A Rejection Letter That Started A Novel - Guest Post from Tyrean Martinson

Today, I'm happy to host part of Tyrean Martinson's blog tour for her book, Champion in the Darkness! Tyrean is here to talk about how her novel began, so, lovely blog readers, here she is!

 

A Rejection Letter That Started A Novel

No writer likes to receive a rejection letter. I know I don’t. However, sometimes, rejections can be the beginning of something good.

Originally, Champion in the Darkness was a short story, entitled “The Choice.” I submitted it to three different publications. I received three rejections.

Here’s a section from one of those rejection letters:

“Overall there wasn't much to the story. It was more of a section of a larger story. As a reader, what would seem the truly interesting and conflict-filled parts would be the training, and what was to follow the choosing of the sword. As a reader, I suspect there is much more to this world the author has created, and this slice wasn't enough to provide an adequate stand-alone story.”

I hadn’t thought of “The Choice” as part of a larger story, but the phrase “what was to follow the choosing of the sword” stayed with me, and I spent some time daydreaming about the characters and their world, and eventually this became a series of short vignettes that seemed like the beginning of a novel. However, I couldn’t seem to get it all to come together. I waited for a while, wrote backstory, and then finally for NaNoWriMo 2010, I wrote The Crystal Sword, which I later renamed Champion in the Darkness.

A rejection letter started my novel.

So, to any writer that’s frustrated by rejection letters, I want to encourage you not to look at the closed door, but to look for the window of opportunity that’s open.

Have you ever received a rejection letter that triggered an idea in your imagination?

 

Tyrean Martinson lives and writes in the Northwest, encouraged by her loving husband and daughters, and reminded to exercise by her dogs and cat. Champion in the Darkness is her first book in the Champion Trilogy, but she has previously published short stories and poetry. She can be found online at Tyrean’s Writing Spot.
 
 
 
 



Thank you, Tyrean! And now, let's take a look at her book, Champion in the Darkness!
 

 
 
Clara is younger than most trainees, but she is ready to hold a Sword Master's blade. While visions and ancient prophecies stand in her way, they also offer a destiny unlike any other. Clara is aided by a haunted mentor, Stelia, whose knowledge of their enemy Kalidess is both a bane and a blessing. As evil threatens their land, Clara and Stelia must find the strength to overcome the darkness!
 
Champion in the Darkness is YA Christian Fantasy and is the first book in the Champion Trilogy.    

Where to find the book:
Champion in the Darkness on Amazon
Champion in the Darkness on Smashwords
Champion in the Darkness on Goodreads

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

Faith King tagged me in this like two weeks ago, and I completely forgot to post. I have been writing like a madwoman…well, I'm already a madwoman, so like more of a madwoman, and I had forgotten to put it on my "blog post" list, so here we are now.

What is the working title of your book?

Well, I have several books floating around right now. The one I'm almost done with--which will be published, it looks like, at the end of March--is called Rising Book 2: Rebellion. This is the second (and last) book in this series. Rising Book 1: Resistance was published a year ago.

       
      Rising Book 1: Resistance                  Rising Book 2: Rebellion (in-progress cover)



Where did the idea come from for the book?

Several years ago, I had an idea for a rather silly story about an errant knight forced to take up with two squabbling teenagers and an orphaned four-year-old. It was supposed to be full of ridiculousness and fun!

And then somehow, it ended up being focused on the two teenagers, and then they got older than I had expected—one of them wasn't even a teenager anymore; she was twenty—and then suddenly it was an adult book, not a YA book, and all silliness evaporated like water in the desert.

It became the most serious, emotional, painful book I had ever written in my life. It was supposed to be one book, but by the time I hit 100,000 words, I realized I still had too much story left to tell. So Rising became Rising Books 1 and 2.

What genre does your book fall under?

Technically, it's science fiction—but that puts me in mind of spaceships and space operas, which this is definitely not. This is more science fiction with fantastical elements. Vaguely steampunkish. ;) But also fantasyish—people with wings, a king in one country, stuff like that.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Ummm…here's the thing. I don't really associate actors with characters. I just don't. My lovely artist friend, Holly Robbins, does artwork of my characters, and that's much, much more my style when it comes to imagining characters.

SERIOUSLY. LOTS OF COOL ARTWORK. SO COOL THAT IT REQUIRES CAPSLOCK OF GLEE!!!
First picture: Alphonse and Mairwyn, narrators of Rising Book 1.
Second picture: Lachlan and Brenna, narrators of Rising Book 2.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

With war upon their countries, Lachlan and Brenna cross the border into enemy territory, hunting for assassins who may have been kidnapped as children and conditioned to kill for the very people who abducted them.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I had scheduled this to be self-published to finish off the series before I signed with my lovely agent, so it will be self-published.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

About a year. The first draft was around 185,000 words (final draft is definitely going to be shorter!), and that year of writing also included:

-doing wife/mommy/family stuff

-editing client manuscripts

-finishing another novel with my co-author

-writing a middle grade book, editing it, querying it, signing with an agent, and doing several rounds of revisions

-publishing Rising Book 1

-homeschooling

-moving

-adopting two cats

-starting Taekwondo and getting to advanced green belt (I have since halted Taekwondo, but darn it, I learned how to side kick)

-travels and other things I'm sure I'm forgetting

Yes, I am either crazy or super motivated or my characters just eat my brain and I can't help writing. Or maybe all three. I'm sure it's at least my characters eating my brain.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

...hm. I can't really think of any books to compare this to within my genre. It's easier for me to think of anime to find elements in various anime shows. And history. Definitely events in history, given that this story deals with genocide--or attempted genocide.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Probably a combination of watching a lot of anime, being interested in steampunkish stuff, and adoring fantasy. It was a lot of fun with this one because I had to actually invent some technology—I had a mechanic narrator for half of Rising Book 1, and so I had to know how some things would function in this world. And also, a desire to write something fun or silly. Which, of course, I've established did not work out. That's probably why I actually did write a fun, silly book in the middle of writing Rising Book 2's first draft. (I was writing three books at once.) This fun, silly book is in the hands of my wonderful agent.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

If you like speculative fiction, there's probably something for you in this book. If you're not so into speculative fiction, there's probably still something for you in the struggles and dreams of the characters. There are people with wings, nomadic clans with healing abilities, and inventions of new technology. There are battles and struggles against a king intent on genocide. There are knights and assassins. There's feisty mechanic and a bookworm scholar. There's a bounty hunter and there's even a horticulturalist hero. There's romance, friendships, people dealing with grief and finding the light at the end of the tunnel. It's a story about overcoming fears, overcoming odds, and people who they are and who they want to be.


It seems like pretty much everyone has been tagged in this, so instead of tagging, I'm just going to shout out to three lovely people with some lovely blogs. If you don't know/follow them, then you should go say hi!

Tonja Drecker
Wendy Knight
Morgan Shamy


THE END IT'S NEVER THE END. O_O

Working as a Freelance Editor - The Stages of Editing

I've been a freelance editor for about a year now. I work for a publishing company, and I work for other authors who hire me to edit their manuscripts. I love it. I’ve been on the other side. I’ve been the author waiting for the editor to finish with a book, and it’s been an honor—and a lot of fun—to get to be that editor for other authors.

But what, exactly, does an editor do and why does an author need one? I mean, the author already edited the book fifty bisquillion times, so it should be fine, right?

Welllll…maybe. But I’m going to venture a guess that 99.999999% of the time, the author is so close to the manuscript and has seen it so many times that obvious things will be missed--and not-so-obvious things will go unnoticed.

As for what an editor does—or, at least, what I do as an editor:

1. An editor has to learn the story inside and out and pay attention to every single detail on every single page. Her brain has to be set to hyper-hyper-hyper-aware mode, so that she can remember little details that could come back a hundred pages later. Keep in mind that she might not get to that hundredth page for a week, so she has to remember it all that time. She has to know the details so that if they’re contradicted, she can fix this or mention it to the author.

2. An editor has to know the characters backwards and forwards so that if something happens and it seems out of character, she can mention it and try to help the author figure out how to fix it. She has to know the story backwards and forwards so she can spot plot holes and offer suggestion to the author on how to fix them.

3. An editor has to get the flow of the story and learn the author’s style so that she can suggest ways to make certain sentences flow more smoothly while not disturbing the author’s voice. She has to pay attention to what words/phrases the author uses so she knows if the author is particularly fond of a particular word or phrase. Then she works with the author on cutting out some of those words or phrases so they don’t become annoying.

4. And in addition to all of that, an editor has to know the rules of grammar—and if she doesn’t know, she needs to be willing to find the answers. Her best tools are Google, Merriam-Webster dictionary/thesaurus, and other editors who might know the answer. She has to know where commas go, what adjective phrases need hyphens, the importance  and correct use of past perfect tense, the importance and correct use of all tenses, the differences between all sorts of homophones, the proper uses of apostrophes, whether to use who/that/which, and a million other little grammatical details.

5. A good editor is invisible—she helps the author tweak and clean up and fix the book, but when a reader is going through the book, that reader should never see how much work was done to the manuscript.

6. And the editor is only human—she catches everything she can, but she also knows that since she has started editing, she has not yet read a published book that didn’t have some mistakes—even NYT bestsellers. Because with everything the editor does on the manuscript, as much as she strives for perfection, there might be something she misses. She does the absolute best she can.

Editor Laura Fact: On average, it takes me about two weeks to edit an 80,000 – 100,000 word manuscript—sometimes a little less, sometimes more. That’s just the first round. Then I send it back to the author for revisions, and then I have one last look at it. The second look typically takes a few hours, but can sometimes take a day or two.

Now, I’d like to give you a little glimpse of what the editing process is sometimes like for me. In some ways, it's like the stages of writing a book--the ups and downs and emotional highs and emotional exhaustion. I present to you Laura's Stages of Editing:

Now, in the end, it is always, always, always the author’s book. I can make suggestions and recommendations until I’m blue in the face. It doesn’t mean the author is always going to take the suggestions. And that’s their choice.

But an editor is not trying to stomp on the author’s thoughts or ideas or characters—well, not the editors I know, anyway.

The author is attached to their writing. They’ve created the world and written the words and poured sweat and tears and countless hours into it. It’s normal to feel protective of it.

The editor is not attached like that. The editor sees the story, the words, the phrases, the grammar, the flow, the style…and does her best to help the author make it all shine.

Of course, there are all sorts of different personalities, too—maybe one editor and author won’t really click, but another one will. So finding an editor who works well with you is also important. Tristi Pinkston did a great blog post about that here: Finding a Good Editor

*Have you ever worked with an editor? Was it a good experience? Do you feel that editors are necessary for your book?

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have about 20,000 words left in a client edit to finish by the end of tomorrow. ;)

On Writing and Panicking about Writing. Or Deadlines. Or Something.

Hiiii, all! Happy December! Er, mid-December. I've been busy with all sorts of family and holiday things. On the writing front...well, I'm still working on Rising Book 2.

I had expected to be able to publish Rising Book 2 at the end of this year, but it's going to be sometime next year before it's out, and I apologize to anyone waiting to read it. I had the whole draft written--you may remember me saying I had finished it at 185,000 words or so. Rising Book 2 is divided into two parts, and part one had already had tons of work and rewriting. Part 2 had been written very fast and was messy by comparison.

Well, not long after that, my beta readers made suggestions, and this is what happened:

-I cut 60,000 words in one day.

-I realized the second half of the book needed to be rewritten. Figured out what chapters from part 2 I could salvage. Kept them in. Cut another 45,000 words or so.

-Set cut chapters aside, because I know there will be a few scenes I'll be able to use.

-Tried to sort out the brand new plot, because this part of my rewrite needed brand new plot.

-Panicked. Thought about deadlines and panicked more.

-Kept writing. Words all became a jumbled mess.

-Panicked some more.

-Wondered if anything in part 2 was working, or if I needed to scrap all of it and start from scratch.

-Reminded myself that at least part 1 was ready to go--completely edited, rewritten, tweaked, through betas and editors, and that rewriting just part 2 wasn't really as bad as I was making it out be.

-Brain was exhausted. Was more stressed about about this half of a novel than I've been about any book in a long time.

-Words looked even more of a jumbled mess. Panicked and got a hold of writing partner Emma one afternoon. I walked her through my rewrite on part 2, and she talked me through points of the plot and helped me realize it does make sense, I didn't need to scrap and start over, and I just needed to keep going, and she helped me see clearly how to keep going.

-Breathed, wrote, emailed Emma my story file. (Emma and I read each other's in-progress books, which helps us both immensely. It helps us keep each other encouraged, and it helps that we both end up knowing each other's plots.)

-Emma read and loved it and I was super, super encouraged and non-panicked.

-I'm still writing.

And that has been my writing process lately. I will admit that I'm still a little stressed because I'm like !!!!DEADLINE!!! and flailing in my head like a maniac, because I do want to get this out soon, because I have other stories in the works and my agent is shopping around one of my other novels, but, as one of my other friends keeps reminding me, I want to put out my absolute best, and I want to make sure the story is what it needs to be. I owe it to myself, I owe it to the characters, and I owe it to my readers. The first draft of the story had all the plot points in there, but it wasn't what it needed to be, and I wasn't happy with it. Therefore, I'm going to keep taking it one page at a time, figure out how the new plot weaves together, and then when it's finished, I'll whip it into shape and put part 2 through beta readers and editing, and then I will get the book out there. I don't have many more chapters to write, so hopefully it won't be delayed that much, but I know the book will be better off for the rewrite.

At least part 1 of the novel is ready, right? O_o (I tell you, this book has taken more out of me than any book I've ever written in my life. It's exhausting.)

Anyway, thanks to all of you for your patience! It's soooo close to being 100% done, it's ridiculous. I'll just be over here in my corner, working on this and reminding myself to breathe and not panic.


I hope all of you are doing wonderfully, especially during this super busy time of year!!!

I'm Thankful for My Readers Bloghop

Today, we have a bloghop!

 

I'm so thankful to my readers, of all kinds!

Thank you to my crit partners, who pick apart my stories, are bluntly honest and therefore only help make my novels better, and who have shared more laughs, late-night giggles, and inside jokes than I can even recount. Most of you have seen me in every state imaginable, including my super-hyper-sugared-up-and-caffeinated state. (Even if I will never live down army crawling across the floor.)

(There is a story to that. It was like 2AM, and one of my writing partners goes, "Hey, Laura, what if I told you my two characters might not get together?" I crawled over to her in a flash and went, "WHAT?"

THEY NEEDED TO GET TOGETHER.)

Thank you to my blog readers, who are so encouraging and thoughtful and have stuck with me through so much. I've met some incredible people through the blogosphere. For you, my first attempt at a haiku:

Marvelous readers

Make the blogosphere go round

Wonderful people

And in addition, as thanks, I know there are a lot of writers on here, so for the first five people who mention they want it in the comment, I'll edit the first ten pages of your book. Or the first chapter, if it's under fifteen pages. (I work as a professional editor.)

Thank you to my book readers, who buy my books and support me that way. In thanks, for one week only, I'm making Rising Book 1: Resistance available for free on Smashwords. You can use coupon code VT82D. You can get any ebook version you want using that coupon code here: Rising Book 1: Resistance

(Also, for the month of November, I have Confessions from the Realm of the Underworld (Also Known as High School) for $0.99 on Smashwords using coupon code HB87F, which you can purchase here if you so desire: Confessions on Smashwords.)

Thanks to all of you who help, encourage, and support me in so many ways! You are all so awesome!!!

Ready, Set, Go

I've begun my read through of the first half of Rising Book 2: Rebellion and the rewrite of the second half. Confession: The rewrite terrifies me. I'm having this momentary "How am I going to make this work? How am I going to make it work by my deadline? What if it's terrible because I can't get it right in time?"

So now it's time for me to take a deep breath, remind myself I can do this, and go after it with a club. Or, you know, a keyboard. 

What are you working on right now?

Here and Gone

You may have noticed that I've been absent on Blogger for a while, and I've been terrible at keeping up with blogs. It's been all I can do to keep up with everything else I have going on. Between editing for work, writing novels, revising, rewriting, prepping for publication, homeschooling, and breathing, my blog has slipped woefully between the cracks. I'll pull up Blogger from time to time and stare at it and think about how I need to get on this sucker, and then a wave of exhaustion will wash over me. I haven't even had time to read my critique partners' latest books/chapter updates, never mind any other kind of reading. The only books I've read this year have been client edits. I need a good chunk of time to just sit and read. And you know, breathe. ;)

Anyway, I'm sorry for being so absent all over the place, and I'm hoping that things will settle down a little bit the rest of this year and I can get to some of the blog posts I've been wanting to do! Thanks to all of you who have stuck around and been so encouraging--it's meant a lot to me in the insanity of the past months. The only thing I have left planned for this year is the rewrite of half of Rising 2 and its publication--last month, I cut 73,000 words from the book, and now I need to rewrite some new story.

Also, a big, belated thank-you to Christine Rains for presenting me with the Daisy Award. :)

(Oh, I've also finally set up an author page on Facebook, and I hope to be more active there, too, so I'd love for you to join me. :)) My Facebook Page

Thanks again to all of you, and I hope you're all doing magnificently!