Gunpowder & Alchemy Book 2 Update 4 – Main Editing Completed

The River Stour separating Essex and Suffolk is a beautiful landscape and the setting for some scenes of the book

“When you say you’re editing your book, what do you mean?”

I’ve been asked this a few times now. Let me tell you what I have been up to since I finished the first draft of the new book (“first draft” means I wrote the whole story but didn’t go back and rewrite any of it). So, in rough chronological order, it has meant the following:

1. I read what I had written. It’s funny, when you write something you don’t necessarily have a clue what it will read like. So I sat down and read the whole thing. Importantly, I did not make any changes at this time but made page and pages of notes about what to change when I started editing. This was a nice compromise between getting a reader experience and being productive.
2. A beta reader read the first draft (so really he was an alpha reader). A very generous fellow writer went through this draft and gave me great notes on initial thoughts and advice from a reader’s perspective. It’s somewhat unusual to do this at such an early stage but it really helped to inform the subsequent editing process.
3. I did my first big edit! This really took a lot of time. This meant making structural changes; combining and splitting chapters, deleting and adding scenes, deleting characters.
4. Addressing alpha reader feedback. This included there not being enough description of places or characters and also confusion about some key actions scenes. So more detail goes in, action clarified.
5. Including period detail. Linked to 4. but this is historical fantasy (now that my characters have discovered 17th century England) and I did a lot of research so this one meant going through and applying touches here and there especially of Colchester town and Colchester Castle.
6. Started cutting. After all this my word count had crept up to a maximum of 102,000 words. There is a lot of plot but that’s more words than are necessary to tell it so I began a brutal campaign of scorched words strategy. This was cutting scenes and ripping out unnecessary dialogue (I can’t believe how much my characters say things twice, he said, saying this twice and then saying it again just to reinforce the point in case you missed it).  I’m down to 90,000 now and am still cutting. I know what has to go and then with the polishing I will probably end up around 80-85,000 which is kinda right for this genre.

Just a note here that I moved home during all of this and spent a month renovating the new house and this time plus the weeks either side were excruciatingly unproductive at times.

Anyway, it’s pretty much there now, I just need a few more days to streamline further, implement final beta feedback and then it will be on to the endless tedium of proofreading. So,what else is next?

1. Maps. I am creating the maps now (as well as one for Book 1). These will be a map of the Vale, a map of the Tendring Peninsular and I’d like to do one for 17th century Colchester.
2. Cover is being designed. Same designer as last time and it will be in the same style as WHITE WIND RISING and we planned the four-book series design at the outset but I can’t wait to see the new cover (the last one is so awesome, I love it).
3. Beta readers reading now. One is a sci-fi/fantasy aficionado, another an English Lit graduate. My alpha reader (an alt history author) is going over some revised chapters. A final reader is lined up for the final version (another writer with an eye for detail). I can’t emphasise how important this is and I am incredibly lucky to know so many generous people willing to spend their time doing this.
4. Publication! The end is in sight and I can’t wait to be able to share this next part of this story. Amazingly, after all this, I am still excited to read it myself and I hope others will be, too.

Gunpowder and Alchemy Book 1 available now on Kindle

WHITE WIND RISING (GUNPOWDER AND ALCHEMY BOOK 1) is available now on Kindle.

USA and UK 

I got this new review the other day and I was really surprised by how good it was.

One of the best books I have ever read!! Love every detail. Characters have depth, strengths and seem so real.

It seemed too good to be true so I checked their review history and 1) they are a real person and 2) they have given other books lower scores and criticised them so I was, and remain, chuffed to bits.