Comments on: My Chapter 8 Horror

By: Jackie Ashenden

Jackie Ashenden — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:16:16 +0000

Robyn – and your advice was just awesome! I now have a much better chapter 8. At least I will have once I write it. 🙂 And that’s sooo true re thinking there is stuff you ‘have’ to have instead of letting it happen naturally. My chapter 8 is a case in point.

Maisey – Yeah, I’m guilty of that. Telling people what’s wrong and not what’s right because I think they already know they’re awesome. But of course, each ms is different and you want to know what you’re doing right as well!

Cat – Lol! That’s harsh. Yeah, I wasn’t bored with that chapter but I did always have a sense that ‘something’ wasn’t right with it. An outside perspective helps. And definitely GMC helps too!

Angela – thanks for visiting! He’s a bit of all right isn’t he? Sigh…Glad you found the post helpful. I write forward a lot because it’s so easy for me to get bogged down second guessing everything. Of course it does mean a first draft that needs heaps of work but it’s better than getting stuck and never finishing. Yeah, Kate’s post is awesome. Explaining ‘voice’ is so tricky.

By: angela.bissell

angela.bissell — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:25:57 +0000

Hi Jackie – saw mention on Subcare of some fella called David Gandy on your blog so out of curiosity I whizzed on over to take a peek (love your blog, btw). Glad I did, coz that’s a boy who could put a smile on any gal’s face!
Anyway, drooling aside, what I really wanted to say was great post about pace. I’m like Julia, I can agonise over the same scene for days – so I like your advice about just writing the whole thing and seeing how it all fits at the end. This fits with other advice I’ve heard to simply “write forward”, but for me its easy to get stuck in one place in my ms, which of course is a great way to lose the pace of the story! Thanks for the link to Kate Walker’s post on voice too, that was excellent.

By: Cat Schield

Cat Schield — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:25:14 +0000

The last time I let my best friend read a book of mine, she told me it was boring. Ouch. Of course, she was completely right. However, since she's hyper critical about my writing, I'm not sure I want her reading even my published stuff.

Usually I figure if I'm editing and I'm bored with my brilliant (cough, cough) writing, there's probably something wrong with the tension/pacing.

Doing a scene by scene GMC is of great help.

By: Maisey

Maisey — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:12:03 +0000

Yeah! Sorry Dr. J! Not a writer!

Seriously though, and this is just about people and not writing, we forget to tell people what we think they know (you have awesome dialogue and sexy heroes) but remember criticism.

Plus, Dr Jax is a man, which I know is great most of the time, not as much when you want gushung compliments. :)

By: Robyn

Robyn — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:03:26 +0000

Jackie, I love how honest you are. What’s said (or indeed intended) doesn’t always translate, especially when we know in our hearts that something is wrong with the scene/chapter we’re sharing. But it’s fabulous that you’ve found a solution and worked it into chapter eight.

Reading my own stuff twelve million times, as I do, pacing is one of the things I lose sight of. Usually it’s okay. But if it’s off, it’ll be because I’ve convinced myself I “need” to have certain things happen in this particular chapter instead of giving them the natural space (and pace) they require.

By: Jackie Ashenden

Jackie Ashenden — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 19:52:26 +0000

Nas – thanks! Hope you found it useful! 🙂

By: Nas Dean

Nas Dean — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 19:43:54 +0000

Thanks for the great advice about pacing from the post and the comments!

By: Jackie Ashenden

Jackie Ashenden — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 23:11:12 +0000

Joanne – yes, they are a bummer! Chapter four can mean a lessening of intensity because you’re building it all up for the end of chapter 3 right? Hope my chapter 4 was okay.

By: Joanne Coles

Joanne Coles — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 22:20:43 +0000

My CPs looked at my chap 4 today and I was worried it might lack some of the intensity of the earlier chaps. So far I have a good response … hope they feel the same when they get to chap 8. Those middle chapters are a bummber huh?

By: Jackie Ashenden

Jackie Ashenden — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 21:58:30 +0000

Julia – yeah, it’s tricky. I reckon the best way – at least this works for me – is to just write the whole thing and then see how it hangs together as a whole. You can see it much more clearly once the story has been written. For this ms, there are kind of 3 distinct movements (he, like a symphony!) – the partial, the middle bit, and then the end. Chapter 8 didn’t really fit into any of those movements. It was on its own, if that makes sense. So once I looked at the whole thing, it was easy to spot the bit that didn’t quite fit. It’s the figuring out the why that’s the tricky part though.