Indie Author Weekly

173: 5 observations while reviewing my current work-in-progress

• Sagan Morrow • Episode 174

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Last week, I went through the entirety of my current work in progress — Book 8 in the Polyamorous Passions series. So today I want to share with you what happened when I read through it… It had been a few months since I last worked on it, so it was great to review it with fresh eyes!

There were 5 main things that jumped out at me… TUNE IN to this episode to find out what I realized and discovered as a result of reviewing the first full draft of my current work in progress manuscript.

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Hello and welcome to the indie author weekly podcast where I take you on the behind the scenes journey of my adventures as an indie author. I'm your host Sagan Morrow, and I'm an eighth time polyamorous romcom. Author plus I've also written several business books for solopreneurs. Let's dive into this episode. Last week I went through the entirety of my current work in progress, which is book eight in the polyamorous passions series. So today, I want to share with you what happened when I read through that manuscript. It had been several months since I previously worked on it. So it was really great to review it with fresh eyes. And I'd written basically the entire first draft last year. That is what I did. So there's pretty much the entire first full draft is done. And I had set it aside for a few months. So last week, I went back to it and I read through the entire thing and reviewed it. There's five main things that jumped out at me while I was going through it, and that's what I wanted to share with you today. These five five things that I noticed as I was reading through my current work in progress. Number one, some parts of the book. Were really good. Some parts of it were great. And there were some interesting surprises. As I was reading this manuscript. One of the things that was kind of unexpected is I found that there was a lot more backstory and time hopping than I normally do when I'm writing my novels. This is not necessarily a bad thing at all, but it was noticeable in comparison to my other bucks. Now, in this particular instance, I do think it's really important to the story. So I think that I'm going to leave it am I think that it's really important because book eight in the polyamorous passion series, is something where we get a little bit more backstory about Scarlets experience as a dancer, as a burlesque dancer, as a business owner, that type of thing. And so we get some, some more backstory in as to what has kind of led to this moment especially because there's very specific themes that are highlighted in this novel. That really makes sense when we dive into her background. But it is like a little bit different than the previous books that I've done because I might have some backstory, some sort of flashbacks, but I don't think I've ever had as many as I do in this particular novel. So it'll be really interesting to see how that plays out by the time I get to the final version of this manuscript, and also to see what readers think of that. Another unexpected piece that I discovered as I was reviewing this manuscript is that the dynamic between the three main characters was really weak. So the three main characters in the polyamorous passion series are Scarlet, Emma and Helen. Emma was the main character for the first three books in the series. Helen was the main character for books four to six, and Scarlet is the main character for books seven to nine in this polyamorous passion series. And the the entire concept of this series is that you know that it has this this this important, underlying theme of friendship and of this relationship between these three main characters and how their friendship evolves and how that dynamic grows and changes and and fluctuates between two of them or all three of them and that kind of thing. And what I found when I was going through this work in progress, is that their dynamic is very weak in this particular story, so I will definitely be boosting that dynamic a lot more and ensuring that I am reconnecting with their relationship and making sure that it's a lot stronger because right now, it's very much in the background. And we don't really see a lot of what is going on with Emma and Helen, in this particular book. So I'm looking forward to drawing that out more in future drafts. So that was kind of the first thing that came up out of these five main things that I want to talk about today was kind of those sort of unexpected pieces. The second thing that was noticeable was Scarlett herself as the main character of this novel. Some of what I wrote, simply wasn't true to her character, her thoughts and her feelings. So as I was reading, as I was reviewing this book, I was looking at it and I was thinking, Hmm, this doesn't actually sound like Scarlet. This is not the scarlet that we know from the previous seven books in the series. So that's one of the biggest things that I need. To rewrite moving forward for the next draft. Now, I think that partly the reason why this happened is because I took a break from writing Scarlets trilogy in the polyamorous passion series, in order to write Margaret's story in the small town stilettos novel. So how I wrote my novels. I have written eight novels so far, the one that I'm writing right now will be my ninth book, and I wrote the first seven books in the polyamorous passion series in order back to back books one through seven and then the last novel that I wrote was kind of a break from the polyamorous passion series. It's a standalone novel called Small Town stilettos. It does happen to have cameos of Emma, Helen and Scarlett, so it exists in the same world as a polyamorous passion series, but it's really its own standalone novel. And as a result of that, you know, I took a break from being in Scarlets had that had not happened in the previous novels that I wrote. I wrote Emma's Emma's trilogy all the way through and Helens trilogy all the way through, but only the first book in scarless trilogy before writing small town stilettos. So I wasn't really expecting that it's almost like writing Margaret's story in small towns stilettos threw me off course with being in Scarlets head. So the solution to this is that kind of similar to what I did what I've done previously, with this particular with this novel, actually itself last year with book eight, I essentially duplicated the manuscript and started from scratch with it because there was some there was some discrepancies with it. And I'm basically going to be doing that exact same thing, once more so duplicating the entire manuscript of my current work in progress, and almost starting from scratch by going through every line and reworking it to ensure that Scarlets voice is really coming through strong because the first time that I was writing book eight, I was also in the midst of doing edits for small town stilettos. So I was still kind of in Margaret's headspace, while I was trying to also be in Scarlets headspace. So this is going to be really good to again almost go back to the drawing board with a next draft of rewriting every line reworking every line to ensure that it is Garlits voice that is coming through the entire novel. Another piece here when it comes to this sort of solution of this problem is you know, I was originally going to publish book eight in the polyamorous passion series. And then I was going to write and publish the sequel to small town stilettos and then I was going to go back and finish polyamorous passions series with book nine but then I would be heads head hopping again for Scarlet. So now I'm thinking I haven't entirely decided yet. So this could still change. But now I'm thinking that I might focus solely on finishing Scarlet story and the polyamorous passion series. So that I can stay inside Scarlets head before character hopping again to a new novel. So at this point, what I'm thinking is I will finish writing and publishing book eight. Then I will write and publish book nine in the polyamorous passion series. And at that point, the polyamorous passion series will be complete. And then after that, I will write and publish the sequel to small town stilettos. That is the idea that I have in my head at this point to again avoid the character hopping dilemma. The third thing that came up for me when I was reviewing my work in progress, is that while there is some good dialogue and internal monologue in this novel, it was almost too much. And it's not as though nothing nothing's happening in the plot. There's a lot that is going on in this story. There's a number of major actions that take place, but it felt almost screenplay like compared to my previous books, the amount of narration rather than description if that makes sense.
An important note here is that it feels more screenplay like than my previous novels. But I don't know if this is actually true. It could just be my reading of the manuscript in that moment. And as I have said, in previous episodes, probably many times, it's really difficult to have objectivity of your own books as an author. So it could be that my previous novels felt like this as well, that they read it the exact same way it could be that there's actually not any more dialogue or less description that in this book compared to my other books, so I don't know, right, if this is actually an issue, and even if it is true, it's not necessarily a problem. It's really not necessarily a problem. But that being said, I do feel like I need to stretch myself as a writer and try to allow the scenes to show themselves with more descriptions and more setting of the scene, rather than focusing on dialogue and Scarlet spots to steer everything. So I will be making some adjustments and trying to flesh out the scenes more to really set the stage and describe them more, rather than having it so dialogue heavy. The fourth thing that I found his pet is a very similar issue that I had with small town stilettos the previous novel that I wrote, and that is that this novel feels almost too long for me. Now, it's only the length of a regular novel. It's about 50,000 words. It's really not that long. But the original, the very first book that I wrote in the polyamorous passion series was 23,000 words. So the first three books in a polyamorous passion series, were very much novellas, not novels. And as I've continued to write that series, every book gets longer. So I'm at this point now where I am writing full novels, and it feels to me almost too much. And by that I mean, you know, it's harder for me to navigate the subplots and to ensure that the pacing is strong and that all the characters and relationships are getting their spotlight. And I think that this is a big thing because when I first started writing the polyamorous passion series, I loved the idea of writing novellas where everything happens, everything is is moving forward at a at a quick pace. There is no extra pieces added in it is very much here is the story. We are telling the story and getting to the point of the story. So it's interesting now that I'm adding in a lot more subplots and themes and and that kind of thing to ensure that everything is fleshed out really well. The other piece of this is quite simply that as the polyamorous passion series has continued there have been little subplots inside stories in each previous book that I don't want to neglect as the series continues. So some of those things kind of need to continue as the book series continues, which just means that the books themselves kind of need to be longer as a result of that. So the solution that I have here is that I've created a checklist of all of the themes and the characters, all of those different types of things. And I am going to be going through the entire manuscript, one at a time specifically for each of those things to then be able to see which which aspects need to be fleshed out more. One example of this is the entire relationship between Scarlet and Pete, which was the you know the big relationship in book seven of the polyamorous passion series or bad idea. That is barely even in book eight at the moment. And that's not what I wanted. It needs to be definitely a much bigger piece. And it's not so much that it's not in book eight, but it's a we don't see as much on the page between Scarlett and Pete at this particular point. So I will be adding in a lot more Pete to bring him back into the story. Right now. He's very much off the page. And I didn't really want that for this particular manuscript. I think that the story is going to be much stronger when he is invited back into the story a lot more on the page. So that's a really big piece that I will be doing for upcoming drafts. And the fifth thing that I noticed as I was going through this work in progress was another similar issue as with small town stilettos. And that is where I have been working on this book for too long. So not only does the novel itself feel too long, but I've also been working on it for too long. And what I mean by this is, as I am rereading my work in progress and doing some edits for it, I keep thinking, This feels really familiar. Did I already write this line in a previous novel? Or is it just because I've been working on rewrites over the course of a year. I keep on working on it and then taking an extended break and then getting back to it. So as a result, it's kind of all in in my brain at the back of my mind, but it almost feels too familiar. And then I'm thinking Did I already published this in a previous book. So the solution very simply here is that I'm just going to need to reread all of my previous books to reassure myself that that is not the case that I have not written some of these lines in previous books, and I would do this anyways. I always like to reread previous books in a series to ensure that I'm not missing anything. The story flows really well that the characters are true to themselves from one book to the next, all of that type of thing. So I would be doing this anyways. But that is definitely one of the ways that I'm going to ensure that the content in this book is actually new. I also think that this is where it's going to come in very handy for my upcoming books to work on them during concentrated periods of time. Such as you know, nano National Novel Writing Month NaNoWriMo. I'll be able to essentially turn out books much much faster the way that I used to write books. So the previous books in a polyamorous passion series I wrote and published within the space, you know, several of them it was within a month or two of from start to finish up writing and publishing the books. That's not likely going to be the case moving forward, especially if my books are getting longer, but I don't really want to be spending multiple years working on a single book at this point in my life and in my author career that that doesn't really interest me. I don't like sitting with a story for a really drawn out period of time. I much prefer getting really intense into a story and ensuring that it it flows through me I get it onto the page. I do all of the rewrites and make sure that it's a really lovely story and really packaged very well and then share it with the world so that I can then move on to the next burst of inspiration that comes to me the next story that wants to be told. So that's going to be a good way to kind of work through this particular issue. And it is also going to be interesting, moving forward when I am done with the polyamorous passion series. And also when I'm finished writing the sequel to small town stilettos. It'll be interesting to see if I go back to writing novellas because that again, the length felt really good to me in the past, or if I simply needed to adjust to writing full length novels and if that's going to then feel really good moving forward. Because again, it's not as though a full length novel is actually too long at all. It's just wrapping my brain around it has been interesting. It's it's a much different challenge. To navigate that compared to a novella. So the next step is then going to be to incorporate all of these things that I just went over as I continue working on the novel. So as I work through future drafts, I will be revisiting all these different types of things, reworking Scarlets voice and ensuring that every character and theme has it spotlight, all of that sort of stuff. And of course, I will keep you updated as we go through this process. Do you have any questions about this? If so, please email me hello at Sagan. morrow.com or submit your questions and your podcast topic ideas at Sagan morrow.com/question. So that I can keep that in mind for future episodes here on the anti author weekly podcast. If you have any, anything that you're curious about or you want me to dive deeper into or any questions about this entire process of working on my current novel, I love to I'd love to hear from you. So any questions that you have are always welcome back my friend is a wrap for today's episode, access the shownotes at Sagan morrow.com/podcast and do share your thoughts about this episode on Twitter or Instagram. My handle is at Sagan lives. Please take two minutes to rate and review Indiana weekly on Apple podcasts. Thank you so much for tuning in and I will see you next time for another episode of indie author weekly

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