Kelley Armstrong's Blog, page 123

Kelley Armstrong, you are my idol. I read almost every single book you have out and am working through you're e-books and novellas now too. I've started reading Omens and its absolutely driving me crazy not knowing what Eden is or what any of the character

You want spoilers? Hmm, let’s see. Some characters are human, some are mostly human, some are half human, some are not human at all. Eden/Liv is one of the above. So is Gabriel :) Okay, I’ll give you real answers. But only for Gabriel. Liv is…more complicated. And I’ll make you work for the answer, so I’m not giving spoilers to those who don’t want them.

The elders call Patrick bòcan. It’s Gaelic. Look it up. Patrick says something about his epil in reference to Gabriel. It’s Welsh. Look it up. There you go. You now know something Liv figures out in Visions.

Kelley Armstrong, you are my idol. I read almost every single book you have out and am working through you're e-books and novellas now too. I've started reading Omens and its absolutely driving me crazy not knowing what Eden is or what any of the character

You want spoilers? Hmm, let’s see. Some characters are human, some are mostly human, some are half human, some are not human at all. Eden/Liv is one of the above. So is Gabriel :) Okay, I’ll give you real answers. But only for Gabriel. Liv is…more complicated. And I’ll make you work for the answer, so I’m not giving spoilers to those who don’t want them.

The elders call Patrick bòcan. It’s Gaelic. Look it up. Patrick says something about his epil in reference to Gabriel. It’s Welsh. Look it up. There you go. You now know something Liv figures out in Visions.

Kelley Armstrong, you are my idol. I read almost every single book you have out and am working through you're e-books and novellas now too. I've started reading Omens and its absolutely driving me crazy not knowing what Eden is or what any of the character

You want spoilers? Hmm, let’s see. Some characters are human, some are mostly human, some are half human, some are not human at all. Eden/Liv is one of the above. So is Gabriel :) Okay, I’ll give you real answers. But only for Gabriel. Liv is…more complicated. And I’ll make you work for the answer, so I’m not giving spoilers to those who don’t want them.

The elders call Patrick bòcan. It’s Gaelic. Look it up. Patrick says something about his epil in reference to Gabriel. It’s Welsh. Look it up. There you go. You now know something Liv figures out in Visions.

Since the last book in the Nadia stafford series is coming out soon , do you think you will write any short stories about her

I hope to. I don’t get asked for mysteries very often—I’m usually invited to fantasy and horror anthologies. If I get a mystery, though, I’d do a Nadia story.

You said before that If anyone’s interested in seeing a doc compare of first draft to final, you'd post it. I just want to say that I am interested....I would love to see it! Unless you already posted it and I missed it?

I finally got around to this! I put one in my Visions editing journal post here: http://tmblr.co/ZRIYLt15HUpK6

Visions Editing Walkthrough - 2nd Round Editorial

As promised, I’m continuing my in-depth walkthrough of the editing process for Visions (Cainsville 2) This is for writers and interested readers…but mainly to give me something to refer to when I’m asked what the editing process is really like :)

I’m picking up where I left off. If you haven’t read the earlier entries, you can find the complete journal on a single handy PDF here. At the bottom of this entry or the PDF, you’ll find a doc compare of the opening from draft 1 to draft 4—it’s about half the length now.

Okay, onto the 2nd editorial letter. This blog will be much shorter…because the letter is :) Major problems are tackled in the first round. This is cleanup.

 The actual letter only mentions a couple of issues. The bulk of the comments are in an annotated copy of the manuscript.

 The two big points first, and by “big” I mean “will require more than a few lines of tweaking. They’re still relatively easy fixes.

 1) There are two coffee shop scenes with Ricky. That introduces the element of repetition. To be honest, I saw it in the last draft, but I looked at the scenes and they both need to be there, so I told myself it wasn’t an issue. It is. The fix is to pull back and see the bigger picture. The issue is not the content of the scenes, but the setting. I rewrite the second as a walk in a waterfront park. That works better, actually. Neither is really the “sitting around” type. I also make some serious cuts to both scenes. These are two sociable, chatty people—it’s easy to let their dialogue stray from its purpose.

 2) One problem from round one was that Liv still doesn’t meet her birth father, Todd. That’s a huge plot point with major ramifications, and therefore had to be left for book 3. But my editors wanted some form of contact. So in the last draft, I had Liv get a letter from Todd. She never opened it. This was a problem. In fact, my daughter read the draft, put it down and said “It’s good. Now you need to add the letter.” My editors echoed that here. The problem was placement. Liv gets the letter at about the ¾ mark, and it’s nonstop “stuff happening” from there, with no moment to say “oh, yeah, about that letter…” My editor suggested I put it at the end. I balked at this because, well, the ending was Liv happy and relaxed, enjoying a moment with Gabriel to relish their victory before book 3 when they need to face all the crap it stirred up. Putting the letter after that? Yeah, it changes the tone. But it needed to go in and it was the only place to put it so instead of my “moment of peace and happiness,” we end with tears. Want the happy ending? Stop before the last scene :) On the plus side, when I did submit the version with the letter, my editor sent me an email with the subject line WOW! so apparently, I did it right. Tough writing it, though. Which may be why I resisted so hard.

 Line Edits

 Some continuity corrections. Example: I called the sitting room at Liv’s parents the parlor, and my editor pointed out that in Omens, I used the term for Rose’s place but not this room. Bunch of little stuff like that.

 Also a bunch of “Can you do better?” usually when my description is weak or clichéd.

 And a bunch of queries asking me to give Liv’s reaction. I’m bad at this, because I know her reaction—I’m in her POV—so I tend to skip that stuff because it’s like stopping mid-conversation with a friend to actively think “I feel unsettled by this.” Unnatural, but necessary in a story.

 A lot of “need more explanation.” This is book 2, and this is the round of edits where we work hard to walk that balance beam between not boring current readers with repetition from book 1 and not leaving new readers totally lost. I tend to err on the side of “not enough” so here is where my editors show me where I need more—usually just a line.

Now the one-offs…

 Car talk. Liv talks about riding with her dad in her favorite of his cars—an old Maserati convertible. She says she sat in her booster seat beside him. Editor queries because of safety. That model in convertible has no rear seat. I could mention this, but it interrupts the flow of the paragraph, so I’ll leave it out and hope readers “get” that it’s the car design, not that her dad was a bad parent :)

 “Does he kiss her?” Editor would like this clarified. I clarify. It’s not that exciting. It’s James. Enough said.

 “Robins don’t have blue eyes.” Yeah, yeah, it’s a typo. Robin’s egg not eyes. Fixed.

 “Nothing about Ricky makes me believe there was nothing flirtatious in his smile.” True. Fixed.

 “Would he call her Eden?” There’s significance in who calls Liv by which name, particularly those associated with her past. Editor questions choice here, but I’m going to stick with Olivia, because calling her Eden is a sure way to get her back up, and this particular person (using that term loosely) wouldn’t want to piss her off.

 “What pocket?” Editor rightly points out that Liv cannot shove the boar’s tusk in her pocket if she’s wearing a formal gown. Whoops. As for the boar’s tusk… Don’t ask.

 Still fussing with the plot thread on Gabriel’s mother. At the end of Omens, Liv is shown old photos of a dead Jane Doe and told it’s Seanna. She tells Gabriel, and offers to go to the police station with him to identify those photos. Complications early in Visions mean they don’t go, and Gabriel isn’t going to do it alone—and without a good, solid push. So it happens about 2/3 through Visions, but it needs to be setup with the full explanation and that can’t come out of the blue 2/3 of the way through “Hey, about those morgue photos of your mom…?” Nor can it be mentioned at the beginning and dropped for half the book. Nor is it a big enough thread to keep revisiting for 2/3 of the story. So, yeah, still fussing with placement of the reminder.

 “She seems to spend a lot of time checking out his crotch” LOL. Comment is specific to this scene, not a general observation. There were two references to his crotch in this scene, but…all things considered…both stay. It’s Liv. It works.

 “jeans make a terrible blanket” I agree, but I’m not changing it.

 “This does not sound comfortable. I can’t figure out how he would even do whatever  he’s doing here” Awesome comment. And no, it’s not in a sex scene. Fixed.

 “Seems the wrong moment to do this…” Also not from a sex scene :)

 “How far do they have to walk to find the crib room? How much dialogue could there be?” They’re talking really, really fast. And walking in circles. Fine. Adjusted both distance and dialogue.

 “Isn’t a lawyer supposed to report a crime, as an officer of the law?” This required some research and some talking to, you know, actual lawyers. Consensus is that Gabriel should report the crime, but it’s a gray area. Gabriel’s all about the gray areas. Remember, this is the guy who hid a body in a Dumpster in Omens because its discovery could prove inconvenient.

“If he’s drumming the desk, how can he be sitting back?” Very long arms. Fixed.

“I’ve never heard anyone click their teeth, except when pretending to be a zombie in World War Z.” Awesome comment. But I’m keeping it in, though I did read the line to a couple of people to see if they had any issue with it. They didn’t.

“Didn’t they have coffee with their dessert?” Maybe…  Hey, Liv likes coffee. Fine. Fixed. She won’t suggest going for coffee after they just had coffee, but that’s going to make it hard for her to stay awake later for all the sex. Kidding. Maybe.

“Would a street kid dream of tables??” Ah, there’s a deep, philosophical question. And…no. Point made. Fixed.

“Don’t need to WWF it…” It’s WWE now. Oh, look, I’m correcting my editor. Bad author. As for the comment, point taken. Fixed.

“Doubt he had that conversation lying on the cold ground.” And why not? Okay, he can sit up. But he’s not getting dressed. ;)

“Not a sucker-punch if James hit him first.” True. Fixed.

“Heat doesn’t get “hard”” Also, not from a sex scene. The issue here was grammatical. Bad wording, making hard seem to refer to heat not steel.

“the him has just been the other “him” and this may be confusing…” Yeah, now I’m confused :) Worked it out. Fixed.

“Ricky was told she was sick with food poisoning, which makes sending chocolates kind of stupid…” Oh, right. Forgot Gabriel said that. Sorry, Ricky. Almost made you look like an idiot. Fixed!

“I’m not sure why she wants Ricky…Gabriel has more” Another comment that’s great…out of context. In context? It’s not nearly as much fun. Just a technical point. Fixed.

“Not sure Gabriel would sling or fling any piece of clothing…” There are so many comments on this manuscript that would sound so much more fun if I left them out of context. This one is simple wording—Liv said Gabriel had slung his jacket over the seat. The editor’s point is correct. It sounds too casual for Gabriel. Fixed.

And done! Well, the fixes are done. The book then requires another line edit from me. That takes longer than the fixes. I focus on the smaller stuff in this round—smoothing awkward sentences, cutting where possible, tightening…

Time to complete: 3 weeks (1 for fixes, 2 for line edits)

Draft Lengths:

First draft: 170,000 words

Delivered: 140,000

1st round editorial: 130,000

2nd round editorial: 125,000

Which makes this book the same length as Omens, exactly what I was aiming for.

Next step: copyedits.

If you’d like to see a doc compare of the opening of Visions, from the first draft (2500 words) to this one (1300 words) it’s here.

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Today’s tweet brought to you by gender specific toy aisles.

The amount of notes on this in less than 24 hours is sort of blowing my mind, but also I’m glad it speaks to so many like minded people.

Are the Darkest Powers/Darkest Rising going to be put into a Tv show series, like Bitten??

Check here for the answer! Which is, in short, “possibly but not likely” ;)

Hi Kelly! I was wondering if you'll be in the Niagara Region lately. I was so upset to hear that I had missed the Aylmer/Springfield visits (I used to live up that way with my mom before I moved in with my dad, so it would have been easy for me to come up

Ah, yeah, the Book Outlet thing really was just a last-minute-arranged drop-in signing as I was passing through. I was there for maybe an hour. I’m sure I’ll be back in the region. I’m there quite often.

Hi Kelly! I was wondering if you'll be in the Niagara Region lately. I was so upset to hear that I had missed the Aylmer/Springfield visits (I used to live up that way with my mom before I moved in with my dad, so it would have been easy for me to come up

Ah, yeah, the Book Outlet thing really was just a last-minute-arranged drop-in signing as I was passing through. I was there for maybe an hour. I’m sure I’ll be back in the region. I’m there quite often.