Feedback on Price of Command

I meet with my fellow writers on Thursday, July 12th at the Hartford Coffee House in St. Louis, MO to discuss my novella, Price of Command.  I got a lot of feedback.  There were some good points and bad points. 

People liked my man character.  My dialogue is solid and natural.  But it makes up 85% of the story.  The story flowed well. 

However, my readers felt there were too many characters.  Many of my dialogue tags didn't work.  Because there so many characters, people often got lost in the dialogue.  I needed more description.  A few people suggested going back and adding more back story to the novella.  Many of my chapters felt more like an outline.  And they felt the story ended too abruptly.  It was felt I needed to add more emotional reactions to my characters.  Violent things happened and my characters just went along for the ride. 

That's something I'm guilty of.  However, I don't know when I'll be able to go back and rework Price of Command.  I'm hoping to do it in September.  Right now, I've been working on Straits of Magellan trying to write a chapter a week.  I'll see how it goes.  My goal is to have the rough draft done by New Years Day, 2014. 

But I do need to rewrite and revise Price of Command. 

Grammar, Punctuation, and Proper English

I spent the weekend reading two books on proper English and punctuation.  I am also taking a four week course on grammar and punctuation from a local community college in St. Louis, MO. 

For my troubles, I did finish editing Kepler Falling last week.  I have three different short stories I need to look over.  I started a short story for Writers Under the Arch two weeks ago.  I'm not sure if I should continue with it.  I'm trying to incorporate some of what I've learned into my writing.  It's an ongoing process.  I have yet to sit down with a critical eye for punctuation and grammar with one of my stories or novellas. 

The short story I submitted to WUTA Big Books got turned down with the comments it was too long for a short story and would be better as a novel.  I won't work on "Matter of Honor" for a while.  I am too involved with Straits of Magellan.  The one good thing I did was outline a couple chapters for the novel.  I have a better idea what to write until I get to the end of where I stopped.  I then outline some more chapters until I have the novel complete.  I know how Straits of Magellan will end and how it will lead into the third book of the Kepler cycle called Redemption of Eden...  

Week of editing

All I've been doing this week is editing different short stories.  I also went through half of Kepler Falling this morning entering electronic corrections. 

I also started a continuing edition course at a local community college on writing basics.  I took notes last night in class.  I also had to print out 25 copies of a recent work for the class to edit next Wednesday.  I also made copies for Writers Under the Arch Meeting on Monday nights of a new short story I wrote back in February called Among Strangers.  I also have more editing to do on Kepler Falling.  And I also have short stories of friends to line edit for WUTA Big Books next Thursday evening at SLAG at Oak Knoll Park in Clayton, MO. 

I should be editing tonight.  I wanted a break from it.  I also wanted to update some of the blogs before the weekend, too.  Anyway, good writings and may your muse be gracious to you....

Blake

Back to editing and revising

I've been spending my free time editing and revising.  I try and get two chapters of Kepler Falling edited each weekday.  I also have some short stories to line edit for the June Big Books meeting next week.  But there are only three short stories to go through. 

I spent the other day getting hard copies of Price of Command ready for some readers.  I don't think I'll need anymore copies.  But I could be wrong.  And I'm still writing about 250 words a day for Straits of Magellan.  It's not move as fast as I'd like.  But it's going.  I'm also starting to read a new novella for my WUTA group this Monday evening at The St. Louis Artist Guild, too.

Those are some of the things I'm up to...

New writing routine

This year has been productive.  I've gotten several novellas and short stories written.  They are just rough drafts.  I've spent part of the spring revising Price of Command and Kepler Falling.  I started a second novel recently.  It's the second part of the Kepler Falling cycle.  I envision three related works. 

Part of this is marketing.  Part of this is necessity.  I'd like to write a stand alone work and move onto something else.  But in today's market, agents and publishers are looking for series to sell.  That is one of the reasons there are so many rotten fantasy novels.  People know a cash cow when they see it.  I've wavered between editing what I have and just writing the second novel and then move onto the third novel next year. 

I don't have time to do everything.  I broke down and decided I'd finish the second work in the Kepler Falling cycle this year.  I want to have at least 5 papers written each week.  If I write a page a day, I should have about 50,000 words by the end of year.  I can then move onto the final manuscript in 2014.  Once everything is written, I could then go back to editing and revising everything before I'd start seriously marketing my works.

So, I write at least one page each day Monday through Friday.  It's marked on my calendar.  It's also the only way I know to get a manuscript written in a timely manner.  5 pages a week for 50 weeks in 250 pages.  That's about 60,000 words.  The hard part will be all the editing and revising once everything is done... 

Revamping my blogs...

I decided to create several new blogs to cover different interests.  One is dedicated to raising orchids.  A second blog is dedicated to classical music.  And this blog will be dedicated to writing.  Blake's Gaming Adventures will remain the same. 

What I can say is I hung out some writer friends this past weekend.  It was to mingle with them outside of our weekly critique group.  But I have little to show for my literary efforts.  I got a novella edited and I'll be attending a 4 week workshop for improving writing basics at a local community college.  But I haven't done any writing or work on "Straits of Magellan" recently.  Chris Bauer, a friend of mine, is taking a year long sabbatical from Writers Under the Arch as he works on a 19th century steam punk novel. 

I'm torn between more editing and actually doing writing.  I also have some short stories that need to be rewritten.  I'm still wanting to work on Price of Command first.  People were talking about getting agents and finding publishers.  I'm still desire just to get a good manuscript together!