Book 2 Word Count: 60,660 / 90,000 (67.4%)
Approximate Timing Target:
DEC 13k, JAN 26k, FEB 39k, MAR 52k, APR 65k, MAY 78k, JUN 90k
Part 1 – Save the Cat and Short Story 04
Short Story 04 about Eleanor Silverglade loosely follows beats from “Save the Cat Writes a Novel” (one of the resources from my January Update). Each of the journal entries (12 in total) could be fully fleshed out, using 5,000 or 10,000 words to add a great deal of color to paint a complete picture of Ellie’s transformation.
If you have any interest in writing, I recommend giving Save the Cat a gander. It will not work for everyone, but it has given me a better sense of structure with regard to storytelling. While I did not use it for Blade of a Flower or Broken Blade, I fully intend to use it for Book 3 (Title TBD).
Short Story 04 may not be a perfect example of Save the Cat, but many of the elements are there.
First, there is the “hero” or main character, Ellie Silverglade. In the opening chapter of “Save the Cat”, it points out that the hero character needs three things: a flaw, a want, and a need. The flaw that I gave to her was that she was a petulant, selfish, snobby, bitch. She wants to be insanely wealthy but has a deeper need to belong and be part of something real; genuine friendship.
The “cat” in this instance is Ruth. Ellie needed to do something that the reader could support or warm up to, and Ruth was the cat that she saved.
The catalyst that turns her world upside down (with no chance of going back to her old life) was when she lost almost everything, her parents and her wealth. She is forced outside of her comfort zone and is spurred into action.
Glaive becomes the character that challenges her wants, but Ellie continues marching to her original beat. She is driving to return things to her previous status quo.
Her false victory occurs when she finally reaches her goals. Because it wasn’t what she needed, she was left wanting.
She hits rock bottom when it is all taken away a second time, along with her cat. This causes her to take a second look at her life and identify what she really needs.
The next few beats show how she grows as a person and transforms. I think she becomes more likable when she abandons her original goals and makes progress toward her true needs. At least, that was the objective.
She revisits her former life through a different lens and realizes that she is happier in her new position. In the end, she attains real victory by fulfilling her needs in grand fashion.
I experimented with a journal format which might be cheating a bit. In that situation, I allowed for more telling and less showing (but I’m trying to get better at the opposite). When someone writes in a journal, they can get away with saying stuff like “I cooked eggs”, but in storytelling, I need to improve at appealing to the senses; the sound of it sizzling in the pan. Pinching salt, crunching the grains between fingertips, and watching it drift down to the golden yolk below; the smell of freshly ground black peppercorns for seasoning. I’m actually hungry right now which is probably why I’m thinking about this.
I have digressed.
The paragraphs above are a high-level summary of a summary. The journal entries of Short Story 04 are mere snapshots of a skeleton. Adding fat and muscle to it with depth and atmosphere could probably create a novel in its own right. If someone wanted to give the “egg treatment” to the journal entries and add their own flare and jazz, they would have my blessing and encouragement.
Part 2 – What the heck does Eric do?
I’m going to use the analogy of building a car. I built a car. The frame, the engine, all the bits under the hood, and slapped it together with a couple of coats of paint on it. My goal is to deliver a good working car to the master mechanic, Eric Atienza.
I want to get to the point where he just pops the hood for a tune-up and then wax and polish. The last thing I want is for him to say that it won’t run and we need to rebuild the engine.
I had one clear instance of a broken engine in Short Story 04. My original version had Ruth do something completely, 100 percent out of character. Eric repaired it. Now, if it were a large issue that persisted throughout a novel, it might have been impossible to fix. Lucky for me, it was just a short story.
In the rest of the story, he made smaller changes; tightening down the bolts and some fine detailing. There were nice touches like Ellie starting off with more formal language which melted away as she transformed.
Eric helps with both line editing and copyediting.
I like to think of line editing as a high-level view. He would tighten phrasing and paragraphs to enhance flow, tone, and clarity. As my writing improves, I hope to need less of this. I consider it the heavy lifting, under-the-hood work.
He also handles copyedits; spelling, grammar, punctuation, and syntax. Back to the car analogy, this is the detailing. He helps clean up the writing, addressing flaws on a technical level.
The final wash and wax is a round of proofreading. I didn’t do a great job of this in Book 1, but I’m committed to having it clean for Book 2. I’m going to read it out loud, slowly, word by word, and record it. Perhaps when I’m done with it, I’ll have an audiobook to go with it.
Thanks for reading!