In the blog post, Birthing a Book, I talked about how long it can take to make a book ready for publishing. I recently bemoaned a formatting flub in the print version of my published book, Members of the Cast. If you haven’t read the posts, let it be said that it takes forever to get a book really ready for prime time. In trade publishing, the time between an editor buying a book and the book being published is 12 to 18 months. During this time, the author is not simply tapping her fingers on the table, waiting. There are edits to be made, often on a line-by-line basis.
I self-published, but I have beta readers and critique partners who keep me on my toes. It took more than 18 months to get Members of the Cast out the door. (I don’t write eight hours a day.)
The Fever
Now that the publishing ice has been broken, I find myself wanting to get my trilogy to print. The books have been complete for several years and are in various stages of revision. The Ship from Wolfskill, Book 1, has been edited, critiqued, and beta read. I find myself thinking, “Why not publish it now?”
The simple answer is that book is not ready. It is in good shape, and yet when I reread the book, I get an uncomfortable feeling that there is something wrong with this section or that. A scene isn’t working as I imagined or made me uncomfortable.
Less than Perfect Scenes
Can Suffer from Multiple Problems
1. Broken Record— I have visited a theme one too many times. A character has said something similar before.
2. This Is Fill— Closely related to Broken Record are filler scenes. When writing, I tend to make my chapters between 800 and 1400 words. These are arbitrary numbers and a trap. I should be writing chapters that fulfill a part of the plot. Scenes that delay that process are useless. That is not to say every word written must be filled with excitement and tension. Plots need to ebb and flow, but sometimes the ebb is unnatural—awkward—needs cutting or fixing. Fill can also be in the form of “play-by-play” text, making the reader plow through picking up her keys, shutting the door, locking the door, and then going down the steps.
3. Unnatural— There are times when a character says or does things that don’t fit their personality or the situation. These are moments that raise red flags when I read a scene. As a book develops and chapters are written, characters grow and become fuller than at first blush. Early scenes need revision in light of my new understanding of characters.
4. Dull— Members of the Cast is about a young girl who has spent her life not drawing attention to herself, and her social skills are lacking. Early in the book, it was tricky to portray Margo as likable and yet not dull. Tuning her inner thoughts required much revision.
Don’t Hurry
Don’t Hurry was the topic of an earlier blog post about writing a single book. Because The Ship from Wolfskill is a trilogy, once Book 1 is published, there will be no going back to adjust a character or event. The biggest problem with television series is consistency. This is especially true when writers go and come. I never want a reader saying, “Wait a minute—back in Chapter 2…”
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