Hey Folks,
As you read this, I should be lounging somewhere along (well, above) the Gila River in the Lower Gila Box Wilderness.
But before I left, I drifted out to the Hovel and created a cover for the new novella. That’s it on the left.
As promised, I’ve posted the second topic below.
Yesterday I talked in general about reading your work aloud, then discussed reading aloud during my writing process. So today…
Topic: Reading Aloud in My Own After-Writing Process
If a work is shorter — say up to 45,000 words or so — I usually read it aloud. So short stories, novellas and short novels.
I can do that too by myself, but I find it more valuable to read to an audience. I’m more apt to use character-voice inflections and so on when I’m reading to someone else. I’m truly blessed that my wife, Mona, seems to enjoy serving as my audience.
I usually read for about an hour, then take a break of a few minutes, then come back and read some more. I’ll get through a short story in one session. Longer works might take two or three days of three or four sessions each.
To answer another of the original questions, I don’t print the work out and read from paper, then make notes as I go. I know others who do, and that’s perfectly fine. It’s all a matter of how you want to do it.
In fact, Dean talks often about printing a story or novel he’s just finished and then laying it on the desk of his first reader, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, who is also his wife and first reader.
For me it’s both easier and more time-efficient to read directly from my laptop and make changes on the fly.
In fact, I read from the already-formatted copy on my laptop. Afterward, the work is as clean as it’s going to get.
The work has already been formatted, the front matter and back matter added, and the cover created. So when I’ve finished reading it aloud, I usually take a break, then publish and distribute it.
You’ll notice I didn’t mention sending my work away to a copyeditor. I don’t. But I do have a very strong grounding in word choice (good word choice is based on connotation as much as denotation), sentence structure, pacing and flow, paragraphing and so on.
I have a gift for the rhythms of the language. That combined with a pretty thorough knowledge of the factors in the paragraph above negate the need for a separate copyeditor. (Be careful: if you think a “run-on” sentence is just a really long sentence, please consider hiring a copyeditor.)
I’m one of those odd ducks who loves telling a good story but who also has a passion for diagramming sentences. Go figure.
See you tomorrow.
Of Interest
See “Day Four: Exhausted” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/day-four-exhausted/. Watch Dean’s site for the next couple of days, too. You never know when he’ll drop a gem for you.
See “When Fiction Meets Reality – The Challenges of my Current WIP” at https://killzoneblog.com/2018/04/when-fiction-meets-reality-the-challenges-of-my-current-wip.html.
I thought I’d recommend “How to Write Pulp Fiction” by James Scott Bell, if you’re interested. It isn’t as helpful as I’d hoped, but there are some gems in it. There are bits I will ignore, but there are gems. The ebook is at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0771SP274/ and the paperback is at https://www.amazon.com/dp/0910355371/.
Fiction Words: XXXX
Nonfiction Words: 460 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 460
Writing of
Day 1…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXX
Total fiction words for the month……… 13956
Total fiction words for the year………… 127497
Total nonfiction words for the month… 2870
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 36630
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 205907
Calendar Year 2018 Novels to Date………………………… 3
Calenday Year 2018 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
Calendar Year 2018 Short Stories to Date……… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………………………………………… 30
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………………………………… 5
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……………………………… 182