Annabel Frazer's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
A bit of spit and polish
I'm finally nearly at the end of the latest draft of The Crooked Man. After a couple of drafts that went the wrong way, this one is the final major reworking one.
After this, it will be down to polishing drafts, one of my favourite stages of writing. All the hard work of dreaming up new settings and characters and untangling difficult plot problems is done (in theory) and it's just about tweaking the language, deleting unwanted copy and generally improving everything. It's such a satisfying feeling gradually editing out the bits that don't work and polishing those that do until what you're left is something that's rather better than you hoped, although still not as good as you dreamed.
In fact, the real trouble with the polishing stage is that it can go on forever! One of the main reasons I finally took the plunge and self-published The Day The Earth Caught Cold online was because I couldn't leave it alone. I was forever fiddling around with it when I was supposed to be working on something else. Now I can't.
Of course, the polishing stage is still hard work. TCM has characters whose plot arcs dwindle away to nothing. It has clues that appear out of nowhere and logical gaps that the characters can fall through. All of that needs fixing. But it's so much easier to fix when you have the entire novel in front of you, rather than still a question-mark where the end should be.
After this, it will be down to polishing drafts, one of my favourite stages of writing. All the hard work of dreaming up new settings and characters and untangling difficult plot problems is done (in theory) and it's just about tweaking the language, deleting unwanted copy and generally improving everything. It's such a satisfying feeling gradually editing out the bits that don't work and polishing those that do until what you're left is something that's rather better than you hoped, although still not as good as you dreamed.
In fact, the real trouble with the polishing stage is that it can go on forever! One of the main reasons I finally took the plunge and self-published The Day The Earth Caught Cold online was because I couldn't leave it alone. I was forever fiddling around with it when I was supposed to be working on something else. Now I can't.
Of course, the polishing stage is still hard work. TCM has characters whose plot arcs dwindle away to nothing. It has clues that appear out of nowhere and logical gaps that the characters can fall through. All of that needs fixing. But it's so much easier to fix when you have the entire novel in front of you, rather than still a question-mark where the end should be.
The joy of self-publishing tools and judging a book by its cover
One of the most exciting things about self-publishing is the physical process of making a book. With my latest novel now finished, I have been learning about paper stock and considering typefaces, which I love.
Of course it's not the same as being snapped up by one of the main publishers and launched on the high street but not everyone gets that choice. And for those of us who don't, I feel really lucky that we now have the internet, ebooks, print on demand and other tools to help us do the best we can for our work.
Last time around, I went ebook only. But print on demand has improved so much since then in flexibility, quality etc, plus I was surprised by how many of my friends and family struggled with the ebook route. So this time, I'm going to enable print on demand - which apart from anything else, will mean I can have a paperback copy to keep myself.
Printing in paperback means you need to think much harder about the cover, something I've been slow to appreciate. For someone who reads physical books a lot, I took a while to grasp, for instance, that physical book covers have three sides! Thinking about the spine and back as well and needing to get the dimensions exactly right means I need to turn this one over to a professional designer, so that's what I'm doing.
It's remarkable to me how homogenous modern covers are - when I pop into WH Smiths in my lunch-hour, I see rows and rows of hard-nosed contemporary thrillers, all with harsh colours, a bleached out photograph of a gloomy location or a corpse and a short, aggressive title in shouty capitals.
I know what sort of cover I like as a reader. Illustrative or typographical and retro in feel. Luckily, my novel is a cosy crime/thriller which is also retro in feel so that should be a good fit.
Despite the prevalence of the hard-boiled type of cover, I do think publishers are lately starting to put more effort and creativity into covers, perhaps reflecting the recent recovery of the physical book against the ebook market. As a reader, I've fallen in love with so many covers lately and invariably bought the book.
Of course, covers are a very personal preference and it would be lovely to hear about what other readers like. Below are three of my favourites - it was impossible to name them all.
Circe by Madeleine Miller. This is a stunning cover and the book's stunning too, better in my opinion than The Song of Achilles, which preceded it.
The Call of The Curlew by Elizabeth Brooke. I fell in love with this cover the minute I saw it. I missed the hardback and the paperback isn't out yet, but I'm determined to read it purely because of this cover.
Between The Woods And The Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor. Fermor's travel books are long, beautifully-written and slightly indigestible. This is my favourite of the covers, which makes you want to go wandering across Europe yourself.
Of course it's not the same as being snapped up by one of the main publishers and launched on the high street but not everyone gets that choice. And for those of us who don't, I feel really lucky that we now have the internet, ebooks, print on demand and other tools to help us do the best we can for our work.
Last time around, I went ebook only. But print on demand has improved so much since then in flexibility, quality etc, plus I was surprised by how many of my friends and family struggled with the ebook route. So this time, I'm going to enable print on demand - which apart from anything else, will mean I can have a paperback copy to keep myself.
Printing in paperback means you need to think much harder about the cover, something I've been slow to appreciate. For someone who reads physical books a lot, I took a while to grasp, for instance, that physical book covers have three sides! Thinking about the spine and back as well and needing to get the dimensions exactly right means I need to turn this one over to a professional designer, so that's what I'm doing.
It's remarkable to me how homogenous modern covers are - when I pop into WH Smiths in my lunch-hour, I see rows and rows of hard-nosed contemporary thrillers, all with harsh colours, a bleached out photograph of a gloomy location or a corpse and a short, aggressive title in shouty capitals.
I know what sort of cover I like as a reader. Illustrative or typographical and retro in feel. Luckily, my novel is a cosy crime/thriller which is also retro in feel so that should be a good fit.
Despite the prevalence of the hard-boiled type of cover, I do think publishers are lately starting to put more effort and creativity into covers, perhaps reflecting the recent recovery of the physical book against the ebook market. As a reader, I've fallen in love with so many covers lately and invariably bought the book.
Of course, covers are a very personal preference and it would be lovely to hear about what other readers like. Below are three of my favourites - it was impossible to name them all.
Circe by Madeleine Miller. This is a stunning cover and the book's stunning too, better in my opinion than The Song of Achilles, which preceded it.
The Call of The Curlew by Elizabeth Brooke. I fell in love with this cover the minute I saw it. I missed the hardback and the paperback isn't out yet, but I'm determined to read it purely because of this cover.
Between The Woods And The Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor. Fermor's travel books are long, beautifully-written and slightly indigestible. This is my favourite of the covers, which makes you want to go wandering across Europe yourself.
