Serpent’s Smile, Chapter One, Part One Reading
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Category Archives: Writing
The A, B, C, D and F of Editing Fiction
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Here’s the process I’ll be trying out as I edit the nearly 500 pages of double-spaced text in my first draft. First, some definitions using the grading system we all learned in school. Fiction is built with several parts: Action … Continue reading
Last Chapter Goes Up (Appears) Saturday Morning
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The climax of “Serpent’s Smile” will appear early Saturday morning. If you’ve been reading along, you will be pleased to find out how it ends — everything will be posted as of then. The story includes 99,136 words. [550,238 characters!] … Continue reading
First Draft Complete
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In a bagel shop in Santa Barbara California, I finished the first draft of the final chapter. It will be posted along with two others over the next three weeks. Work began last October with the outline. A month later, … Continue reading
Two To Get Ready
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In two chapters, I’ll be done with the first draft of Serpent’s Smile. I won’t try your patience with a list of my exposed stupidities (“Things I Learned”). That’s for me to know and not do again. Instead, I’ll quote one of … Continue reading
Halfway
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Serpent’s Smile is halfway done. When finished, the novel will contain thirty chapters. Fourteen have been posted to this point including chapter “One and a Half” so thirteen is really fourteen. Added up, their 45,000 words are slightly over half the 80,000 total … Continue reading
Serpent’s Smile on Break for Two Weeks
I’m doing some consulting work ($$) for a couple of weeks.
Spence, Megyn and Sartaq will, therefore, enjoy some down time. They will re-animate on Saturday, March 19th.
FYI: If you poked your nose in here earlier today and read “Chapter Twelve – Pressure” but don’t see it now, that’s ’cause when I tried to do a quick pass for punctuation errors, I ended up filling every page with red ink. That much blood means it needs major surgery. Until that happens, I’ve retracted it. The chapter is now sulking in the corner and licking its wounds. To those who read it earlier this morning before I pulled it, rest assured the intestinal distress will soon pass. Just keep the windows open.
Whose Head Is It Anyway?
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In fiction, viewpoint lets the reader know who is telling the story. And it also limits what they can tell the reader. A lot of books are told, not from the main character’s view, but rather from a narrator’s viewpoint. Bob, a … Continue reading
New Chapter One and a Half Inserted
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I’ve gone back and inserted a new chapter. “Chapter One and a Half — Witness” presents Sartaq’s viewpoint of the beheading and immediate aftermath. It should answer some of the mysteries of why things did, and did not, happen. After that, Chapters … Continue reading
Advice for Writers
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When I started Serpent’s Smile with the “one chapter per week” goal, my writing process included a rewrite and an edit before each post. That was how I blogged – or at least how I tried to blog. For the … Continue reading