What's Your Choice? Outliner and/or Seat-of-the-Pants Writer?, A Gift for You, Save 25%

Gardener Ted and I heading for the beach!!

Hello and welcome to the Focused on Story blog by J.Q. Rose!
As you can see from the photo above, I'm a bit giddy and silly. I have a good reason. I finished the manuscript for Terror on Sunshine Boulevard and sent it in to the editors at BWL Publishing. 

That doesn't mean the story is finished. The editor will return her suggestions/comments on the ms all red-marked in the Tracker program. So I will have even more editing to do before the final story will be ready for release. But having the story written is the first big hurdle. 

Soon I'll be ready to tackle another story. I usually outline the story first, but I'm open to changing elements to help me get to a satisfying ending. How about you? 

I'm sharing this previously posted article on the J.Q. Rose blog for you to consider how you begin your stories. I look forward to your comments.

Outliner or Pantser???

What's Your Choice? Outliner and/or Seat of the Pants Writer? by J.Q. Rose

When you begin your story or novel, do you use an outline to guide your writing or do you just begin and let the ideas/characters/plot take you in the direction of the story? Letting the words flow along with no pre-planning means you are writing by the seat-of-your-pants thus earning the title of a “pantser.”  We have lots of discussions at The Writers Chatroom among the newcomers and regular attendees as to the best method of writing a story or novel. Click here to join us at The Writers Chatroom . 

• Wednesday evening chats  from 8-10 pm ET,  
• guest authors on Sunday nights at 7 pm ET. 

In an article by Robert Campbell, Outlining,  in Writing Mysteries: A Handbook by the Mystery Writers of America, this mystery writer admits he never used an outline. He preferred William Faulkner’s method of setting his characters on the road and “walk beside them, listening to what they have to say.” Campbell admits writing without an outline causes him to start down paths that lead to dead ends, but he discovers a lot about a character spending time on pages upon pages that he may have to discard. However, he feels that at least, he exercised the writing muscles.

Later in his writing Campbell discovered outlining using his “word processor” or even hand writing a simple outline. He also makes up documents before starting the story such as Chronology, Cast of Characters, Address Book, Timeline of History, Notebook and Agenda which “sketches the goals, desires and probable actions of each principal character as I move through the body of the book.” He builds on each of these documents as the work-in-progress (WIP) evolves.  Campbell cautions that at no time is anything engraved in stone. He remains flexible with each chapter.

I have tried the pantser and not so strict outline process and discovered just like Campbell, my many paths lead to dead ends. I really don't like cutting a bunch of scenes or re-writing to fit that once-brilliant idea into the story when it really isn't necessary. 

Quote by Nora Roberts

It really makes no difference whether you need a map, guidelines, outline or just an idea to freely write a story. The important thing is to write. Don’t be paralyzed by constructing an outline, then never writing the story. With no outline, you may write paragraphs, pages, scenes, chapters, etc that will need to be cut for the final draft. But many authors incorporate those leftover pages into another future story or save them to share with readers on your blog to give them an extra treat to the behind-the-scenes editing you did to produce the finished product.

Pleeeeeezzzz…just write! It’s in you. What a shame if you don’t let the story inside you out on the page.

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A GIFT FOR YOU

A Gift for You

If you are editing now or will be in the future, I would like to share a valuable cheatsheet developed by my first editor, Karen McGrath. She titled it Villain Words because eliminating these words will eliminate passive voice writing. 

Please click here to link to the J.Q. Rose Author Page and like my page. I'll send you the sheet via Messenger. Thank you.

If you prefer, send me an email to let me know you liked my page and I'll email the sheet to you.

If you have already liked my author page, leave a comment below and I'll email the sheet. 

My email address is jqrose02(at)gmail (dot)com

BIG NEWS

My publisher, BWL Publishing is offering 25% off my mysteries when using the coupon for Smashwords. The sales price with the coupon is $2.24. Grab them for yourself or your friends! All formats are available. If you have a kindle, order the mobi file.

Click on the titles below to go to the Smashwords Sales Page. 
Also available for $2.99 at other major online booksellers. Thank you!

   Dangerous Sanctuary                                             Deadly Undertaking

      Coupon Code KW65J                                           Coupon code AS94U

6 Editing-My-Novel Steps by J.Q. Rose, 25% Off Sale

Hello and welcome to the Focused on Story Blog by J.Q. Rose!

Mark Twain Quote

I am slogging through the manuscript for Terror on Sunshine Boulevard. Yes, editing. Finding the right words, like Mark Twain said, makes a difference in your story. It is grueling work. When I read a word and it stops me in my editing zone, then it's the wrong word. I have find the right word, but how? 

The steps I go through to find the "right" word.

• I roll around a lot of words in my head, 
• I hit shift/f7 to bring up a "dictionary" of sorts in my Word program, 
• then I go to thesaurus.com for help 
• if nothing else works, I BOLD and italicize it to return to it when the right word pops into my brain.

6 Editing-My-Novel Steps by J.Q. Rose

Here are the steps I go through when editing (and I must admit I don't have a set number of edits.) Some writers write the first draft, edit for content, edit it for grammar and spellings, final edit for formatting = 4 read-throughs.

1. First draft--I do not edit as I write, or try not to. If you edit as you write, you will never reach the end of the story. Just get down the bones. I admit I do have to correct misspelled words. I am OCD about spelling. I write chronologically. I don't do the big scenes then try and string them together. Tried that once. Never again.

2. I write each chapter and save it in a separate file. I edit each chapter (more than once) before I add it to the manuscript file. Here I add flesh to the bones and clean up awkward sentences and try to slash unnecessary words or redundant information. I have a list of words I overuse, and in the ms I use the Find program in Word to find and replace them.

3. I write the scenes on sticky notes and place them in order according to the ms like a story board. Here's where I can delete or move scenes if I think it improves the flow of the story.

4. I read through the entire ms to check the timeline, sequence, and the characters' actions and descriptions.

5. I put it away and don't touch it for a couple of weeks. Then I send the ms to my kindle and convert it to an ebook. I read it on my kindle and highlight typos, nonsensical sentences, blue eyes to brown eyes, and all the stuff that really sticks out when reading the ms in this format. Sometimes I use the text to speech to "listen" to the story too. Then I find the highlighted notes in the ms and correct them.

6. Finally, I check formatting and make sure Chapter 3 follows Chapter 2, etc. and delete extra pages that sometimes end up in the ms after all the editing.

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I'm sure if you have a novel-writing program like Scrivener, some of this work is done for you. But I don't have Scrivener. Do you? Do you use it?

I have a wonderful writers group who reads my chapters and helps me brainstorm and also look for "problems" in the story whether in content or proof-reading. Fresh eyes really, really help. 

By the final read-through, I am comfortable to send it out to beta readers for feedback. And when I get that back, it's back to editing, adding, taking away, etc. You know what I mean.

I'd appreciate hearing from you on your steps for editing. Always eager to learn new methods. Leave a comment below.

Kindle for editing
Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Click here or my blog post on using the kindle for editing

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Grammarly
I am experimenting with Grammarly.com, an online program to correct errors in documents. I have it on my FB and email, so when I use these pages errors are highlighted right away. I like that.I haven't tried putting a whole ms into the program...yet. 

I only have the free version. The premium version offers more information such as finding passive sentences, but so far I haven't been curious enough to pay for the service.

📗📘📙📕

BIG NEWS

My publisher, BWL Publishing is offering 25% off my mysteries when using the coupon for Smashwords. The sales price with the coupon is $2.24...Grab them for yourself or your friends! All formats are available. If you have a kindle, order the mobi file.

Click on the titles below to go to the Smashwords Sales Page. 

   Dangerous Sanctuary                              Deadly Undertaking

         Coupon Code KW65J                                                        Coupon code--AS94U