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Tyrmia Revisited

This month is dedicated to polishing up the 4th draft of my next novel, Tyrmia. I have had a handful of writer friends read and critique the 3rd draft and now I get to sift through their comments and suggestions to make the 4th draft the final, pre-edited version.

I have not read or even looked at the Tyrmia draft for the past several months. This is a good thing.  It lets me come at the story with fresh eyes and less attachment. So far I’m rather pleased with how the novel is shaping up. It’s more intimate than Starstrikers, being set on a single planet and involving a slightly smaller cast of characters. Of primary concern during this draft is world building and continuity.

Everyone seemed pleased with the plot and the character motivations after the changes made during the 3rd draft. So now I get to narrow my focus and make sure the little things are correct. My main character still seems to come off as a bit reactive at first, but I’m not entirely sure that is not appropriate for her situation. I will be addressing her needs more in this draft.

World building in a Space Opera novel can sometimes get in the way of the story or overwhelm it in details. I don’t think this story suffers from that, but the details need to be consistent throughout the novel. And that’s where I will be focusing my attentions in this draft. When you write the first draft, your story is cobbled together piecemeal a little bit at a time.  It’s very hard to keep the continuity straight when you often change things as you go. The challenge for me now is to make clear the things that the Beta Readers found confusing.

My spirits are high and motivation is good, so hopefully this draft will go smoothly and leave me with a decent manuscript that is ready for copy editing.

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4 thoughts on “Tyrmia Revisited”

  1. I usually find the best editor that I can afford and pay them for their efforts. It’s the biggest upfront cost. The cost is usually a per job flat rate for the whole novel.

  2. What do you mean: “professionally edited”? Is it just like it sounds, you’re hiring a professional editor to look over the book? Do you pay more the more they find “wrong” with it?

  3. Thanks!
    Yes, as far as getting the manuscript to the point where it can be professionally edited. SF stories are really complicated and it takes me a while to iron out all the details. But even with my tech-mystery novel, it took at least four drafts. In the end, that one could stand a fifth editing draft as some errors still linger.

    I still find that it takes me a whole year to write, edit and publish a single novel. If I were doing this full time, I could probably put out two per year. But any more than that and I would probably start to produce lesser quality stuff.

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