The SFF Writing Check-in Corner

themindstream said:

Oh hello, thread.

...ever have one of those days where you're trying to get from point A to interesting scene B for which path crossing C has to happen, but you just can't quite figure out how to get the paths to cross?

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I think maybe your problem with getting to 'interesting scene B' is that 'path crossing C' is alphabetically after it? But seriously, give us more detail and we'll try to help you out if we can!

Explaining all the details would be overmuch for this thread but it's basically a person and a group of people separately having been taken captive in a castle, they are aware that the other is there and are able to subvert their situation sufficiently to meet up, it's just that the ways I keep coming up with for that to happen keep failing the logic test as I actually try to write the sequence out. (If he's able to drug the guards, what's keeping him from just opening their cell doors and solving this much too easily? If they aren't drugged, how does he lurk around without being noticed? Etc.)

Addendum: One shower later, I might be overthinking this. If they're thinking the same thing and at least one of them knows where the others are, this probably isn't hard at all.

AHAH! I finally finished it. It is wayyyyyyyyyyyy too long, so now I'm trying to figure out if I can divide it in two. Trouble is there is no mid-book scene that would make a good ending. Beta time, if I can find one willing to take on such a long novel.

themindstream said:

Oh hello, thread.

...ever have one of those days where you're trying to get from point A to interesting scene B for which path crossing C has to happen, but you just can't quite figure out how to get the paths to cross?

Click to expand...

Oh hell yes! And sometimes I have to cross path S and Z.

Seriously, in my first book, I had to get my guys from one side of (5th cent.) Britain to another. They could not go straight across, they had to go north almost to Hadrian's wall and then south to where the meat of the story awaits. It had to be made clear that the MC, who'd come (from Ireland) eager to do a little or a lot of bloodletting, to get what he needed (land), soon found it more distasteful than he'd expected. AND, this is not a quest novel. Getting it done in two or three chapters was hugely challenging.

themindstream said:

Explaining all the details would be overmuch for this thread but it's basically a person and a group of people separately having been taken captive in a castle, they are aware that the other is there and are able to subvert their situation sufficiently to meet up, it's just that the ways I keep coming up with for that to happen keep failing the logic test as I actually try to write the sequence out. (If he's able to drug the guards, what's keeping him from just opening their cell doors and solving this much too easily? If they aren't drugged, how does he lurk around without being noticed? Etc.)

Addendum: One shower later, I might be overthinking this. If they're thinking the same thing and at least one of them knows where the others are, this probably isn't hard at all.

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Funny how that happens, isn't it? A while back I was wracking my brain about how to make it clear HOW my MC knew about an event that he had not been present for. Then I realized I didn't have to explain it at all. His best friend had been there and it was something he - of course - would have told him the first chance he got.

*sheepishly enters* It's been a while. Last academic term really nailed me to the wall. But now, back with time and energy, and ready to check in.

Finished my second book, and feeling pretty spunky. First book is still being shopped, and I have a mess of partials and three fulls out right now. Guess while I wait I'll start book 3. Or sleep. Either could work.

Question though, and unsure where else to ask (the publishing threads seemed not quite right) - I'm a big fan of # MSWL. While I restrict my submissions to agents otherwise, I have a hard time ignoring indie publishers and other small little outfits that come to MSWL and post a really good fit for what I wrote. I've submitted to three (out of the thirty+ actual agent submissions I've done).

Those three publisher submissions are my three full requests. I can get agents hooked through query and partial, then dropped. Every. Single. Publisher (although really, three is not good enough for a statistically significant sample size) has requested fulls.

WTF does that even mean (other than that I am going to hell for simultaneous submission. I know that already)?

kaysa said:

Those three publisher submissions are my three full requests. I can get agents hooked through query and partial, then dropped. Every. Single. Publisher (although really, three is not good enough for a statistically significant sample size) has requested fulls.

WTF does that even mean (other than that I am going to hell for simultaneous submission. I know that already)?

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I don't know, but it may be that agents only tend to take on manuscripts they're reasonably sure fit whatever larger publishing houses are looking for right now. They work on commissions, and it's got to be a bit of a let down for an agent to spend weeks or months of work on a manuscript with a client to have it go someplace that's only likely to garner a very modest advance and a small number of sales. I'm guessing that a typical agent is not just looking for books that are publishable, but ones that have at least a chance of being picked up by a major house, gleaning a large advance, and selling well.

Publishers, however, can increase the likelihood of making at least some profit on a single title, even with newer authors, by offering very small (or in the case of very small presses, no) advances.

I'm just guessing, though. Obviously, no one wants to take on a book that has little to no chance of selling well, so if you're getting the level of interest you've been, it sounds like your query and opening pages are solid and show signs of being what a number of people are looking for right now.

Thank you for the response, Roxxsmom. I've been googling but either my keywords are lacking or this is not an issue that people have. I can't be the only moron occasionally dabbling in publisher submissions while doing agent ones.

The fiction world is so drastically different from the nonfiction one, my head spins. I'll get my feet underneath myself eventually, I hope.

Just finished the outline for current novel which is good since I'm going back to school shortly and can write a lot better in less time with an outline.

emmajmcwill said:

Just finished the outline for current novel which is good since I'm going back to school shortly and can write a lot better in less time with an outline.

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Congrats on the outline! I just did mine for the third book in a series I'm going. But now I am going to ignore it and do edits on book two, like a good little author.

I'm new here, too. Want a writing buddy, Emma? I'm intrigued by your steampunk / genderqueer / academia thing in your siggy.

I am working on a Science Fiction Trilogy. The first and second are done at 93k and 90k. The third is at 104k so far.

Hi mitchellmckain! Not much going in this thread anymore, but I still lurk. Congrats on your first two. Are you subbing #1 yet?

What does "subbing" refer to?

mitchellmckain said:

What does "subbing" refer to?

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"Subbing" refers to the process of submitting a manuscript (book) to either an agent or a publishing house or even an indie press. In fact, any situation where an author is submitting something to someone can be probably be referred to as "subbing". However, I would refrain from using "subbing" as a catch-all term for sharing your work with people, unless it's to get them to work for you.

I guess the answer is no then. I put the first book out on Amazon.com as an ebook. I don't have a lot of extra money so making a lot of paper copies and sending them to tons of people doesn't feel so right to me either economically or ecologically.

Most subbing is done via e-mail these days, if you are trying to land an agent/publisher. I've not run across one yet that will only do paper.

But since I work in the wood products industry, let me assure you that using paper both keeps me employed, and is better than many alternatives. And its a renewable resource. Woohoo!

Nice to see activity here again. I'm in synopsis hell.

Oooh, this thread came back to life!

I'm working to an April deadline for book 2, which I've already written and revised and edited and revised and edited and... now I'm just tinkering with the damn thing because I've got time and I can. I should just send it already, shouldn't I?

Well, yesterday I wrote longhand and scratched it all out and started over and thought some and scratched some out and wrote some more. As to counting it...nevertheless the story is coming together. Like potatoes and cabbage and mutton in the bottom of a heavy-bottomed stew pot. Don't forget the salt and pepper. The mutton has lots of fat.

Yeah, don't forget to skim that fat off the top before you serve it

PeteMC said:

Oooh, this thread came back to life!

I'm working to an April deadline for book 2, which I've already written and revised and edited and revised and edited and... now I'm just tinkering with the damn thing because I've got time and I can. I should just send it already, shouldn't I?

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Do it! Send it in, then have some nice boozes to celebrate!

I finished the first draft of book two, and have decided to redo a substantial subplot. Sometimes I feel like rewrites on a finished draft are harder than writing the first time through, because I am constrained by what is already written.

I am also glad this thread came back!

Still fighting the synopsis. I'm sure the submission deadline will pass and I will still not have the effing synopsis ready.

PeteMC said:

Oooh, this thread came back to life!

I'm working to an April deadline for book 2, which I've already written and revised and edited and revised and edited and... now I'm just tinkering with the damn thing because I've got time and I can. I should just send it already, shouldn't I?

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YES! Wtf are you waiting for? Send it. Forget it, while you start on the next one.

I too am in synopsis hell. wrote version 4 today. I am really tired of writing synopses.

Mercifully, most of the agents I've queried don't ask for a synopsis. Unsure if that is just the ones I've picked, or general for sci fi overall. Regardless, makes me happy!

Writing check in - plodding through a new scene adding to book 2. Doing well and enjoying it, but slow, slow going.

CL Polk said:

I too am in synopsis hell. wrote version 4 today. I am really tired of writing synopses.

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Only version 4?

I posted my synopsis in QLH and got lots of good help. After changing it again, again, and again, I realized the main thread of the story had gotten lost. I had a better synopsis, but it didn't really describe the book. lol.

kaysa said:

Mercifully, most of the agents I've queried don't ask for a synopsis. Unsure if that is just the ones I've picked, or general for sci fi overall. Regardless, makes me happy!

Writing check in - plodding through a new scene adding to book 2. Doing well and enjoying it, but slow, slow going.

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That's good news about agents. I certainly understand why they are needed, though.

Also, I just added a scene to wip that I thought the book needed. I still think it is necessary, but I can't seem to get it right. . . Probably because I'm worrying about the damn synopsis. Grrr.

Wow, it's been so long since I've been here! Hi everybody (grin) - I'm determined to FINISH the first draft of this Fantasy trilogy, Bk 1. Just joined a Writers Guild (online) and trying to get a feel for what goal to set for word-count. I've got a rough 45K words and think around 90K is a normal goal in this genre.

So. Trying to get NEW words on the page today. And, between getting sleepy...and having to go into town...and giving my hubby some attention...I am, again, staring at the two sentences I just wrote. It's a scene where two men, from a very watery planet, have been sojourning in a dry Russian steppe-like place--and they finally come to a large river and can't wait to get into the water.

I am bogging down on, yes, "worldbuilding." Do they have gill-like things or just larger lung capacities? Does their world have more than % salt water than fresh on it, and what are the geological/botanical/sociological implications of that? How do I find any science or even, pseudo-science (that can pass for science) to write this in a good, believable way???

Ohmagod. It begins already! Help meeeee - any suggestions are welcome

WhooHoo! I have WORDS! It's been a while but I have 1000 shiny words on a page.