Editing - A love/hate relationship

  I would like to say that my writing is impeccable, but my editors took my writing to a whole different level. The grammar, flow, and understanding were so much greater. It is hard as an author to look at your work in a detached way when you come to the editing part of things, especially since when there are gaps in the text, your mind instantly fills them in (as the story resides in the writers mind). Not so for the reader, those gaps may mean a lack of cohesion and being unable to connect with the story.

  I wrote the novel in about five months (over a couple years) and the editing process lasted nearly two. I had four people edit my novel using a couple different methods. I began by printing off newly written pages nearly every week and my wife read and marked up the draft with a highlighter. Having someone be able to give you feedback during the writing of a book is very important as discussions we had led to important changes or additions. The shape of the characters was molded and the world was more cohesive through this, and it also helped me know what to focus on.

  Once the final draft was complete I used Google Docs to share the text with three separate editors. IN this way we were all able to make changes and even use the IM chat feature to ask questions and provide guidance. The method we used was when anyone had a change they would input it like the following example (not actual edit):

- wrenched from his grip, his sword tumbled (his sword was wrenched from his grip and fell)

  There was no deletion by the editors only the recommendations in ( ). Google Doc helpfully assigns a separate highlight color to each user whenever an edit is made. From there I would go in and either make the change or talk to the editor and discuss reasons I had to not take their recommendations. As the editing in Google Docs happens in real time each editor could work at their own pace and even see what sections each other were working on to make sure they did not work on the same text simultaneously.

   Once this long, but rewarding, process was complete I and my wife re-read the entire novel. We caught some minor grammar mistakes and I then uploaded it to Google Docs again for the editing team to take a final look. From there I published.

  Why is having an editor is important? In my mind there resides a fully fleshed out fantasy world filled with characters with their own separate histories. All the detail imaginable about the novel is in my head. The hard part, for me as well as many authors I am sure, is to communicate what is in the mind to paper in such a way as to not only make sense, but draw the reader into that world and experience it. Though the editing was painful at times, it ensured that my view of the novel’s world was translated for the reader. I believe this made for a much stronger and cohesive story and I am truly thankful for all the hard work by my editors.

Behind the scenes

   I went into the writing of An Emerging Threat with a few thoughts. First, I wanted to build a world and set individuals in it that used the space to its fullest. For example, the character of Oliver who begins at the Sun Fire Citadel and travels to the northeast and Ethan who begins in the south and travels to the farthest reaches of the north. Second, I wanted to have a few things that set it apart from the Fantasy I have read in the past. Examples are the Goblins, a merging of troll, goblin, and/or orc, injects of steam-punk, and even a touch of “undead”.

   Based on my experiences with certain authors, I decided to go the path of providing just enough detail throughout the novel. Some fantasy goes to the other extreme and throws encyclopedias of data at you about the world, the politics of every village, etc. While sometimes done well, it often left me feeling stifled. I believe providing every little smidge of information, while a testament to the author, does not allow the reader to experience the story in a personal way. In light of that, I tried to leave slivers of “white space” that the reader has the opportunity to fill with their own ideas, concepts, and memories. In that way, I invite the reader to become an active part of the journey. Though the story is told in a complete and connected way, don’t worry about that, the reader is empowered to close their eyes and color outside (between) the lines.

    Another opportunity that comes from leaving some questions unanswered is an ever expanding world that is filled through more novels! Book two of The Seeker’s Burden series is nearing completion and I have storyboarded the entire three novels. Believe me when I say that I have ideas for other series tied to the world that I have created.

This is me

I am an avid reader. You might say an extremely passionate reader. For as long as I can remember, I read. Whether it was historic America or Europe, Narnia, Middle Earth, or the Four Lands of Shannara, I spent hours of each day of my childhood in the worlds authors had created. Before kids, my Mother had been a high school English teacher and she taught me and my siblings the joy of reading. By the time I was 12, she had read A Tale of Two Cities, The Hobbit, Les Miserables, and Where the Red Fern Grows to us, among many, many others. Every afternoon we would gather in the living room and listen to my Mother read for an hour.

  Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, James Fenimore Cooper, Robert Louis Stevenson, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Arthur Conan Doyle were as influential in my life as Louie L’Amour, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Terry Brooks, Timothy Zahn, Isaac Asimov and Dr. Seuss.

  I was homeschooled, and because of the amount and type of reading, my Mother never focused on teaching English. That was a good and bad decision. Of course reading gave me the English and reading comprehension skills that enabled me to ace every annual testing and the English sections of the ACT, but what I lacked was knowledge of grammar in writing. Until I took my first college class in my senior year of high school, the only papers I had written were a couple book reports in middle school. The first paper I wrote for the college class was covered in red. It was a cold dose of reality. I had a lot to learn.

  I wrote for fun in high school and college, thinking I was a better writer than I truly was. I attempted poetry, short stories, and even a song or two with little to no success. I kept at it after college and tried to begin countless books or stories. The ideas were there but they never survived the trip from my head to the paper. Writers block was constant. Then in Iraq in 2008 I wrote two chapters of my current novel, An Emerging Threat. I also sketched the map that my sister has since turned into a masterpiece. Every few months after that I would try to go back and write more of the book with little success. A paragraph or two the most I was able write at a time.

   Finally, in December 2012 it clicked. I began writing and four months later the first draft was complete. The two original chapters remain in the book, though they have been heavily edited since. The writing of the novel has been a blast. From trying to figure out the storyline for the entire series and watching it mutate as I went, to figuring out the publishing side of things. I am now hooked by the characters that inhabit the world inside my head and in the pages of my novel and I am well on my way to finishing book two; Path of Darkness.