I was a bad writer. I'm better now.
This journey of mine has been eye-opening.
When I finished Progeny (The Children of the White Lions, #1), I thought to myself, "Hey, this is a good story.” And it was. Still is.
Then I thought to myself, “Hey, I can write pretty well.” Boy…was I mistaken.
Good storyteller does not good equal author. Far from it.
It took me close to a year to write the book. When I started, I was a relative novice. I had written some short stories, but nothing as large and as ambitious as Progeny. Throughout the process of writing and editing, I reached the misguided conclusion that my skills as a writer had caught up to my ability as a storyteller. After only a single 300k word novel.
Good gracious, was I wrong. And ignorantly arrogant.
Granted, I hired a copy editor to parse my words before publishing, but she could only do so much with what I provided her. She found the glaring grammatical errors. Poor word choice. Etc.
But flow? Tone? Clarity? That was not her responsibility and she did not touch it at all. Nor should she have.
When she was done, I believed I had a good product. Bulletproof. As good as any out there.
Eek.
Should anyone ever invent a time machine, I would like to borrow it and hop back to November 2010, sit myself down, and say, “Hey…uh…slow down there, speedy. Read it again. Write more. Edit more.”
Since I do not expect the advent of time travel any time soon, I am relegated to dealing with the past as is.
After Progeny was released, I leapt straight into writing the sequel—I just knew how the second book opened. As with anything one does, the more I wrote, the better I got. By the time the first pass at the manuscript was done (another 280k+ words), I had ironed out many wrinkles in my style. And my tone. And pretty much everything that comes along with writing a clear, crisp, and concise tale.
Then I wrote nine short stories, The Terrene Chronicles (Merchant, Family, Rivals), set as prequel stories for Progeny. I meant for them to be a marketing ploy, but more than anything, they turned out to be a writing exercise. After another 150k words (a few were more ‘novella’ than ‘short story’), I had pounded out even more impurities.
Then, I went back and did an editing pass on the sequel, and realized how much work I still needed. Once I was done with that, I thought to myself, “I really ought to take a look at Progeny…”
Oh. My. Gods*.
How that edition of the book has almost 30 five-star reviews at Amazon and reached #6 on their top rated epic fantasy list is astounding.
The first third is horrendous in style, tone, and grammar. The second third is only slightly better. The last third is passable, but by no means, is it any good. I suppose the story I told trumped my amateurish writing.
To the handful of reviews critical of the opening section of the book, ripping the grammar and clarity of the book, may I say, “Yup. You’re right.”
To the rest of you who have lauded the tale with syrupy-sweet praise, may I say, “Thank the Gods* for you.” Without your support, I would never have persevered.
So, I set to editing Progeny again. I cut large swaths, rewrote others, and added a few small sections to clarify things. In the end, I cut 8000+ words while still adding a new 1k word Prologue. I enlisted a trio of fans to review my edits to catch my bane—dropped words—and now I have a product of which I am proud. Very proud.
Ultimately, I am writing this to say this to the epic fantasy reading community: I am sorry.
If you picked it up and started to read it…good gracious, I am sorry. Especially for the first couple of chapters. If you stuck with those, you were treated to a wonderful tale I hope you enjoyed.
If you never have read Progeny, well, now I am proud to say, please do. The Kindle edition is clean, crisp, and full of new little tidbits.
Oh, and a new Prologue. And a world map. But those are just details.
The other ebook versions (nook, mobi via Smashwords, iBooks, etc.) will be updated as soon as the new copy snakes its way through the respective systems.
So, come join us all on what proves to be a great adventure (the story of book 2 in the series is even better than Progeny).
Good days ahead, all. Happy reading.
*FYI Thank the Gods is a book reference. I am not a polytheistic sort of fellow in real life.
When I finished Progeny (The Children of the White Lions, #1), I thought to myself, "Hey, this is a good story.” And it was. Still is.
Then I thought to myself, “Hey, I can write pretty well.” Boy…was I mistaken.
Good storyteller does not good equal author. Far from it.
It took me close to a year to write the book. When I started, I was a relative novice. I had written some short stories, but nothing as large and as ambitious as Progeny. Throughout the process of writing and editing, I reached the misguided conclusion that my skills as a writer had caught up to my ability as a storyteller. After only a single 300k word novel.
Good gracious, was I wrong. And ignorantly arrogant.
Granted, I hired a copy editor to parse my words before publishing, but she could only do so much with what I provided her. She found the glaring grammatical errors. Poor word choice. Etc.
But flow? Tone? Clarity? That was not her responsibility and she did not touch it at all. Nor should she have.
When she was done, I believed I had a good product. Bulletproof. As good as any out there.
Eek.
Should anyone ever invent a time machine, I would like to borrow it and hop back to November 2010, sit myself down, and say, “Hey…uh…slow down there, speedy. Read it again. Write more. Edit more.”
Since I do not expect the advent of time travel any time soon, I am relegated to dealing with the past as is.
After Progeny was released, I leapt straight into writing the sequel—I just knew how the second book opened. As with anything one does, the more I wrote, the better I got. By the time the first pass at the manuscript was done (another 280k+ words), I had ironed out many wrinkles in my style. And my tone. And pretty much everything that comes along with writing a clear, crisp, and concise tale.
Then I wrote nine short stories, The Terrene Chronicles (Merchant, Family, Rivals), set as prequel stories for Progeny. I meant for them to be a marketing ploy, but more than anything, they turned out to be a writing exercise. After another 150k words (a few were more ‘novella’ than ‘short story’), I had pounded out even more impurities.
Then, I went back and did an editing pass on the sequel, and realized how much work I still needed. Once I was done with that, I thought to myself, “I really ought to take a look at Progeny…”
Oh. My. Gods*.
How that edition of the book has almost 30 five-star reviews at Amazon and reached #6 on their top rated epic fantasy list is astounding.
The first third is horrendous in style, tone, and grammar. The second third is only slightly better. The last third is passable, but by no means, is it any good. I suppose the story I told trumped my amateurish writing.
To the handful of reviews critical of the opening section of the book, ripping the grammar and clarity of the book, may I say, “Yup. You’re right.”
To the rest of you who have lauded the tale with syrupy-sweet praise, may I say, “Thank the Gods* for you.” Without your support, I would never have persevered.
So, I set to editing Progeny again. I cut large swaths, rewrote others, and added a few small sections to clarify things. In the end, I cut 8000+ words while still adding a new 1k word Prologue. I enlisted a trio of fans to review my edits to catch my bane—dropped words—and now I have a product of which I am proud. Very proud.
Ultimately, I am writing this to say this to the epic fantasy reading community: I am sorry.
If you picked it up and started to read it…good gracious, I am sorry. Especially for the first couple of chapters. If you stuck with those, you were treated to a wonderful tale I hope you enjoyed.
If you never have read Progeny, well, now I am proud to say, please do. The Kindle edition is clean, crisp, and full of new little tidbits.
Oh, and a new Prologue. And a world map. But those are just details.
The other ebook versions (nook, mobi via Smashwords, iBooks, etc.) will be updated as soon as the new copy snakes its way through the respective systems.
So, come join us all on what proves to be a great adventure (the story of book 2 in the series is even better than Progeny).
Good days ahead, all. Happy reading.
*FYI Thank the Gods is a book reference. I am not a polytheistic sort of fellow in real life.
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Nov 03, 2011 05:51AM
I understand your motive for criticizing your earlier writing effort but being overly harsh on yourself is as unattractive as being overly harsh on another writer's efforts. You certainly may be correct in your assessment, I am not qualified to agree or disagree, and I just want to encourage you to frame your comments more empathetically so your readers are not tempted to jump to your defense.
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I can see your point, Maggie. I suppose I could have framed this better. Ultimately, this is about my evolution as a writer. Am I being harsh on myself? Sure, but nothing I've said here isn't anything I haven't seen in a couple of reviews.
As much as it hurt to read some of that stuff, I have to admit the critics were accurate.
Don't get me wrong, the feedback on the book has been 95% positive - I couldn't be happier with that. I believe in the story and I love the readers who get engrossed in reading the tale as much as I do in telling it. But, realistically, my technical skills were not up to par, especially in the early parts of the book.
Harsh? Perhaps. But accurate, I think.
That being said, I still think it's a damn good book. And now, it's that much better. :)
I am very happy that it and you are growing. That is Life! after all, eh?
I certainly get how you can come down harsh looking back on past writing. I have a few little things that I've wrote in the past that have been locked away so as to never see the light of day again. Still, the story you have managed is quite amazing and that is ultimately the key.I would like you to know that now it is going to drive me crazy wondering what Im missing with my edition of the book.
Seth - Honestly, 95% of it was me cleaning up redundancy, revising poorly constructed sentences, and fixing reading flow.
That and there's a new 1000 word Prologue that both clears up a giant hole in the plot I never addressed (yes, there was one!) and bookends the last chapter nicely.
;)
