1. Titan Of Kystolni

    Titan Of Kystolni New Member

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    Long enough?

    Discussion in 'Revision and Editing' started by Titan Of Kystolni, Sep 21, 2018.

    I recently finished my first ever writing project, now a 95k word fantasy novel. Anyone got any advice on progressing from here? Publishing, editing, anything really
     
  2. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    What are your goals for it?

    If you're hoping for publication, I'd try to put it away for a while and not look at it. Give yourself time to get a fresh perspective. You might want to use this time to write something else, or maybe to look at videos or books or whatever on writing technique to see how you could apply those ideas to your draft, or reading popular/great works in your genre and really studying them to see how they're put together and why they're effective, or... whatever. You could do worse than to read old threads on this or other writing forums, as long as you take what you read with a grain (or more) of salt.

    In a few months, come back to the manuscript and try to break it down into its parts. An outline, if you didn't do one before you wrote. This is a good way to see the structure of the piece, and that can be useful for finding issues. Figure out if your pacing is good, if your characters are richly developed, if your setting is vivid, if your style is consistent and effective, etc. Fix up any errors as you go.

    Then you probably want to get some betas and get feedback. When you get the feedback you can decide whether you want to act on it or not.

    At that point, you'll need to start looking at how you want to publish, but that's a whole 'nother ball of wax. I wouldn't worry about it for a while.
     
  3. DeeDee

    DeeDee Contributor Contributor

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    Give yourself some treat! Have a night out. Go fishing. Make a cake. Buy new shoes. Enjoy the achievement! :superagree:Then, if you want to show your work to other people, do edit. Make it your best. Put some effort to polish it so it's all shiny. Show it to people and demand response (and check frequently if they've read it all). Then sit down and decide what you want to do with it, probably depending on what those first readers' reactions were (close relatives don't count, especially grandma).
     
  4. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    @Titan Of Kystolni -- That's awesome that you finished your novel. It's not easy and it's not an accomplishment that's easy to achieve. I agree with the others that you need some time away from it to really see what you're working with. The editing phase can often take longer than the initial writing, but the hardest thing to work with is a blank page so you've got that down. Don't be in a rush. You usually get one shot with a particular book when it comes to each agent or publisher you send it to. Even beta readers aren't going to want to read your novel more than once. It's important that you get your book to a place where it's as good as you can get it on your own before you start looking for feedback. But yay!!! You did something very hard and you finished it. Celebrate a little before you get back to work. :)
     
    Nariac likes this.
  5. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    My general process is leave it for a month or two, then go through and self edit, then send it to beta readers - second edit then to my editor (I'm self publishing if you are after a trad deal you might skip this stage, or not depending), then another edit based on editor feedback, then proofread, then a proofread edit... then format, a final read through and then hit publish

    I generally work on other projects in the gaps between stages so no time is wasted
     
  6. Titan Of Kystolni

    Titan Of Kystolni New Member

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    After I finished this one I immediately started on the sequel to it. Do I need to step away from the whole world I created in general?
     

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