So You've Finished Writing Your Book........by Annie Seaton

Okay...so you’ve finished writing your book and you are ready to send it as a submission to a publisher or to your editor if it is already contracted.

Three words of wisdom...

Don’t be hasty.

It is a tremendous feeling typing the last word, the last sentence and wrapping it all up.

What you do now may mean the difference in being published ... or getting a rejection letter.

Now that the story is finished, this is the time to go back in and polish it until it shines.

The very first thing I do, is listen to my story one chapter at a time. There are a number of free software programs that will allow you to copy and paste chapters of your work into it and read it to you.

This will pick up missing words, mistaken words ...I have a dreadful habit of mixing up through, though and thought...and of course a spell checker does not pick them up.

Listening to your work will also let you adjust the flow and pace of sentences.

One of the things I love is writing vivid descriptions of my settings. When I listened to Italian Affair before sending it off to my editor, I had many instances of geraniums spilling from baskets, and herbs being crushed beneath feet! I was able to adjust and rewrite before my editor picked these repetitions up.

So we only ended up with on...

It wasn’t a cottage. It was a small villa that was well cared for, and it was obvious from the pots of pink and red geraniums spilling down the sides of the wall overlooking the sea that someone still maintained it on a regular basis. The windows shone, and the pungent smell of thyme growing in the cracks between the cobblestones floated in the still air as it was crushed beneath his feet.
  
One of the other things I search for is instances of filtering. This is where you distance your reader from the action by using words such as watch, heard and gave. A quick use of find will pick up the use of these words and you can judge whether you have put a barrier between the action of the character and the reader.

Check your punctuation. Have you omitted any full stops and commas? Is your manuscript in a standard font?

Have you read the submission guidelines?

And finally.....do you have any common words that you over use or misspell?  The importance of this point can never be overlooked!

By taking the time to really check your manuscript and send it off as perfect as it can possibly be, you will improve your chances of publication.  Without a doubt.

Annie has recently released Book 2 ...of the Affairs series ...Italian Affair with Entangled Publishing which followed Book 1 -Holiday Affair. The third book in the series Outback Affair will be released later this year.  You can find Annie on her website here and also on Twitter and Facebook.

ITALIAN AFFAIR

Free-spirited sex therapist Brianna Ballantine has four days to find a fiancé so she can inherit her birth mother’s Italian villa. Commitment is not on the agenda. Writing her sex therapy book and signing legal papers are. And once all is said and done, she’ll return home to Scotland. For finance guru Tomas Richards, relationships have been a bad investment—give him stocks and shares any day. When Tomas offers a marriage of convenience to help Brianna secure her inheritance, the sizzle between the sheets promises an affair to remember, despite family complications at every turn.  But Tom must convince Brianna to stay, and make this Italian affair a lifelong commitment.

Reviewed at RBH Contemporary Romance Reviews

Amazon     Amazon UK

Editing a Completed Novel by Sally Clements

Completing a novel is just the first goal in a novelist’s journey, and when I write I turn off my inner editor and just write. Once I have a first draft, I check plotline, structure, conflicts, character, voice etc, and finesse into the second draft. The third draft is a detailed addressing of all the things I know I do wrong, such as using phrases that muddy the writing like ‘he was going to have to…’ constructions, which are changed to ‘he would have to…’ and checking that I haven’t ended sentences with a preposition.

I also pay attention to adverb usage, and action tags, and check for overused words.I live in Ireland, but write in American English as the majority of my readers prefer it. I make sure that my spelling is correct, and that I have used the correct words and phrases. I work with an American editor to catch any strays that slip through. When I have completed these steps, I read the entire novel aloud which really helps to identify
any dialogue that doesn’t sound right, and sentences that aren’t correct.

Then the book is off to my editor, Cindy Davis. RUNAWAY GROOM is the sixth book we’ve worked on together. We do three rounds of edits and work using Track Changes in Microsoft Word.

Here are some edits that we did with RUNAWAY GROOM.

ADVERBS

Before:
There was even a stand holding all of her threads, sequins and beads, carefully placed in the perfect position so she could grab them quickly and easily.

After:
There was even a stand holding all of her threads, sequins and beads, carefully placed in the perfect position so she could grab them in a flash.

CLARIFYING TEXT:

Before:
June grinned. “Not with these directions. That’s got to be the longest text  I’ve ever seen in my life. Your fingertips must have melted.”

After:
June grinned. “Not with these directions. That was the longest text  I’ve ever seen in my life. Your fingertips must have melted.”

According to  Chicago Manual of Style, no semi-colons in dialogue.
This was a bad one, I had multiple occurrences!

Before:
“You’ll be fine. You’re always so well organized. Look at you; you’ve already made all the dresses! How many designers are showing a collection?”

After:
“You’ll be fine. You’re always so well organized. Look at you, you’ve already made all the dresses! How many designers are showing a collection?”


REPETITION: 
Instances of this were pruned:

Before: 

“About Matthew?” June’s smile held a hint of sadness. “Yes, I told him before he proposed. There’s no way of keeping a secret in Brookbridge. I reckoned someone would tell him at some stage, and it might as well be me.”

After:
“About Matthew?” June’s smile held a hint of sadness. “Yes, I told him before he proposed. I reckoned someone would tell him at some stage, and it might as well be me.”


Before:
“We should have stuck to beer,” she muttered under her breath.

My editor pointed out that muttering, by definition, is under the breath, so this line was changed to:

After:
“We should have stuck to beer,” she muttered.

The first edits I ever did with an editor taught me a great deal. Every book  I’ve written and edited since has sharpened my skill. However, there are always problems in a manuscript and these problems can be impossible to spot by the author, so I consider editing with a professional a vital part of the process!

Sally Clements is a hybrid author in that she has been published by traditional publishers and also self-publishes. She’s been published by The Wild Rose Press, and has a book coming out at the end of 2013 with Entangled Publishing. She lives in Ireland, and between the constant rain, spends way too much time driving ‘Mum’s taxi.’ You can contact her through her blogs,  Love and Chocolate and The Minxes of Romance and of course through Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter.


RUNAWAY GROOM

Seven years ago, Matthew Logan ran out on his wedding to June Leigh. Life is good for fledgling dress-designer April Leigh. She couldn’t be happier that her sister has found a new love, and is excited about her veryfirst commission, June’s wedding dress.
On learning June has invited runaway groom Matthew Logan to the wedding, April has to intervene. Matthew’s presence will ruin everything – her father hates him, and just the sight of him in the church might give her mother a heart attack.

Matthew Logan has no intention of going to June’s wedding, but intriguing April’s arrival on his doorstep sparks his interest and he can’t resist getting to know her better. When a disaster forces them together neither can denythe passion that combusts into a red-hot affair. Discovering the truth about the past shifts April’s feelings from lust to love, but bitter experience has taught Matthew to guard his heart.

When it looks as though Matthew will lose her forever, will he fight or flee?

Get it here:  Amazon  Amazon UK

Doing What’s Right: My Way to Edit by Carmen Falcone

Do what feels right for you. It doesn’t feel right? Do it anyway, and you’ll find your own process.

That is my first editing tip. Write it down, folks. There will be a quiz later. Edits can be very controversial, and I often enjoy listening to different types of writers discuss their techniques and approaches. Some prefer to write the first draft as cleanly and neatly as possible to save them the trouble of going back to make huge changes. They’ll still go back and revise, but they’ll have less work.

Some like to get through the first draft first and then go back and look for specific things, sometimes more than once. I know someone who goes back a whole manuscript and looks for dialogue, reading the words aloud. Then she’ll edit the whole thing again and look for emotion.  Then, she’ll go through again and read it one last time for clarity.

I believe there are thousands of ways out there to do edits. Some are more effective or less time-consuming than others. Are any of them plain wrong? Doubtful. It also takes time to learn your craft and learn how to get it right. I’d love to try and be one of those authors who check for a bunch of things while they write, and get a better first draft than others due to their military precision. But I’m not.

I start to get into the story and find myself so anxious to see what happens next, to get to know my characters, that I just free write and forget about the rest. Yes, my first draft is not dirty, it’s filthy; it has tons of dialogue with no tags, blocking – you name it.

I tried really hard to change my process once and spend more time polishing as I went. It  was painful! It wasn’t me, and in fact it took me longer to do it because I was doing something so out of my element, I felt no urge to keep doing it. I missed the rush to get to the point, the essence of the natural-born pantser in me, and deal with the rest later.

I have an excerpt from my recent release below. We have our PR heroine Penny having dinner with Luc Leoni, the hotel magnate and her newest client.

QUOTE:

"Luc, I have our contract with me, and if you're ready we can start discussing your needs," Penny spoke after they placed their orders. She knew she had her work cut out for her, with the date of the re-opening party fast approaching.

"When did you end your engagement?" His syrupy accent didn’t conceal the touch of impatience in his voice.

She raised her eyes to his only to find the blue one darkening to the color of a gray overcast sky, and the hazel deepening into a dark brown shade. A thrill of excitement and fear zinged down her body and shook all her nerve endings.

She blinked. "I don't see how this is relevant." Penny managed to sound casual.

"Eight months ago?" He tilted his head and edged closer to her.

She folded her arms together, desperate to create an invisible layer of protection against that question. Against him.

"Six," she said at last. "How do you know that I ended it? It could have been him."

Luc chuckled a hearty sound, which annoyed her. "That's obvious. How long before the  wedding did you do it?"

Penny hesitated. She stared at the short flame swaying on the wick of the white candle in the middle of the table. She touched the brown metal candle holder, her fingers caressing thpattern along the round object.

The worst isn't over. It's just beginning. 

"The day before." She avoided meeting his gaze.

"The day before." He repeated with a nod. "A runaway bride." He squared his shoulders, and slid away from her, back to his original place. "I'm not surprised. Running always was your forte.

And using women to your advantage was always yours.

UNQUOTE

That dialogue popped into my head before anything else, and I just went with it. Of course, if you read it out loud, there are many emotions we can evoke – self-defensiveness, anger, bitterness. It is the subtext, the little details of the characters’ body language, that gives  them away – maybe not to each other, but to the reader. When I edited, I added my heroine touching the candleholder. The light can mean different things – a lot of time, fire means sensuality – but this time it’s almost like a symbol of her getting burnt. Not just personally but also professionally. Of course, this was just a breadcrumb and the scene is longer.

Anyway. How about you? What is your editing style?


A Brazilian by birth, now based in Texas USA with her family and her dogs, Carmen Falcone is an author of sexy, contemporary romance.  Her current release is HEATING UP HAWAII, published by Breathless Press.  You can find her via her website, her blog,  Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and Pinterest. 


HEATING UP HAWAII

There is just one person standing between Penny Ashbrook's dream of opening her own PR business or being stuck at her job: the formidable Luc Leoni - her first lover, and the man who lets nothing and no-one get in his way. Seeing him after so long brings all the hidden emotions after a life altering break-up to surface. Pain, denial...and lust. 

Luc has made many sacrifices for his career, including Penny Ashbrook, the woman who set his aspirations back a year. But now she has returned and is more alluring than ever. After all these years, he thought a self-made billionaire like himself could master everything, but to resist the strong pull toward the one woman he can't have is an impossible task. 

When this unlikely pair is reunited they will have to face the many challenges set in their way, especially an attraction that has only heightened with time and a deadline quickly approaching. Can their new bond surpass old—and new—fears?

Get this book here:  Amazon  Amazon UK