Line by Line
The next step is to ask someone for help again. For this readthrough, the focus will be on smaller issues.
So You Finished Your Novel, Now What?
This is a summary page of the “Now What?” series, with links to each part.
Learning to Share
You’ve struggled and sweat over your novel for a long time, but now it’s time to have someone else go over it for you, whether that’s a professional editor or someone you trust.
Once More, with Feeling
It’s a lot of work to rewrite. But you, as the author, are the only one who can do it. No one else can do this work without losing your voice; no one else can see the story that you have in your head and translate it to the page.
Rewriting Is Important
I’m not talking about editing here (we’ll get to that.) Rewriting is much deeper. You’re not polishing; you’re tearing down and rebuilding. If your story were a house, you’d be tearing down the garage and adding a new bedroom, not just painting the siding.
Writing is Fun
Congratulations! You’ve finished your novel. Maybe you managed to do it all during National Novel Writing Month. Maybe it’s been the labor of several decades.
Regardless, you’ve finished.
Now, what?
Don’t Try to Be Original
One of the biggest worries that many new authors have is whether or not their work is original. Are they just copying their favorite novel? What if someone has written their idea before? How can they come up with something that’s new and interesting with all of the books that have already been written? For some people, it ends up being crippling. An author who is writing a book on Yetis who run a magical school for gifted dragons sees…
Skywalker Stands Alone
[Warning: This post contains significant spoilers for two of the three Star Wars movies. If you have not seen A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, you should do so before reading this post. Also, what’s wrong with you? They’re cultural touchstones that have been out forever.] Standalone, with Series Potential If you are submitting your book to publishers, it’s common to see the advice that, even if you intend it to be a thirty-one-volume series with four spin-offs,…
Feedback Tips – Part Three – What to Do with Feedback
Hello! It’s time for a new installment in this blog series which I definitely didn’t forget I was writing. We’ve talked about when you should ask for feedback and what kind of feedback you should ask for, but the next step is critical: What do you do when you get feedback? Now, a lot of this will depend on what kind of feedback it is and what stage your book was in. If you just threw a first draft of…
Feedback Tips: Part Two – What Feedback to Ask For
In part one, I talked about when to ask for feedback. If you missed that post, you can find it here. However, the next major issue that people have with feedback is knowing what kind of feedback to ask for. If you scroll through /r/writing’s stickied critique thread, you’ll notice that quite a few of the posts just say, “any feedback at all” or “whatever advice you feel like.” Almost all of the posts that just get dropped in (and…