The Writing Journey

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 The Writing Journey


I had the weekend off. I spent half of my time combing through four chapters in my completed novel. This is phase four of the writing journey. Phase one is getting the story down. Phase two is fleshing it out. Phase three is making sure everything flows. I let the book sit for a month before I went back to it. On Friday, I sat down and prepared myself for phase four, combing through each sentence, paragraph, page, and chapter.

I read the page out loud. I read it backwards. Was there repetition? Did I use clichés? Did I have a hook? Page one is very important. You have to hook the reader and make them want to turn the page. You need to introduce the setting, the timeframe, and the main character. I moved on to the second page, where I introduced the "inciting incident." In this story, it is the introduction of a very bad, messed-up man. He is going to set things in motion that my main character and his best friend will have to right. I went through the same steps. Line by line, sentence by sentence. I checked for the same issues. Did I show instead of tell? Can my reader place themselves in the main character's point of view and "feel" what he is feeling? Did I make the setting breathe? As a reader, could I see the dust motes in the shaft of sunlight? Could I sense the danger in the man? Once I was fairly satisfied, I moved on. 

I will admit that some pages went more easily than others, and some I struggled with. When I reached chapter five, I stopped. I took a three-day break and played with a current work in progress before going back and starting at the beginning. 

Every page has to lead the reader on a journey. Think about The Lord of the Rings, or the Harry Potter series. How immersed were you in the story? Did the world around you fade? Did you find yourself falling into the pages and walking in different worlds? I did. 

I want my readers to feel the same. 

This is why I go on and on about editing. I want to send the best possible version to a publisher. I know it will not be perfect, but it will be as close as I can get it. Or at least that's the goal.




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