Ruling, and Part I of PWA and AutoCrit

 First, it’s release day for Ruling, the ninth book in the Dragons Run My Life series.

 

Click the link you like to acquire a copy.

Buy at Amazon   Books2Read (epub3)    or Print (Amazon)

One Pole At A Time is coming along nicely, and if all goes to plan, it will be available for pre-order just after Ruling’s release, and released on April first.

AutoCrit and ProWritingAid Part I

If you're not interested in the nuts and bolts of editing, feel free to click away to whatever pursuits are important to you. Otherwise…

I almost wrote "versus" in the title and heading, but that's not really true. There are comparisons, but not in the sense of choosing one over the other. As you'll see, I use both; this may explain why I make my choices. YMMV.

These are two software attempts to ease the writer’s editing tasks, kind of taking the middle ground between the writer’s first read-thru after typing The End, and the bevy of first readers, beta readers, editors of all descriptions (and prices) that proceed the release to Amazon or to one of its competitors, or if you’re into self-inflicted pain, before you begin sending your query letters to agents for representation.

As I said last week, these are software, not a magic bullet, though for the prices they charge, you might be forgiven for thinking different. A human with a mind that remembers that a description from the beginning of your work probably still applies as you approach the climax, for example.

Let me digress to say how I do things, being fully aware that my techniques shouldn’t be applicable to any other person. This is more so you can understand where my decisions rise, and why I might complain about some things and not others. I use Scrivener as my main writing tool. Since I distribute through Amazon’s KDP for Kindle e-books and POD paperbacks, and Draft2Digital for the wide world of epub3 compatible reading device e-books, in Scrivener I use different Front and Back Matter to differentiate the three output files. The difference between Amazon and D2D e-books is primarily the sales links allowed in each. For Print, the links are replaced by qr codes. I produce an rtf file which Nesus Writer Pro then tweaks before creating a pdf file to go to the Zon.

PWA accepts as input my Scrivener project, as is. With multiple trials, Scrivener has never failed to open the file that PWA produces, and the changes are accurately reflected. There are interesting anomalies in PWA’s display of text, but they don’t affect the final version.

AC accepts rtf files (and a couple others: [MS Word(.docx), rich text (.rtf) or plain text (.txt)]), but I’ve not tried any but the rtf, since it’s already in my work flow.

Here I’ll say a word about versions. I’m sure you have a way to keep track of where you are, so I won’t tell you it’s important that you do. But because (unlike PWA) I can’t easily bring the AC output file back into Scrivener, when I make a change to the text in AC’s editor, I have to make the same change in my Scrivener source file. It’s a pain, but okay. Keep track of the files you use for anything, especially in the case where the file is an off-shoot.

I said last week that they both work on chunks of your manuscript, rather than the whole thing. I need to recant a little.

PWA might work on the whole of a 50-150k-word ms, but it provides a dire warning message for any document bigger than about 10k-words. You’ll find it faster, it says, to analyze smaller sections of the document. As result, I haven’t tried to run over the whole of one of my books.

AC, on the other hand, won’t analyze a slab of text more than 20k-words. Less than that and for the Story Analysis and Fiction Analysis functions, the piece is considered a short story. I’ve done little with short fiction, and have no gleaming insights. 

For files of book length⁠—I’ve used between 70 and 100 k-words⁠—for the Story Analysis and Fiction Analysis tools, the work must be chapterized. What that means to me as a user: I have to check that I have breaks in the text (which I do, that’s not an issue), that the breaks are called “Chapter” (this was a minor aggravation, requiring me to change my source file, more later) and then check each of them is less than the limit (this required me to add three or four pseudo-chapters (named Chapter thus and so, of course) that I then had to remember to remove at the end of the exercise.

Their help video points out that you don’t have to have chapters in the text, and if you do but they’re not named “Chapter”, that’s okay, because you can go through the ms, either finding what you did call your chapters (you did call them something, right?) or just blocking it off in 5-10 k-word chunks. Like I said, I decided it was less effort to fork the source file and make one special for the AC experience.

Turns out that’s necessary but not sufficient. I still had to take my chapterized ms and after inputting it, tell AutoCrit that there are chapters and they are called chapter, so it can find them. That’s done by clicking a button called Find Chapters (I think; I don’t have it open right now) and it does that, lickety-split. You’ll get a warning if one or more chunks exceed the limit; you have to go back and add chapters, or exercise the procedure I mentioned just above.

That’s what I was thinking of when I made my blanket statement. For the Story Analysis and Fiction Analysis tools, the chapterization is required.

However, all the other checks are done on the complete ms. This is good and bad.

Part II - the information and displays provided by the software comes next. It takes several screenshots to convey, so, shortly.

Comments always welcome, especially if I’ve been unclear (as if!).

A New Description for Freedom Does Matter

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'd asked for an opinion of the then current description for Freedom Does Matter. While he prefers not to have our exchanges posted, I am going to post the before and after versions, since those are both public and while his efforts are certainly reflected in the work, there is nothing that's specific to him.

At the beginning, I had:

Beckie Sverdupe is relaxing mid-summer before her sophomore year at college when a peaceful riding session ends with a horrifying text message: her fiancé and mentor, mercenary Ian Jamse, has been shot.

Beckie’s efforts to complete his work won’t be halted by assassination attempts, natural disasters or heartache. Is it revenge or justice that drives her to pursue the assassin? Her quest reveals a terrorist plot to foment war by killing thousands at iconic Wembley Stadium. Thwarting the plot brings her head-to-head with one man’s closed-mind attempts to redefine freedom.

Freedom Does Matter, the second Mercenaries story, is an older YA or NA action adventure, and is recommended for readers 15+ due to language and adult situations.

Following the suggestions, it now reads:

Mid-summer before her sophomore year at college, Beckie Sverdupe is grooming her horse when she receives horrifying news: her fiancé Ian Jamse has been shot and may be dead.

Leader of a successful mercenary team, Ian’s not only Beckie’s fiancé; he’s her mentor, training her as a team member after she made it clear that, having fallen in love with him, she would make their group more than just “soldiers for hire;” they’d be more “socially conscious” mercenaries, with longer life expectancies. The current job, an Egyptian land dispute negotiation, supposedly filled that requirement to a tee. Except it hadn’t: Ian was dying! 

Instead of returning to campus for Engineering classes, Beckie kisses Ian’s insensate lips and heads to Cairo to complete the negotiations. It’s her first solo assignment, and she’s determined to finish despite her fears for Ian. Tracking the gunman will be an added challenge spurred by renewed assassination attempts targeting the new mediator: her!

Her quest to gain justice— or revenge—for Ian reveals a conspiracy to incite the final Mideast war by killing thousands at iconic Wembley Stadium in London. As she unravels the plot, she comes head-to-head with one man’s bitter, intransigent attempts to redefine freedom. Will Ian love her again? Can Beckie thwart the terrorist honcho before the attack and eliminate one hateful voice of irrationality?

While Freedom Does Matter is set in the Mercenaries world, it may be enjoyed on its own.

 I'd appreciate any thoughts you might be willing to share. I'm going through a similar exercise with the first chapter, having enjoyed Kristen Lamb's First Five Pages Seminar, so I have a couple of days before I push the button. All else is in readiness!

I'm excited to get Freedom Does Matter out there! I hope your aspirations are going as well; you can talk about that in the comments, too, if you like.

It's Been a While

That would be my fault. Between the heat and laying a new patio and critiquing three manuscripts as the parts become available and of course working on two of my own stories, well, I sloughed off writing for the blog.

According to Kristen Lamb, that’s a sign of indecision, or lack of sticktoitivness (spell check doesn't like that one) or something equally obnoxious. I have no problem with that assessment; unfortunately, it seems perfectly reasonable.

However, just because the muse flittered away for her holiday in the midst of Boston's heat wave, and I’m having trouble deciphering her notes, those aren’t good excuses. For neglecting either the blog or the ending of Background Check. So I’m going to work at both those things.

For the patio, shown in progress,

we selected Belgard's Urbana 3 Piece in Sable. To finish will take another week, weather permitting, of digging, spreading the base, laying the stones and then ’grouting’ the joints. A little clean-up around the edges and on to restaining the deck. Never ends, right?

I am trying an experiment with Freedom Does Matter, hopefully to go live in the next couple of weeks. Based on a perceived lack of interest in Mercenaries: A Love Story which i’m attributing to a combination of the description and the cover, I sent a candidate description to an editor, and am awaiting his feedback. While waiting, i’m doing yet another read-thru for typos and excess words. We’ve already shown the cover (top right), so we’ll see what difference these make. With the editor’s permission, when we finish  I’ll post the exchanges and results for your edification.

As I implied above, Background Check is nearly complete. However, the last scenes are giving me a fit. Too slow, and not enough action for the closure. But rather than navel-gazing, I need to look at the run-up to the end, and just go ahead and finish it. Then revise as necessary!

Comments are always welcome. More to come.

Pre-Christmas Update

First, SOPA (HR 3261) and PIPA (S.968) are still alive, so while I took down the cover, I'm keeping the "Stop Censorship" bar over the title. Click on the bar to see how to help, if you haven't. If that doesn't appeal, get in touch with your Representative and Senators and tell them what you think they should do about these two bills. I hope you'll ask them to kill both of these bills, but that's my opinion. Make up your own mind, then tell them. Otherwise, you may be out in the cold with no free interwebz and a bumper sticker that says "I voted for Muffy."

Next, the tree, all 12 feet of it, is up and decorated. It looks pretty good, thanks to the wife's good work in decorating - and catching when the darn thing tried to fall over a couple hours after we finished. I think it's 'cause all the ornaments are on one side...

I finished reading the 900 000 words of Game of Life (working title), which is next on my list to rework. The read was to see just how much work it will take. There are five books planned, and the second and third ones are in pretty good shape. The first and fifth need a fair amount of rewriting, and the fourth needs to be finished, along with some heavy rework.

But before I actually start on that, I will do a quick reread of Mercenaries: A Love Story, Book Two, and send it off to my beta readers, to see what they think. Having removed between 10 and 15 000 words, I'm hoping it's a bit more... direct? With fewer non-plot related scenes at least.

I hope each one has the best Happy Christmas and Holiday season you can wish, and an excellent New Year! Thanks for reading.

Updates

First, NaNoWriMo: By my word count, an unmitigated disaster. Not quite 10% of the 50 000 word goal. However, the words I did get written will not be lost (I think). And they led me, not astray, I don't think, but somewhere I hadn't planned to be. The two primary characters came to me after the last few words flew from my fingertips into Scrivner's memory. The less primary one said, "You know, it's not gonna work for her this way. I have to die." The other one just nodded, not particularly happy. And neither am I. Not big on killing girls. So, I have to either accept her words - she does know what she's talking about, after all - or I have to rethink where the story is going. I haven't made that decision yet. Hopefully I'll have it done before NaNoWriMo rolls around next year. But I gained that from the experience. That's good. I'm happy and I'll do it again.

Second, Sales: None, so far. Oh, well.

Third: Book Two: Almost complete with the latest round of world-changing edits. Dropped something like 18 000 words, and focused the story better, I think. I'll be out to my beta readers soon to see what they think. Then to decide if I should make it all one big book...

That's it for now. I hope all the holidays you celebrate are wonderful for you.

Well, it's been busy

That's not a bad thing, but it means that some things don't get all the attention they deserve. Like the blog.

I have been editing the heck out of Mercenaries Book One, and have been receiving valid and useful comments from those who are critiquing it. I've pushed back the release date; I'm hoping for August 1 now. And I'm making the same kind of cuts and restructuring changes in Book Two as well, so maybe I can get through the critiquing phase a little faster on that one, and have it ready by November 1. We'll see.

I also have done some story development for the book to follow Mercenaries, Freedom No Matter. And the six part series, titled Game of Life, has been getting a little attention as well.

There are also the usual things: yard work, finishing the downstairs room (almost done, now. Just needs new ceiling and rug), housework, fix the car, play with the grandson. Nothing exciting there and I'm sure every one of the readers here have their own set of similar distractions from writing.