The SFF Writing Check-in Corner

I'm swimming through a beta swap. I hear people complain about bad beta experiences. I gotta say, I haven't yet had a bad one.

kaysa said:

Thank you, everyone, for the kind words!

The agent gave some amazing advice, and I completely agree with it. The work, however, is very time consuming. I've made it through three chapters thus far in rewrites, with one chapter now a blend of three complete separate chapters (but without adding to length). I really like how these rewrites are making the story flow better. It is a shame I stumbled upon this agent so late in my querying process (I'm at like 40+ subs, with a number of full requests out). I think the edits will make the narrative really tight, and I wish I could have been subbing with this new version over the old.

Ah well. Better late than never!

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Absolutely! Lucky you finding such an amazing agent!

PeteMC said:

<cough>

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Cough, cough, yourself. I was looking at your book on Amazon 'cause I like to buy AWers books. Tomorrow, I'm buying it.

Nice one, thanks mate!

I had a call with my editor editor. Dominion edits now have a deadline of first April so whatever I said I was going to do this month, I'm now doing that instead!

Best of luck with edits, PeteMC! Doing my own, so I feel your pain.

I Just started my new creative writing class this week, to which my professor promptly declared "No genre writing! None!" I think I'll go cry now. Here's to a semester of literary fiction and sneaking around after to class to work on my current sci-fi novel.

Anyone else in here do #DVpit today? If so, how did it go?

I did. It wasn't completely crickets: an agent I've already queried (but not heard back from) favorited 2 posts, and an editor retweeted one (meaning she can't take unagented mss, but she's interested. Same pub that gave it a form letter last fall, so we'll see.) I didn't see much of the action, because I knew I'd be at work and unable to log in. Yay for Tweetdeck and scheduled posts! It wasn't a waste of time, and I'm glad I didn't sit this one out.

Agree on the yay to Tweetdeck! I used it because I had jury duty that day.

I also had a decent response - nine overall, two direct message from publishers, two editor retweets, and the rest agents. Most was romance stuff, which my book does not fall under, but it was nice to get noticed regardless. The other authors were really supportive, too, and I got a lot of nice tweets from them over the course of the day.

Super positive experience!

Sigh. I need to vent.

Chapter 2 of a portal fantasy, right? Main character gets to spend time being introduced to what in normal circumstances would be a very friendly setting before shit hits the proverbial fan. I've been dragging ever so slowly on the writing of it for over a month, part because I keep wanting to do worldbuilding that isn't all that relevant, part because I'm trying really hard not to have it just be an infodump...but it is, on some level, a necessary infodump, albiet told through character interaction. And I'm so nearly to the point where I can start revving up the fan and my brain starts thinking "hey, they could have some character development conversation right here..." (This is the last point we'll see one of these characters before the fan blows him out of the picture for several chapters).

Come on brain, work with me here, please? We've been avoiding this section since the first NaNoWriMo draft. We're almost through it.

I'm also having length anxiety. It's a bit over 3k words right now, it probably feels longer because of the time spent but I have no idea if that's reasonable. I'm trying to be economical with detail but also still have enough of it.

I'm in a similar bind. Chapter 2. Why is it so hard? I seem unable to make a decision about which direction to take to get me where I need to go. And, like you, themindstream, I've been stuck for about a month.

Hi. Anybody still awake here?

I got unstuck. Sailing through chapter 11 now.

I've run into river problems. My book (fantasy/alternate history) takes place in 5th Century Britain. My Britain has a large landmass through its center that was grown by my monster people. I have to figure out which rivers would run through it, or if they have their own river, and which river - real or fantasy - Saxons are currently using and which direction it flows.

So what are the rest of you fantasy writers doing?

WriteMinded said:

Hi. Anybody still awake here?

I got unstuck. Sailing through chapter 11 now.

I've run into river problems. My book (fantasy/alternate history) takes place in 5th Century Britain. My Britain has a large landmass through its center that was grown by my monster people. I have to figure out which rivers would run through it, or if they have their own river, and which river - real or fantasy - Saxons are currently using and which direction it flows.

So what are the rest of you fantasy writers doing?

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I'm jealous! I'm stuck in my own chapter 2 purgatory right now. MC wakes up in a hospital after being involved in an active shooter situation and is going to have to carefully dance through a conversation with the feds about what happened because she can't admit she used magic to survive. Right now it feels like I'm slogging through the details of waking up even though it's only a few paragraphs. I've been stuck for about a month trying to figure out how to get through this section.

4500 words today. I also put all my documents together into one. The end of book three is within sight. Now I have to be careful that I don't rush it.

Aerial said:

I'm jealous! I'm stuck in my own chapter 2 purgatory right now. MC wakes up in a hospital after being involved in an active shooter situation and is going to have to carefully dance through a conversation with the feds about what happened because she can't admit she used magic to survive. Right now it feels like I'm slogging through the details of waking up even though it's only a few paragraphs. I've been stuck for about a month trying to figure out how to get through this section.

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Can you just skip the waking up part and move on to the conversation with the feds, which sound like fun to write, and get back to the waking up bit later on?

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rwm4768 said:

4500 words today. I also put all my documents together into one. The end of book three is within sight. Now I have to be careful that I don't rush it.

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Now, I'm jealous.

Writing my second science fiction short story for submission (the first went into a black hole of a competition tied to a medical conference).

3,200 words. It needs a final edit. Looking forward to the day when I can pay for professional editing, even for a short story. Or even enough posts here on Absolute Write to get feedback. Thankful I have a great beta reader, though.

Now I'm off to find the right place to submit it to....

1700 words on a shared-world antho story today. I've been in a couple of the books in this series already, so the pressure is on to ensure that the editor likes my story and avoid the embarrassment of getting rejected by a project that asked for a story

This one should top out at 7-8K or so. Currently sitting at 3.9K.

WriteMinded said:

I'm in a similar bind. Chapter 2. Why is it so hard? I seem unable to make a decision about which direction to take to get me where I need to go. And, like you, themindstream, I've been stuck for about a month.

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I sidestepped this with a POV swap and a gap of time, but I feel you.

Mine was 140k when I finished it. Bad enough on its own, but it's a YA SF!!!! I managed to wrestle it to 133k and then 127k on my own whilst querying, but it took a brilliant R&R nudge from an agent (who just made an offer of rep!!!) to finally get it down to 107k.

I'm still worried that that is much too long for YA SF. I know a lot of agents in the query phase turned it down due to length--including a rather humiliating tweet on Eric Ruben's #10queries. My wonderful (soon-to-be) agent is doing line edits now, but I'm petrified that publishers will also cough up hairballs at the length.

I'm at around 105k words on my epic fantasy novel. I'd like to cut it down more, but every scene seems essential, and there are so many characters and story arcs to finish up. From what i've heard, it's a bit too long for a first-time author. I guess we'll see.

What a cool thread! Very inspiring to read everyone's progress.

My novel, EoB, has been out for twenty days, and I'm researching and putting together Book 2. It feels a bit like Frodo staring at the One Ring at the end of Fellowship of the Ring, but I'm sure I'll have a blast once I get rolling.

Happy trails in the writing saddle everyone!

Hey everybody!

Hey, herefortheride!

Hi everyone!

OK, if this is all about reporting word counts, let me tally mind up really quick...

Looks like I've got about 700 words so far today. Most of the time, I'm lucky to get 500, so this is great.

Sent out two more query letters this week. Still haven't edited much on either book I need to look over again. I need to get on that if I'm going to have a fellow writer look over one of those chapters in ten days.

Beginners must start somewhere, right? I have 4000 words of my epic fantasy novel so far. Aiming to write at least 2500 words today. I've just introduced a very eccentric duchess that conjures images of Cruella De Vil.

The new fantasy novel is off doing the query and beta rounds, and I've already got a book in hand on the existing published series (Book 3 doesn't even come out till May 17 but my involvement with that is over until pre-launch publicity starts in April.)

I have... nothing to write?

That can't be true, surely...? So, it's either write the second fantasy novel and cross everything that the first one gets picked up, or write the 4th Burned Man novel and cross everything that number 2 sells well enough for them to pick up number 4...

I thought this lark was supposed to get easier once you're published? Guess not...

Hey, where'd everybody go? I know SFF writers abound on AW. Where are you? What're you up to?