Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

Page changes and other news

I have added a new contact form in case any of you, devoted readers, wanted a more immediate method of communication. I know the comment system is not very convenient for some of you. You can find the contact link at the top of the page.

Also, I decided to have a go at twitter and now I have an account there as well. You can follow me, or even better you can help me figure out how twitter works, ’cause quite frankly, I can’t understand it. Now, before you point your finger and roll on the floor in a fit of side-clenching laughter, let me assure you that there was a time when no program or electronic device hid its secrets long enough from me. And by long, I mean I had mastered it within a day. And, no, I’m not referring to a bygone decade when I still had hair on my head (haha, funny you who thought of pointing that out, haha… NOT). I’m talking current stuff. But this twitter thing is… is… an infernal and alien machine designed to drive me nuts! I’m trying to follow a simple # thingy (tags or whatever they’re called), which is why I joined in the first place. #Pitmad (or #Pitchmad) will start in a couple of weeks and I was thinking of participating. Alas, I can’t save or follow said tags. I have to type a query and do a search every time I want to see if something new is happening related to it. For the record, I did check their help page; I might as well have tried creating energy out of nothing. It only left me with more question marks dancing mockingly around my head. I have figured out how to make lists, but that’s not what I was looking for. I also found out how to comment publicly mentioning someone else (the use of the @ symbol). But I knew that from Facebook, so… I just want to be able to follow a # tag. Is it even possible?!
Anyway, if you want to follow me on twitter there’s a link to the right of the page. Hope to hear from you.

In other news, outlining the next story has proven to be harder than expected. I thought I had everything, the main story, the characters, their background stories etc, but I can’t shake the feeling the story is too short, that the plot is somehow insufficient. I have about 30 scenes, but when it comes to chapters, I fear I will have around 20. Now, of course the number of scenes or chapters has nothing to do with whether a story is the right size or not. The problem is I keep feeling the plot moves too fast. I thought about introducing a second POV character, one that already had a somewhat significant role in the story, an investigator. I figured I could have him relating information, through his investigation, to the reader, information the main POV character wouldn’t know. The investigator was originally supposed to attempt to apprehend the protagonist, so why not allow the investigator some space to grow and show his side of the story? It makes sense in a way, but when I sit down and try to write some scenes about him, it’s like I’m slamming my head on a concrete wall. With spikes. Which could mean the idea of introducing a new POV is wrong, or that I’m not fully convinced, and my gut feeling is telling me to stop. Perhaps it’s because I’m meddling with a genre I’m not very familiar (mystery).

Here’s a question for you: do you think it’s structurally acceptable to have a second POV character if that character is not the protagonist (or one of them) and his/her chapters are not equal in number to the main character?

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

Getting Beta Reader Feedback – The Right Way

While I’m waiting for my betas’ comments on The Darkening, I figured I should share some of the information I found online regarding beta reading. If you are about to finish your manuscript or have already completed it, and are looking for betas and ways to structure your thoughts, take a look at the following post. I found a lot of interesting questions, and a nice way to divide them in my head into categories. It’s a very helpful post, especially if you are worried how to structure a questionnaire for your betas. Shape it according to the needs of your story first though. I ended up sending 81 questions in an excel sheet, AND a critique sheet that covers the same topics (characterisation, grammar, plot, pacing, point of view, etc), but expecting a thorougher analysis.

In case anyone is interested, my questionnaire looked like this:

NOVEL QUESTIONNAIRE

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

It’s time for the beta readers

Well, the MS has spread its wings and is now away from the nest. Cliche metaphor, I know, but it’s true. It’s in the hands of the beta readers now (thank you all so much for helping out). So far, one of my betas has finished it and raised some valid questions (not to mention the typos that still made their way into the MS, even after all the editing). This is the first time since I started working on it that someone other than me is reading it, an exciting and scary notion. I sent my beta readers a rather long questionnaire to fill (if any of you is reading this, I’m really sorry, but it had to be done) with some 80-90 questions, with YES and NO, and ratings from 1-5, and “other comments” they wanted to add, AND on top of that a critique sheet for those who wanted to say more than a mere comment. I don’t know how they put up with me.

So, now I’m doing my best not to eat my fingernails to their roots, and the best way to do that is to plot the next novel-length story. It’s a sci-fi/cyberpunk story with some mystery elements. I’ve never tried something like that before, so I’m trying to figure things out from a very early stage and save myself all the trouble I had to go through with The Darkening (you may remember I rewrote the book twice after the first draft). I’m working on background stories for everything and everyone, and I’m often working as if I was “reverse engineering” things. Basically I start with where the situation is at the time of the story as well as where will end up by the end of the book, and work backwards in a logical way (e.g. Company Conglomerates own the government. How did this happen? Companies bailed the governments out. Why? Governments went bankrupt. Why? and so on). That’s all world-building, which is fine. My problem is dealing with the mystery element, since I have never tried something similar. I need to insert certain key clues for the main character to find at regular intervals, and their revelation has to come in the most natural way, instead of giving the impression I forced the character to a conclusion. I’m also concerned whether or not the story I have come up with so far is long enough for a novel, AND to make things worse, I also have no ending. I have no idea how the book will end.

What I do know, is that I like this story a lot, and I feel it has potential. I think I even have a title for it. It’s the mystery aspect I’m not sure how to handle correctly.

In other news, I’m collecting a fair amount of rejections for my short stories, so I guess it’s business as usual.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 2 Comments

Lessons learned in a writing journey

I have finished editing (yeah!!!), and now am about to go on to the next thing on the list, which is to write up some questions for the betas on a spreadsheet to help me get a better understanding of their comments. As I said last time, I’m intimidated by the thought other people will get to read it. Fingers crossed, I should have the questionnaire ready within the week, and from there on, I’ll take 2 days off, then I’ll start sending some of my short stories to magazines, and start outlining the next novel.

In lieu of this last round of edits (at least for this stage), I thought the following article by Jacqui Murray may be useful to some of you. Some of the words mentioned there are in my list as well. Some, I never thought of as problematic (yikes!).

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

Hello once again

I’m back. I hope you all had a wonderful summer, and that you recharged your inner batteries. I know I’m late on posting (it’s been two months since my last post) but a lot of things have happened since then and it was hard to keep up with everything.

One of them was my father’s accident. He slipped and broke his leg almost a month and a half ago, so I had to take over most of the things he was dealing with. That meant hardly any time left for me. Luckily, he narrowly escaped surgery to reset the bone, despite the fact that he completely disregarded his doctors’ orders (and still does). Thanks to his surprisingly speedy mending process, and taking into account his age, what appeared to be a long rehabilitation period (doctors initially estimated it would take him around three months before they removed the cast), will most probably barely exceed a two-month period, if his bone continues to mend as fast as it does.

So, the one month I was supposed to use to polish my novel went out the window. BUT!! I did manage to finish editing most of it. In fact, I’m working on a printed version of it, where I’ll do the last edits before I sent it to my beta readers. See the photo? That’s it!

The Darkening

I got to tell you, it felt good holding it in my hands like that. Funny, it’s not even the final version, but it sure is nice to see it and hold it, you know? It makes it more real, more tangible. That’s something the digital medium will never achieve. Not for me, at least. It’s a strange feeling of mixed awe, pride, and fear, probably because I know there’s only one more step before someone else gets to read it, with the explicit instruction to find and point out even the slightest mistake. It’s daunting, but exciting too, because after their input, I will have a better manuscript in my hands. Thanks to my beta readers, I will have the chance to improve my craft. I know for a fact there’s a lot of space for improvement.

Funny fact: I’ve been editing, revising, and rewriting it for the past nine months (I actually rewrote the book twice; once for a better Point of View, the other to improve the story). 2/3 down the road of editing it with my trusty red pen, and I realise there’s more red ink on the pages than black. Makes me wonder, what on earth have I been editing all this time?!