Monday, July 19, 2010

More aditing

This part of my writing process is always for me the most intensive part. I enjoy seeing the characters really round out and start to live rather than exist on the pages. I'm currently at chapter twenty-two and I've added 3.5k so far. This has been as tiny nuggets of backstory, extra lines of dialogue, small pieces of description to set the scene better, rephrasing of clumsy words and making sure I'm showing and not telling the story so that the pace continues to move on. When I reach the final part of the process - my backwards edit I'll ensure that each scene has moved the plot forward and that the end of the book is as strong - if not stronger than the beginning. It takes a long time and it's painstaking work but the results are very satisfying. I'm really excited about this story - it's a bit different and out there but still within the expectations I think from readers of the kind of story that I write. On to the next chapter!

5 comments:

Ms Menozzi said...

Keep going, hon! The end is truly in sight! And I'm happy to tell you that you've got a new fan on this side of the pond, too. ;-)

Janet Ch said...

"I'm really excited about this story - it's a bit different and out there but still within the expectations I think from readers of the kind of story that I write."

Hi Nell,
You have such a flair for plotting and seem to come up with intriguing ideas quite effortlessly!

Do the ideas arrive fully formed or do you start with a tiny glimmer and build from there?

I'd love to hear about what happens after your initial ah-ha moment. Does the plot or the characters come to you firsd?

Best wishes
Janet

Nell Dixon said...

I'll do a post on this tomorrow Janet. I just finished a 12 hour day at the day job today so my brain is a bit frizzled.

John Atkinson said...

Nell, do you write an outline before you start?

Nell Dixon said...

Hi John, great to see you here. I'll talk some more about my process and synopsis or outlines over the next few days.