events that needed foreshadowing were inserted or changed as necessary plus any potential inconsistancies were avoided.
Therefore this edit should in part have been done in (a) the read-through notes & amendments; (b) the daily review and other corrections while writing the first draft.  But it doesn’t mean everything works at this stage so I will still have to do an overview.

2.   Chapters – Openings & Cliffhangers:   It remains to be seen whether I was beginning to write more self-contained and concise chapters in Wyrm Bait, with the cliffhangers to keep readers moving on. I will need to ensure that the tension is kept up but not at a break-neck speed as there need to be lulls both overall and within the individual chapters.  One crucial thing is that the plot keeps moving forward and the characters either grow or at least learn.  I also know that although I did research when I plotted the storyline and when I was writing, that there are areas that will need researching in more detail, given how the plot evolved.   This could all mean one draft or probably more like two or three as I know the chapters in Wyrm Bait vary in how they are written, with some sketched roughly and others overwritten with flights of purple prose.

3.   Every word counts:  So finally at the grassroots level there are the individual words and the phrases they either enhance or kill, deciding if the sentences flow and the paragraphs work.  After Spiral of Hooves, I know that there can be a lot of dead wood hiding at this level as unwanted adjectives and adverbs, inappropriate verbs or obvious embellishments.  I might have cut out large chunks by removing whole scenes and even chapters but fine tuning the words and removing the dross added light and shade to the flow of that story.

On one level it’s daunting reflecting on what has to be done but I know that it is also exciting as I will be discovering Wyrm Bait again and I have the chance to find the jewel at its heart.  Isn’t that what we are doing as writers – crafting a precious object from words?

Although I’ve used various online sites and real-paper books as I tried to learn this craft of writing, one comes to hand as useful at many stages: Writing The Thriller by T. Macdonald Skillman – Published by Writer’s Digest Books ISBN 0-89879-928-7.  With contributions from other thriller writers it has some invaluable chapters including one on editing called ‘Words on a Page’ which is one of my ongoing references.

Finding My Writing Wings

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Originally posted on http://www.rolandclarke.co.uk on 14 May 2012

There was a time some years ago when MS had so clipped my writing wings that it was hard to write and I had to turn down commissions to write articles or even take photographs.  Even the novel that I had dreamt of writing was a mess and going nowhere – except perhaps to a shredder, one day.  Spiral of Hooves as that unfinished opus was called, had taken almost a decade of scribbling and gone through so many plot versions that even the characters were confused – although we all perhaps realised it was meant to be a mystery set against the equestrian world of eventing. However at that point I realised that I was listening to far too much good advise but not to my inner muse whose voice had gone quiet as far as I was concerned.

Any crutch that I had left to help me continue writing had failed so I had literally started to shut down and accept my life in a wheelchair doing very little of worth.

Then in 2009 I met Juanita and we got married. She showed me how to fly again, telling me to trust my own instincts and stop believing in ‘I can’t’.  She gave up her life in the USA to be with me and she was the one who took me out of that wheelchair, inspiring me to write again.

Since we have been together I have completed what I hope will be the final acceptable draft of Spiral of Hooves  – which probably took 12 years. In one month last summer I wrote the first draft of Wyrm Bait – a cyber mystery set against the online gaming world – which is potentially the first of a series. Then in November I took on the NaNoWriMo challenge – www.nanowrimo.org/en – and wrote the first draft of The Last Leaf – a fantasy mystery.   This spring, taking a bit more time, I completed the first draft of Fates Maelstrom – a psychological mystery.

So what about the quality of three drafts written at red hot speed during 9 months compared with 12 for my first attempt? Well judging by the comments of my number 1 critic when she read all four through aloud, Juanita could see that I was improving as I wrote more, which is what I felt as I was writing each new draft.  The words came more easily and they flowed in interesting directions that on hearing them spoken seemed to work. Plus after each day’s writing I would work through what I’d done the day before and the daily editing process became more constructive. That’s not to say these drafts are perfect and that is the next step, honing. So of course I am looking forward now to the fun but hard part of revising these drafts – but that’s perhaps another blog.

At least now I know that at last my imagination is soaring as my writing wings have been unclipped again thanks to Juanita’s support – and perhaps my accepting that ‘I can’.  As I have said I sense that the writing in these draft novels feels as though it is improving as I slowly learn the craft.  I am only a fledgling novelist but I am learning the basics of writing flight and the crutches have become wings.

Never give up, believe in yourself and you will begin to have writing wings.  I invite you to join this fledling on a winged adventure with The Silver Scribbler.