One knocks one off between tea and bedtime....

[Karen Gray]

I have a local guy who offered to do mines for £1 a page. But you know what, I can't even afford that. I with the help of @Jason Byrne @David Steele @Jennifer Stone and @MontanaMan65 separate to my familial and friend based readers, I have gotten mines to where I want it to be. For me it is quite literally as is or not at all. I can't afford otherwise. Maybe for subsequent books I'll be able to but right now... no.

 

[Emurelda]

I have a local guy who offered to do mines for £1 a page. But you know what, I can't even afford that. I with the help of @Jason Byrne @David Steele @Jennifer Stone and @MontanaMan65 separate to my familial and friend based readers, I have gotten mines to where I want it to be. For me it is quite literally as is or not at all. I can't afford otherwise. Maybe for subsequent books I'll be able to but right now... no.

£1 per page. Is that double spaced or single

 

[Jason Byrne]

I take it this doesn't include the research notes?

As my character profiles are lengthy, and my books have at least 6 major characters each, I probably have ~50 pages of notes (not including research), though the actual information probably takes up about 10.

Research, I just print everything out I can find and then highlight important info, so I think I have another 30 or 40 in research.

Sorry Nicole — this was just as I was closing up and alarming at work, and I didn't have the chance to respond, though I really wanted to.

I have two main characters, and because they are so travel-based, maybe ten or so minor recurring characters, that show up from time to time. That said, mine are set in the 'real' 12th century and cross the entire world. I have about 130 pages of notes outlining the plot of the five-book series, but over seven hundred individual computer files containing research that went into the first two books. Eventually, like you I gave up on keeping every scrap of research I used, and just looked things up as I needed them, and kept them on the screen next to my story file while I needed them.

 

[Nicole Wilson]

Okay - the original article which @Katie-Ellen Hazeldine posted (thank you, by the way) said:

PAY FOR PREFESSIONAL EDITING

So - question 1- Do you think being read by @Karen Gray and @Jason Byrne means I don't need to do so? Especially since I'm on draft 9 of my own editing?

Or is it essential for everybody in a 'no excuses' kind of way?

Question 2 - Anybody know any good but affordable services out there?

Personally, I think you need to have either a lot of beta readers or a critique group go through your manuscript if you decide not to use a professional editor. Those extra eyes will help you catch story flaws that you wouldn't be able to see. And I would go through it with a fine-toothed comb to make sure there are no spelling mistakes or glaringly obvious grammatical ones (a lot of grammatical issues are a matter of taste that the publisher will dictate to you anyway).

Because I've had both, I won't be using a prof editor either. You're right; your agent will hook you up with an editor anyway. Just something to keep in mind.

 

[Jason Byrne]

Wow! What a fantastic way of doing things. Very professional. I tend to scribble down scraps of dialogue or description as they occur to me, like a word-pantry, but nothing like what you do. But then I only do short stories, not collections of epic novels.

Yeah — for a short story, I'll have maybe half a page of things to remember, and that's about it.

 

[Jason Byrne]

£1 per page. Is that double spaced or single

African or European pages?

 

[Nicole Wilson]

That said, mine are set in the 'real' 12th century and cross the entire world. I have about 130 pages of notes outlining the plot of the five-book series, but over seven hundred individual computer files containing research that went into the first two books.

Holy. Crap. I have maybe ten. For both novels. That's incredible though. I bet your stories are much more accurate than mine are.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Um.......am I the only one who knows James Patterson doesn't write his own books? I'm not sure what he is but he's not a writer. I tend to think he's an exploiter. Saying that he wrote 17 books before June is the equivalent of saying Harlequin put out 17 books before June. He's a publishing imprint more than a writer. I will never buy a book with his name on it - I am not sure why he hasn't been lynched in the town square. I think the only other 'author' I dislike more than James Patterson is Ayn Rand. Both of them traitors to their own art - one takes credit for other writers work and the other denies the existence of the art form they claim to be a disciple of.

Gaaah. The totally awful Ayn Rand.
@AgentPete has been known to suggest that if you take time, say, 2 weeks to plot, properly plot your novel; you'll finish faster, and that's what writer's of best sellers do (apart From Stephen King, who worked like a maniac fuelled by...em, stuff) The idea is, 2 weeks of plotting is hell, but after it, you've got your clothes horse all ready to hang the clothes on, with far less need to re-write than if you'd done it by 'pantsing.'

 

[Jason Byrne]

Okay - the original article which @Katie-Ellen Hazeldine posted (thank you, by the way) said:

PAY FOR PREFESSIONAL EDITING

So - question 1- Do you think being read by @Karen Gray and @Jason Byrne means I don't need to do so? Especially since I'm on draft 9 of my own editing?

Or is it essential for everybody in a 'no excuses' kind of way?

Question 2 - Anybody know any good but affordable services out there?

Self publishing had / has a bad reputation because of many books do not read as well as traditionally published novels. Hence the need for professional editing regardless if you train as one.

There is something in the idea of pooling writers together to share an editor. Not sure how it would work exactly but maybe an annual nominal fee like £100 along with x numbers of writers to pay for a professional full time editor. You would need 200- 300 members to pay a decent wage. This would work best as part of an established agency or publishing house.

I have to agree with Emurelda. Your book was incredible, David. I can't sing its praises enough. And I am honored that you thought my advice was useful, and that I believe it became slightly better as a result. But I have absolutely no knowledge of the professional editing industry. I know there are things with which they are familiar that work well to improve a manuscript of which I am completely ignorant, because I've never gone through the professional editing process, either. If I had, I could apply the advice I had been given, when I had my go. I think there is the beta-reading phase, and then the professional-editing phase.

However, if you are self-publishing, you have total control over when it is 'ready,' and when it is time to publish. That said, I picked up a little 115-page book of my wife's godmother's called "Butt Prints in the Sand... No More!" by Peter Lowe, of his own publication house Yakadoo Publications. I should have stopped right there, but I didn't. I don't think it was read once, between first draft and publication, and it averaged to the best of my recollection about 6-12 typos per page. Just remember that with great power comes great responsibility, @David Steele.

 

[Emurelda]

African or European pages?

What's the difference? *confused*

 

[Nicole Wilson]

Um.......am I the only one who knows James Patterson doesn't write his own books? I'm not sure what he is but he's not a writer. I tend to think he's an exploiter. Saying that he wrote 17 books before June is the equivalent of saying Harlequin put out 17 books before June. He's a publishing imprint more than a writer. I will never buy a book with his name on it - I am not sure why he hasn't been lynched in the town square. I think the only other 'author' I dislike more than James Patterson is Ayn Rand. Both of them traitors to their own art - one takes credit for other writers work and the other denies the existence of the art form they claim to be a disciple of.

I already knew he didn't necessarily write all his own books. My guess is he has an idea and asks another author if they want to work together. There are tons of co-author groups out there, so I don't much have a problem with it. Besides, if James Patterson asked me to write a book with him, am I going to say no? Am I not going to want his name on the cover? No way.

But he also does a lot of good for the writing community. He's teaching a writers course now, and he frequently donates huge chunks of money to bookstores and libraries.

 

[Emurelda]

Gaaah. The totally awful Ayn Rand.
@AgentPete has been known to suggest that if you take time, say, 2 weeks to plot, properly plot your novel; you'll finish faster, and that's what writer's of best sellers do (apart From Stephen King, who worked like a maniac fuelled by...em, stuff) The idea is, 2 weeks of plotting is hell, but after it, you've got your clothes horse all ready to hang the clothes on, with far less need to re-write than if you'd done it by 'pantsing.'

Valuable insight as always. Thank you.

 

[Jason Byrne]

Holy. Crap. I have maybe ten. For both novels. That's incredible though. I bet your stories are much more accurate than mine are.

My accuracy is pathalogical, Nicole. It's so bad.

If my characters walk through a village, I find pictures of the countryside, maps from the time period, local weather data, the current lunar phase, the history from antiquity up to the current day of the story, or sometimes even back to pre-history, cultural information like ethnic breakdown, enemies and allies, trade statistics, who are the current members of ruling nobility, what is their political situation, what are their ages, who are their relatives and what is their age and political situation, were there any local celebrities in the current era, what is the food and language of the region, what was the local stage of technological development, were there any new advances recently... it just goes on from there.

And I do that for every village the characters visit, whether they stay for five minutes or five days. I'm even starting to have native speakers check over my foreign languages for accuracy, just to get their impressions of my portrayal.

This was supposed to be a silly little fantasy book. All made-up, just an allegory rather than anything historical. Why, Nicole, why?

 

[Nicole Wilson]

My accuracy is pathalogical, Nicole. It's so bad.

If my characters walk through a village, I find pictures of the countryside, maps from the time period, local weather data, the current lunar phase, the history from antiquity up to the current day of the story, cultural information like ethnic breakdown, enemies and allies, trade statistics, who are the current members of ruling nobility, what is their political situation, what are their ages, who are their relatives and what is their age and political situation, were there any local celebrities in the current era, what is the food and language of the region, what was the local stage of technological development, were there any new advances recently... it just goes on from there.

And I do that for every village the characters visit, whether they stay for five minutes or five days. I'm even starting to have native speakers check over my foreign languages for accuracy, just to get their impressions of my portrayal.

This was supposed to be a silly little fantasy book. All made-up, just an allegory rather than anything historical. Why, Nicole, why?

.... Mine's set in present day Manhattan and I didn't do near this amount of research (nor did I already know it). I'm both impressed and saddened by this.

 

[Jason Byrne]

.... Mine's set in present day Manhattan and I didn't do near this amount of research (nor did I already know it). I'm both impressed and saddened by this.

At least you don't have to look far beyond Google Maps street view, Manhattan-area news articles, and restaurant reviews. You've seen enough of Manhattan on HGTV that it sounds like you can get away with this. And if one of your thrillers were set in Houston, you'd have to do about zero research. You're right — they are different beasts.

 

[Alistair Roberts]

Research, I have three or four separate files with background info on places and history for the period. Each one is almost as big as a modest sized novel in themselves

 

[Nicole Wilson]

At least you don't have to look far beyond Google Maps street view, Manhattan-area news articles, and restaurant reviews. You've seen enough of Manhattan on HGTV that it sounds like you can get away with this. And if one of your thrillers were set in Houston, you'd have to do about zero research. You're right — they are different beasts.

Very true. But, with 130 pages of research, at least no one can claim it's not historically accurate.

 

[Jason Byrne]

Research, I have three or four separate files with background info on places and history for the period. Each one is almost as big as a modest sized novel in themselves

I'll bet you have a fair bit of pre-existing knowledge in Arthurian legend upon which you can draw as well, Alistair.

 

[Alistair Roberts]

I'll bet you have a fair bit of pre-existing knowledge in Arthurian legend upon which you can draw as well, Alistair.

Oh, that's another file entirely lo

 

[Jason Byrne]

Very true. But, with 130 pages of research, at least no one can claim it's not historically accurate.

There's a term in the 3D Animation industry called the uncanny valley, which I think pertains here as well. I did my thesis on it in college.

It goes, more or less, that the brain unquestioningly accepts things it recognizes as false, and brutally questions anything purported to be true. That's why you never think twice about Mario crushing turtles with a flying butt-stomp, but you look at the movies and sports games with the most cutting-edge graphics and physics, so detailed that you can see the pores on the monster or the beads of sweat on the players, and say "that's so fake." The closer you get to something that is purported to be real, the more you look for flaws. And a single flaw destroys the entire illusion.

I know there will be that one insignificant little thing that I missed, that if I am ever published will cause an uproar of people screaming "ooh! Ooh! That wasn't invented yet you can't have that! This is so fake."

 

[Alistair Roberts]

The "Tricorder." Oh but wait, NASA has come up with a device that can scan metals in a hand held device

 

[Emurelda]

Be careful with research ..some times it can be a case of 'analysis paralysis'. Too much of a good thing can lead to too little of a novel actually developing and moving forward. I just think we can get so distracted with the romantic notion of our worlds that we may be going a little OTT.

Of course who am I to say. I only write 30k word novels

 

[David Steele]

I had to learn to remove a lot of my research from things I'd written. Some action takes place in a battle in Spain, and I spent a week of evenings, reading, watching videos, studying maps, etc. In the end I had to take it all out because none of it added any value to the narrative.
In fact, I STILL think there's too much exposition in that section, even though I've tried really hard to mention things incidentally.

 

[Alistair Roberts]

Well although I have massive amount of research, I put very little into the novels. I just want to know what buildings / castles actually existed at the time, and if any characters /owners are know, they might get a very brief mention and that's all. So I am really happy with the balance in that regard.

 

[Jason Byrne]

Be careful with research ..some times it can be a case of 'analysis paralysis'. Too much of a good thing can lead to too little of a novel actually developing and moving forward. I just think we can get so distracted with the romantic notion of our worlds that we may be going a little OTT.

Of course who am I to say. I only write 30k word novels

I had to learn to remove a lot of my research from things I'd written. Some action takes place in a battle in Spain, and I spent a week of evenings, reading, watching videos, studying maps, etc. In the end I had to take it all out because none of it added any value to the narrative.
In fact, I STILL think there's too much exposition in that section, even though I've tried really hard to mention things incidentally.

It's true. A lot of research is transparent, like is it a small village or a city, is it snowing or raining. But conversations about whether Melikşah was an effective leader or not and how overpopulation of trolls called karaconkolos drove the Seljuks to sack Konstantiniyye are probably one step too far. Or ten.

 

[Emurelda]

Am currently researching medieval names for my next protagonist. Also medieval careers too. Found a list of 100 and got me thinking of the dynamics within the hierarchy and off i would go and research that. Am just grasping the world bit by bit and then owning it for the sake of personalising the next series.

Another sort of research i find helpful is to read similar dated novels, just to get a perspective.

The main mammoth work i do is in checking the science and to somehow engineer it in the core if the novel and games whilst wrapping that core with fiction and fun. Also testing characters with kids is a good idea to check what is appealing and what isn't but generally kids don't always know what they like until you give it to them.

 

[Emurelda]

There's a term in the 3D Animation industry called the uncanny valley, which I think pertains here as well. I did my thesis on it in college.

It goes, more or less, that the brain unquestioningly accepts things it recognizes as false, and brutally questions anything purported to be true. That's why you never think twice about Mario crushing turtles with a flying butt-stomp, but you look at the movies and sports games with the most cutting-edge graphics and physics, so detailed that you can see the pores on the monster or the beads of sweat on the players, and say "that's so fake." The closer you get to something that is purported to be real, the more you look for flaws. And a single flaw destroys the entire illusion.

I know there will be that one insignificant little thing that I missed, that if I am ever published will cause an uproar of people screaming "ooh! Ooh! That wasn't invented yet you can't have that! This is so fake."

So the wackier crazier world we create people are more likely to suspend judgement and accept it no questions asked right. *takes notes*

 

[Jason Byrne]

Am currently researching medieval names for my next protagonist. Also medieval careers too. Found a list of 100 and got me thinking of the dynamics within the hierarchy and off i would go and research that. Am just grasping the world bit by bit and then owning it for the sake of personalising the next series.

Another sort of research i find helpful is to read similar dated novels, just to get a perspective.

The main mammoth work i do is in checking the science and to somehow engineer it in the core if the novel and games whilst wrapping that core with fiction and fun. Also testing characters with kids is a good idea to check what is appealing and what isn't but generally kids don't always know what they like until you give it to them.

Here's a good one for you: "What Did People Do in a Medieval City?"

 

[Jason Byrne]

So the wackier crazier world we create people are more likely to suspend judgement and accept it no questions asked right. *takes notes*

In all seriousness, yes! You don't sit through Shawn of the Dead and say "this could never happen." You sit through 28 Days Later and say "this could never happen."

 

[Emurelda]

In all seriousness, yes! You don't sit through Shawn of the Dead and say "this could never happen." You sit through 28 Days Later and say "this could never happen."

Well it's a good thing I'm writing a sci-fi for kids that go gallivanting through the multiverse on their first year science internship! A great way to spend your summer