Thursday, October 3, 2013

Working my trousers to the bone again . . .


I'm hard at work writing the third volume in the Maxwell series.  So far I'm up to about 70,000 words out of a planned total of 110,000-120,000, or about a third longer than the first two books in the series (listed in the sidebar).  This will allow me to make the plot more complex and introduce more events and growth points, which I hope will satisfy some of the criticisms leveled at the first books.

It's interesting to read other people's reviews of my books, and try to learn from them.  Some readers are very useful in that regard;  they not only say what they didn't like, but why they didn't like it, and give examples.  This helps me see at once where they're coming from, and whether or not I agree with them.  Others merely express satisfaction or dissatisfaction, without advancing any evidence or describing any specific flaws, which makes it a lot harder to learn from their comments.

(Some reviewers have ideas that are . . . well, difficult.  One was vehement in his condemnation of a scene in the first Maxwell novel, where the protagonist stabs another in the hand with a fork.  He regarded this as completely implausible and a real turnoff.  However, that's one of the scenes in the book that's actually based on fact!  There really was such an incident - and yes, the victim did have to go to hospital to get the fork removed.  I don't know why he found it so hard to believe.)

I'm also trying to introduce more conflict and complexity into the challenges my protagonist faces as he proceeds with his career.  Sure, he's the hero of the series, so obviously he's going to prevail - but some people found that things went too easily for him in the first book, and that he breezed through every difficulty without ever being really challenged.  I tried to change that in the second book, with (I think) some success, but I've still got some way to go.  Writing really is a learning curve.  One can learn a lot from reading about the craft, but eventually one has to settle down and actually do it, and learn from one's mistakes and shortcomings.  Clearly, I've got a lot of learning material!  Fortunately, my readers seem to think that the novels' good points outweigh their negatives, and they're still selling moderately well.  I'll try to make the rest of the series even better, book by book.

Miss D. and I will be heading for Blogorado next week, and spending some time visiting Sarah Hoyt and others while we're in that neck of the woods.  We're looking forward to the trip (we're driving this year), but it's going to eat into my writing time.  I want to have the book finished in penultimate draft by the end of October, so I can get it out to beta readers for a quick once-over and to an independent editor for a more thorough check.  By mid-November I need to be formatting it for publication.  It's going to be a rush, but by God's grade and with the help of my friends, I'll get there.

(If any of you would like to be part of a high-speed beta reading team, willing to read the book in a few days from late October and send feedback by not later than November 10th, please leave your name in Comments below or send me an e-mail - my address is in my blog profile.  Please make sure I have some way to respond to you, like an e-mail address.  Some of you are already on my list, of course, but it would help if you could confirm your availability in that time window.  Thanks.)

Peter

11 comments:

On a Wing and a Whim said...

...and the doctor had to stop after just about every single stitch to shake with gut-heaving laughter as he'd say "Sure won't do that again, will ya, son?" and "Learned your lesson, boy?"

Fortunately, all the tines missed tendons, so after the antibiotics took care of infection, only the scars and the years, and years, and years to come of teasing both parties remain...

Alcohol may have been a factor. Ahem.

Judy said...

Buried a fork in the back of an ex-husband's hand. So it is possible. Moral: When your spouse tell you to stop, you might want to take heed.

Mike said...

My older sister left a fork in the back of my oldest sister's hand, as kids...so it *does* happen!

tweell said...

You are rapidly getting better at writing, IMO. I figure you will be slowing down as well, once you run out of the stories you have stocked up in headspace. Hopefully you will be getting enough book sales by then to keep up your writing income.

Anonymous said...

Peter, I would love to be a beta reader for the next Maxwell saga installment. I'm a stickler for details, and I also used to be the newsletter editor for a couple of churches. I'm one of those people who cringes at grammatical errors and typos in printed works.

Which reminds me: there is a typo in "Ride the Rising Tide"... I can't give you a page number since the Kindle edition does not have them, but it's the sentence:

"Steve took hangars from his locker and arranged his Number One and Number Two uniforms on them."

I'm 99.9% certain that you meant "hanger" for clothes, not "hangar" for airplanes. ;)

Purple Magpie
You have my email address -- singinggardeners....etc (I don't want to type it here) at gmail dot com.

Jennifer said...

It may be insane to offer, but I'd be up for being a beta reader. We aren't going to make blogorado this year, but if you're passing through OKC to or from, maybe we could meet up.

Peter said...

@Tweell: No, I have a dozen stories in the Maxwell series already plotted out in basic outline, and another SF series germinating in my mind. There's also a possible fantasy series, but not in the modern interminably-drawn-out, never-ending model of many modern fantasies such as Game Of Thrones. I want each book to be shorter, crisper, and complete in itself. I may try a trilogy.

Brace yourselves!

:-)

David W. said...

Really the only complaint I have about the Maxwell Saga is the fact he hasn't screwed up yet. I mean he should end up doing something incredibly wrong eventually and I'm just waiting for it. The fact that he is so good at everything yet isn't an insufferable asshole is kind of ... unlikely in my opinion. I just really think you need to sneak something in there in his past like "And then I screwed up and was punished horribly, I'll never be that bad again" or something. Or make him cocky and then fail. It just throws me when I'm reading your books. The good really out weighs the bad though cause that is literally the only complaint I have.

DaddyBear said...

Looking forward to the next one, Peter. Sign me up for beta readerhood if you're not already full up.

And yes, you can get a hand stabbed if you reach for someone elses food. A squadmate of mine got smacked with a section of grounding rod once for trying to make away with a rather choice MRE. Didn't exactly impale him, but it did leave a nice mark to remind him that "Thou shalt not touch thine battle buddies food". Wasn't me of course. I'm much too non-violent and even tempered for such things.

Mike_C said...

So that's why you posted Doofus #726, eh? A fork in the hand doesn't seem so implausible in comparison, does it? Diabolically clever, Mr. Grant!

JohnD said...

Peter, if you need another beta-reader, I'd be delighted to volunteer - they remind me of the E.E. 'Doc' Smith books of my youth.. you can reach me at badfrog @ ntlworld.com