Colons and commas and Semi-Colons, OH MY!!!!

It has been a long time since I was in school and found it essential to have good grammar and punctuation skills. Hence, I have pulled out my trusty copy of Diana Hacker's A Writer's Reference. http://www.amazon.com/Writers-Reference-Diana-Hacker/dp/031202455X/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1243211518&sr=11-1

I have re-learned/re-freshed my skills with colons and semi-colons and commas; colons being those pesky things which I use way too often.

Okay, was that right? Is that second half of "equal grammatical rank?"

My real lesson with this book though, has been tense.

About a year ago, I entered one of agent, Nathan Bransford's contests. Nathan Bransford - Literary Agent. Occasionally, this masochistic man will offer to read a bazillion entries of the first "x" number of words of any novel you are working on. I was not one of the winners but I did take another reader's offer of critiquing them and the first thing he said, is that I had two tenses going on.

I thought I had gone in and corrected this, but I knew I had not been thorough enough, so after my character charts were over, I started from word one and began reading the book, sentence by sentence. My first page or so was in present tense, then I slipped (with no good reason, if there ever is one) to past tense.

For some reason, if I can keep my Writer's Reference, right beside my laptop, to keep glancing at, page 39, it becomes clear to my foggy brain.

Now, if I can just do something about run-on sentences, in my blog!!!

Yipee Ki Yi Aye! Character charts done!!

Character Charts are all redone. Like everything, it was a bigger job than I thought. As I went through each character chart, it was much easier to visualize these characters, now that I have lived with them for a while.

Several of the characters had their parts, in the book, fleshed out in the book as well.

Today, I was able to spend some time with Master's Daughter in person. I had to bring my spanking new Character notebook, complete with colored index tabs to separate teachers from students, from others. Her response?

"Okay! Now I know where I got the 'must have it alphabetized, organized, and in a folder' phobia from."

In all fairness, to moa', I believe it originated with my mother and goes hand in hand with the office supply mania we all have.

Now, if I could just learn to spell in Cowboy, my title might make sense

On To: Text to Speech

I have spent a couple of weeks polishing up my character charts. People change and grow and so had some of my characters. I have them all printed out and put in a binder and can now refer to them as I go through the book again. I will be looking for inconsistencies, this time around. However, I also made changes in the book as I was redoing my character charts.

When I found out something about my character, that I thought was important to change or add in the book, as I redid their chart, I did a Word find for their name and made corrections and/or additions in some of the spots where that character appears.

I use the find feature in Word, or find and replace, constantly. One way I use it is with asterisks. Since my book does not have asterisks in it, it is a character that I can use to mark a spot I want to go back to. And, since I now have my whole book in one Word document, it has been a real timesaver way to mark these spots and also where I left off last and wanted to return to.

Today, I started, what I hope will get me nearer to sending the book out. I am listening to the book, using my “Text to speech” feature. I highlight blocks of text and then listen to it without really looking at the text. My mind can concentrate on how it sounds and it also picks out mistakes.

One of the simple mistakes, that I had not caught in umpteen readings, was:

“In between his own yells hear he could hear Joseph yelling.”

I have to wonder how I could have read that and missed it, but our eyes/minds see what we expect to see, and I apparently knew the word "hear" should not be there. An Editor or Agent is not going to see what they expect. They do not have expectations on what is happening next (Well, we hope they do not, as you want to surprise them) so they will read it and read that extra “hear” and it will slow them down. Too many of these spots and you will lose them.

If you do not have text to speech on your computer, you can always set your book aside for a couple of weeks and then read it aloud. Having someone else read it aloud is good too.

Seven days and counting, to make my book alive

Character charts are still in progress. This has grown to become a bigger job than I thought it would.

I have it down to three types of charts. I am trying to simplify my life as well as my work. I have completed two out of the three charts and am seeing a big improvement already.

With many of the redone character charts, I have gained a new perspective of my characters and found wonderful things to make the writing more alive.

So, when I am done with a character chart, when they are completely fleshed out and alive, I go back to the book. I am writing in Word and I use my Find to find each instance of that characters name to make sure their actions are consistant. This also allows for adding touches that are unique to their true character.

People do not reveal themselves right away. How often do you meet a person and think they are one type. Then, as the layers peel away and you find a whole other person. So, why should these characters, who you have created, show themselves to you on your first meeting?

Let them interact with each other and their new environment and then revisit them down the road to see who they actually are. It will make your book so much more alive.

Three days, and counting, on Character Charts

I started off with a story idea and then I had about three versions of character charts to combine and fill out for my characters. And, you know what?

After writing for years on this book and being nearly done, these guys are not all who I thought they were. Frankly, I think there is some identity crisis' going on here. Some of these guys are not even the same race any more.

So, I have spent maybe four days, my head is buzzing and I do not even remember anymore, redoing character charts. I hope to finish up today (the best laid plans, she reminded herself).

I am not sure anyone would recommend my thoroughly backward way of writing a book, but it's me. I do not outline, I write. I decide who I want in there and I write. They tell me they are not who I thought they were and I write.

It's exciting, really!