Pages

A Quick Note

The Leeth Dossier is a sci-fi/fantasy series about an unusual girl, set in our world about 50 years from now: and 25 years after magic unexpectedly returns. It opens with the book Wild Thing (2015), and continues with Harsh Lessons (2016), Shadow Hunt (2017); then (Violent Causes) (2019), Lost Girl (2020?)....
Find Wild Thing with Google

Monday 25 April 2016

Harsh Lessons progress (Vol 2)

I now have a date for the launch: but instead of being a single book launch for Wild Thing, it's now going to be a double book launch, so a launch of the series, The Leeth Dossier. Because I underestimated the effort required to get the 1st volume (near?) perfect -- 6 revisions! -- and also underestimated how much effort remained in attending to the second half of my editor's original critique, I've been focusing 90% of my energy on revising volume 2. This meant that the book launch I had hoped to arrange for February didn't start being organised until April, and the first available date was June: about the time I'd be preparing book 2 for publication! So it made more sense to delay the launch by a month and do a launch of the series. It will be at Gleebooks on the afternoon of Sat July 9th, 2016. But stay tuned for that: it's still being organised.

Harsh Lessons now has the cover designed, once again by Mirella de Santana:

You can find Wild Thing as an ebook (on Amazon) or as a paperback. Use this search to find it via Google from a local bookseller, and avoid having to pay for it to be shipped from Amazon in the US.

I'm pleased to say that the MS for volume 2, Harsh Lessons (it was going to be Shadow Hunt, but that will be Vol 3), is now with my editor (ThEditors). He's already warned me that at 156k wds it's almost certainly too long; and I'm at a loss at present for what would cuts would improve it, so I'll just wait and see. Maybe a small adjustment to the margins might reduce the paper consumption? I can't drop the point size for volume 2: that would be horrible for people who like to buy series. So, we'll see. There is, after all, a chance that the pacing and everything may be okay!

It still seems a bit surreal to me: that the MS which I'd already split in two to become volume 1, and which was 160k wds, I think, got split in two again to make a 143k wd Wild Thing and the (currently) 153k wd Shadow Hunt Harsh Lessons. And I still haven't revisited the 2nd half of the MS from its original split: I'm not even sure that will make it into volume 3 4 (Lost Girl)!

After reading a note from my editor about a pacing problem, I was worried about that; and discussed a couple of fixes. He quite liked my idea of a short "mean girls" episode. Which I think came out very well, but which did grow to be something longer than either of us expected, I'm sure. So, did I fix the pacing problem? I don't know! But I was quite worried about it, and of course the overall length, and that ended up with my invention of what I call the "oomph analysis". Here's what it looks like for the original Vol 2 MS:

The idea is that the author works out the categories that best capture what he or she feels are most important for his or her book, and then, reading it chapter by chapter, gives each chapter a score from 0 to 5 in each of those categories (in a spreadsheet). It takes a few minutes thought at the end of each chapter, so it's not that hard to do. I also added a one-line summary of each chapter. Then out pops a colour-coded graph. I've written about it a bit over on my other blog, A Toe in the Ocean of Books, but I'll summarise what I said there: for my book, the categories I decided on were: Pace (action), World building, Character development, Plot development, Emotion (moving), Humour, and Tension. It's partly objective, despite being subjectively-based. I basically gave myself a 5 for humour if I had several laugh-out-loud moments in the chapter, or on where I really cracked up; similarly, if I cried a fair bit, I gave that chapter a 5 for emotion; and so on. I hope the fact that I think it varies means there is some variation there to be seen! The formula I invented to show the patterns balances chapter length (longer chapters reduce oomph, but very short ones don't overly boost it; and high scores are exaggerated, because high scores have much more impact and are harder to get). I plan to write more about this; and also to do the same analysis for Wild Thing.

Anyway, I'm now updating and working my way through my list of (currently) 33 things to do for publication and book launch. And praying that my editor won't have more than a month of work I'll need to do, when I receive his critique!

3 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Comment deleted to remove email address from public display. Comment said - apart from deleted address:

      I did post on Amazon for the first book and I just finished the second book and will post another. I can't find where you want us to send our e-mail address so I am posting here. (address removed). My Amazon post for the first book:
      (text of amazon review can be found at https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1C4FRGPDMRZ52/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B019DQVR76)

      Delete
  2. Ok so I have posted the second review for your new book. Here is a copy. Very nice job by the way! I will say this get with Michael Anderle he has an amazing following and this was accomplished in less than 6 months. He has been working with other indie authors to get them moving the same direction using the same formula he has been using. I have become a fan and really hope you continue writing.

    To be honest the first book almost turned me completely off due to some the things that happened with the character. I am not one to read dark, mind twisted stories. There certain types of horrors that want to make you curl up in a little ball and never come out of your room. Some are the murdering type of horrors, some the psychotic horrors, and some the completely evil horrors. I think one of mine would be to take my free will away. To make it where I can't make something stop no matter what I do or batter myself against a brick wall to make it stop. At the same time the message I received and got was there is always hope. That if you have hope you could will never stop trying, never stop fighting. As I said in my post for the first book, I really am not looking to read these type of books because there is so much darkness in the world right now that it does make you want to act like an ostrich. Yet I still read the book and will continue to read the books in this series because for me the author is just that good. I have been completely amazed that I have not found any errors. I will also say that the book made me so engrossed in the story that I wasn't really looking that hard. As a self published indie author I am really impressed. If you knew the amount of books I read in a week it would tell you a lot and how much this impresses me. This not for everyone and the story is hard to read a times. I will say at one point I actually laughed out loud, and with the way the story is I did not think I would. The author also makes it where the bad guys have redeeming qualities but right now killing is not enough, but may be the only right thing to do to stop the injustice. I am with the main character how could it even be close to possible that people don't notice what is going and do something, but isn't that us today "see no evil, hear no evil" because if you don't, it's not real, and you don't have to get involved. I am so torn with this book and the series and I hope the author does not disappoint because everyone one needs a hero, and everyone wants to be one, and everyone wants the bad guys to get what's coming to them. I said in the last review that if she didn't start maturing and wising up I wouldn't be able to continue. In some respects this happened not as quickly as I liked but it is occurring. So, to the author very nice job and I will continue :)!

    Regards,

    Lisa

    ReplyDelete