I’m reworking Rogue Rainlord at the moment before “real” work catches up with me again.

And it truly is amazing how many times two different readers can read exactly the same thing and see two different things. And how humbling it is when you are the writer and you discover what you thought was crystal clear was not clear at all…

For example:
One of my characters is a woman who cares for her husband but doesn’t want to show it, for reasons I won’t go into here. There’s a short scene where he is about to go off to rescue someone, a woman, and she is a bit bad-tempered. I was trying to point out to the reader that she is sick with worry for him as he is going into danger, but doesn’t want him to know it. The beta reader thought I was trying to say she was jealous. Which never occurred to me.

And that’s just one example. Back to the drawing board…

And have you all seen that wonderful video about the frozen folk of Grand Central Station? If not, do look. It is marvellous.

I had an email from someone I didn’t know the other day, saying he was up to chater (sic) 8 in his novel and, if I wanted to help him with any aspects of it, to plase (sic) let him know.

Short answer: No.
Why not?
Basically, because I prefer to help my friends than strangers and there’s only so much time in the day that I can spare away from writing to comment on MSS free of charge.
And because there are other ways novice writers can get help. Like these:

Step One:
Read. Read books of the kind you are writing, and books about how to write that kind of book.
Step Two:
Join a crit group dealing with your kind of book, either online or in the real world, where you crit their writing and they crit yours.
Possible Step Three:
Pay a professional.

Which brings me to one of my (unpaid) beta readers. I did a very small favour for him, and in return he beta read “Rogue Rainlord“. I can’t recommend this guy enough – he was spot on so many times with everything from plot holes, to how characterisation could be improved, to typos. His forte is continuity problems.

Rogue Rainlord will be a better book because he took the trouble to comment. I can’t thank him enough.

If you want your sff book (or part of it) professionally read by someone who is very good at this sort of thing and who will give you real value for money, try this guy (and no, I’m not getting a cut!)

His name is Phill Berrie, and you can find him here: http://web.mac.com/phillberrie/Phill/PB_Index.html

I love reading the kind of book where you start and then it’s like entering a tunnel. Everything on all sides just disappears – the people around you, the sounds, sights, all that stress, all those niggling guilts about what you should be doing…the book holds you spellbound, oblivious, and you are doomed to stay that way (with possible temporary exits for food and water or work!) until you emerge from the tunnel at the end.

And that’s the kind of book I would like to write. It’s what most fiction writers dream of doing to their readers. But alas, it is all too easy to jerk the reader out of that realm of yours and bring him down with a thump because something you wrote didn’t ring true. It could be getting a fact wrong (talking about tigers roaming Africa, for example). It could be using a word wrongly or a spelling mistake (mentioning a breeching whale as I did once…*blush*). It might be just plain poor grammar or convoluted sentences that need re-reading several times to understand. It might be a historical fault – referring to people of eating potatoes in Europe before potatoes arrived from the new world.

Or it could, in fantasy writing, be the use of a word that jolts the reader because it seems inappropriate. The use of modern slang just doesn’t sit well: “run that by me one more time” or “that is so not on!” I just read a review of a (sff) book about the Franklin Expedition, which review criticised the author for several solecisms, including having his British ship’s crew use the American word “ass” – not possible, especially back then.

But what happens when you, the author are technically correct? Neal Stephenson was chided for talking about the Kit-Kat Club back in Regency London…come on, says the reviewer.
But there was such a club. It existed. Yes, 200 years ago. Correct the reference may have been, but it jerked the reviewer out of Stephenson’s world.

So, if I refer to “kids” in my pre-industrial fantasy, am I wrong? The word, used meaning children, has existed in written works for at least that long, and presumably a lot longer as spoken slang.

And what about “foreign” words in my made-up fantasy world? Can I use “paramour” or “clientele” or “vice versa” or “ying and yang” or expressions like “the lotus position” or….? You get the picture.

Sometimes my beta readers will seize on words that I think are absolutely harmless. “Clientele” in my fantasy world brothel? And “vagina”? (Ok, so what do I call it – politely – otherwise?)

But the fact is, for that beta reader, it didn’t work. She was back in this world, where I don’t want her to be. So I sit up and take notice, at the very least, even when I think I am right…

What do you think? What are some of the horrendous gaffes you’ve come across?

This is a sort of follow on from the previous post – which has some very interesting comments, by the way.

I am in the midst of this fascinating process of getting feedback from first readers, some of them writers themselves, some not. And truly marvellous they are, with an eye for the ridiculous, the grammatical error, the typo, the rough spot, the plot hole, and so on. I can read something twenty times and still not see something under my nose, or I just simply don’t see an illogically in the story at all.
Here’s one that was spotted: there’s one scene in my book where a man, camped on the outskirts of a village, has to clandestinely visit a village child whom he knows is alone in his hut just outside the village. He also has to carry a rather large basket of stuff. I had no problem with that…but a beta reader did.

In effect:
How come he is able – in broad daylight – to walk around the outskirts of the village without a) someone spotting him, especially when he is hampered by the basket, and b) why aren’t there a myriad of village children following him everywhere??

Oh, lord, so true. (Thanks Phill!)

The photographs taken by me are of my husband on Banggi Island, and of Hamid, from the University Malaysia Sabah, on the island of Mabul, Sabah….

Ah, seems I don’t have time to get to the bit of what I wanted to say that refers to the blog title. I will continue tomorrow.

…when I send off my manuscript [ “The Rogue Rainlord“, book 1 of The Random Rain Cycle ], to my beta readers.

I am making a few last minute changes, doing a final spell check, and so on, attaching a bit of a sketch map … and then off it goes to the hungry hawk-eyed vultures to tear apart.

Who are my beta readers?

• Fellow published writers (bless them, wherever do they find the time?);
• writers not yet majorly published;
• fantasy fans with wide reading experience;
• a speciality bookseller;
• several part-time professional editor friends who love to read fantasy;
• West Australian Perdy Phillips (professional artist who does the maps).

Some of them are people I have never met, some are friends, some are connected to the publishing business. They all have one thing in common: they love the genre and want the finished book to be special, so they are devastatingly honest, even when it hurts.

This last makes their praise, if it comes, very special indeed, because I know they really mean it. So as of tomorrow, I will do other things while I try to be patient and not develop a tic, or a desire to bit my nails, or a need to hit the gin.

Oh, note the title: here are the titles I finally decided on (but who knows whether these will be the final ones.)