Graham Edwards's Blog, page 29

Ghostwriter Diaries 23

FOUR days until submission! My ghostwriting marathon is nearly over. This morning, I dealt with all but the last ten pages of editorial notes on the MS. Fewer issues to deal with than in previous chapters, but a couple of storyline tweaks meant rewriting several sections. A few tricky moments, but nothing terminal.

The rest of the session involved smoothing out the rollercoaster reactions of one major character (who, during a run of action scenes, I’d blessed with every emotion under the sun)...

Publication Day!

I know, I know. I put up a post here a couple of weeks ago announcing the launch of my new novel. Now here I am again telling you todayis the publication day. What gives? Have I gone crazy?

Frankly, the jury’s out on that one, but the reason things are getting a bit Groundhog Day is simply this: every book has a date on which it’s “officially” published. It’s a nominal date, and many books go on sale (in some territories at least) before it comes around.

Put simply, my announcement of March 25t...

Ghostwriter Diaries 22

FIVE days until submission! My editing session this morning was smooth and strong, much like the coffee that fuelled it. Today’s challenges included bringing an important secondary character a little more centre-stage (I’d inadvertantly sidelined him in the thick of the battle action). I also made a few changes in this chapter that needed foreshadowing in the previous one, so I spent a lot of time flipping back and forth, joining the dots.

I’m over halfway through the final section of the nove...

Orphan Black and the Twinning Effect

The TV series Orphan Black tells the story of a woman who encounters several cloned versions of herself and becomes caught up in a deadly conspiracy. It uses state of the art visual effects to create duplicates of Golden Globe-nominated Tatiana Maslany – sometimes putting as many as three versions of the actress on screen at any one time.

The visual effects of Orphan Black are created by Intelligent Creatures; according to visual effects producer Che Spencer, their mandate was “to push the eff...

Ghostwriter Diaries 21

SIX DAYS until submission! A better morning this morning, with two chapters edited before descending into the bowels of the day job. In the narrative, the final battle has begun, which means my prose had occasionally strayed away from my main characters’ POVs and adopted a more omniscient, authorial perspective.

It’s an easy trap to fall into when you’re describing complex action, especially when the action’s so cool you just get carried away! Much of this morning’s labourhas therefore been de...

Ghostwriter Diaries 20

SEVEN DAYS until submission! Here’s the first of my final-week sequence of blink-and-you-miss-them ghostwriter reports.

A 5:15am start rewarded me with 90 minutes of precious editing time before the day job kicked in. Only managed one chapter, due to some delicate rewriting: weaving character relationships more fully into steadily mounting pre-battle tension; clarifying some complex and plot-critical geography; ramping up a couple of key dramatic moments. Nothing major, but at this late stage...

Writing in Technicolor

I write in Technicolor.

Perhaps I should explain.Like mostwriters of my generation, my sense of narrative – not to mention my writing style -has been greatly influenced bycinema. If you asked me to listthe stories that have had the greatest influence on me, I’d be as likely to cite George Lucas’s Star Warsas John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, or Akira Kurosawa’sRanas George Orwell’s1984. For me, fiction blurs past both frame by frame, and one wordafter the next, both at the same time.

Many c...

Ghostwriter Diaries 19

After a solid day spent editing, and with a little over a week to go until my final submission deadline, it’s unlikely this entry will make a lot of sense. But if I don’t check in now, you probably won’t hear from me again until it’s all over. And that would be a shame.

Today I’ve edited around 150 pages of manuscript, a process that’s involved rather more rewriting than I’d hoped for, but which has come out all right in the end. Why all the rewriting? Simply because even the smallest change h...

“Talus” Review Roundup – 4

We’re another week closer to the official UK launch of the paperback edition ofTalus and the Frozen King(it’s out in the US, and available as an ebook, already), and here are the latest reviews…

Crime Fiction Lover review by Michael Parker

More than just a whodunnit – this is a story about the power of stories, and a reflection upon the nature of friendship, love and grief. An unexpected delight, a detective story in a setting like no other, and I recommend it unreservedly. (5-star rating)

Read...

“Talus” Review Roundup – 3

Plentyof reviews still coming in forTalus and the Frozen King. Here’s this week’s crop …

Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing (review by Gregory Pellechi)

The manic energy of modern day our modern Sherlock Holmes is a difficult thing to transpose to a book. To take such a character and place them in the Stone Age without the aid of modern technology runs the risk of creating a story so at odds with itself that any trunk it’s hidden in should be buried as well. Graham Edwards’ Talus and the Frozen Kin...