MEMBERS ONLY: Self-editing webinar 30 March
Hi folks, there’s a (members only) webinar coming up on 30 March, where I’m going to pick out a few chunks of your work and edit them live on screen, talking about what I’m doing and why I’m doing it as I work.
If you are a member and intend to attend this webinar, then feel free to give me a maximum 250 word extract of your work in the comments below. Do note that I’m going to have time to handle only about 4 submissions during the hour we have, so do understand that most submissions won’t get chosen.
And any case – it’s not really about whether your submission is or isn’t chosen. It’s really about understanding how sentence-by-sentence editing works in the raw, so you can apply some of the same insights to your work.
This is a webinar we’ve run before and it’s always been fun, so I hope you come along and get a lot from it. Till soon!
All good stuff. Keep it coming, please!
Hi Harry – not sure if this is the right place to send you 250 words of my 186,000+ novel for the self editing webinar on 30th March. If it isn’t, mea culpa, send me a set of instructions and I’ll try and get it right! Here is my sample taken from the beginning of my story that I’ve called UNTO THINE OWN SELF. It is intended for female readers in the age bracket of 45 – 65 and was initially written to show the courage women need to get out and get on!
Their rented flat was decorated sparsely with typical Chinese dark rosewood furniture. It had been found by a minion in an office that Mike was doing business with. There was nothing homely about it. The apartment had neither air conditioning nor central heating and when she, Mike and their 3 year old daughter arrived, Hong Kong was freezing. As far as her wardrobe was concerned, Faith had come totally unprepared, mistakenly imagining that it was going to be as hot as the tropics. The steamy weather that she had expected happened between June and August. However, it was bitterly cold during the months of January through April, and this was March.
She had gone out and bought a couple of fan heaters and one particularly chilly evening when Mike was away, she had them both on at the same time. Suddenly, all the lights fused and she was thrust into darkness. Not knowing what else to do, Faith plucked up courage and crossed the landing rather hoping that the neighbours would come to her rescue but instead a face appeared and despite her attempt at looking helpless she was met with a gabble of Cantonese and the door slammed in her face!
Those early days were spent in an area known as Pokfulam on the south east end of Hong Kong island, busy and noisy and hard with concrete. She had believed Mike when he’d said that by living in South East Asia, he’d be home a lot more than before.
Hi Harry, this is the beginning of my novel. Title: Assumption Island.
I look up from the page to find twelve strangers staring back at me. Six in the front row, six in the back. They’re waiting for something.
The room we’re in is strange. The twelve people are sitting in an oak-panelled box – like pews in a church, except the back row is higher than the front, so maybe it’s more like seats in a theatre. They’re frowning at me now.
It is then that I realise I’m the one they’re waiting for. They’re expecting me to say something.
A dull panic rises from my stomach. I can’t remember how I got here.
I look to the front of the room. Staring down at me from the highest point is a man robed in scarlet and black. A judge. His eyebrows rise to meet his wig. If they keep going, they’ll blend into one off-white helmet.
I’m in a courtroom. That’s why everything looks so strange, why the walls are made of wood. This is a trial. Wait, is it … am I on trial? What have I been accused of?
I raise my hand to my temple and my fingers brush horsehair curls. I’m wearing a wig as well. That explains why everyone is looking at me.
I cast around for more clues, even though the list of potential explanations is dwindling by the second. And those seconds are as long as minutes.
This is from chapter 9 of my YA fantasy novel, where the protagonist is escaping as-yet unidentified creatures.
Ben thrusts the gear stick back into first and we set off with a lurch. My window judders down a couple more inches and a bony hand reaches in and snatches at my hair. I’m yanked sideways, my head smacking into the edge of the glass and the door frame.
Ben floors the accelerator. For a second nothing happens, then the car leaps forwards, tyres spitting. He twists the wheel violently, trying to dislodge the creatures, swerves under some overhanging branches and sweeps off the one on the roof.
“Mind that car,” I scream, clutching my hair, but with a thud the figure at my side collides with the parked vehicle. I say goodbye to a chunk of hair as its body explodes in a red haze.
“Aargh!” I cry. “You killed it!”
“It was trying to kill you!” He swings the car back into the centre of the road, trying to regain control. Sweat beads his face. “Hold on.”
Without further warning, he stamps on the brakes, flinging creatures off the bonnet and into the road before accelerating once more, driving right over their rising bodies. I shriek at the sickening thumps but Ben just roars towards the junction ahead. He swings left onto the main road without looking or slowing, overshooting his lane.
“Look out!” A car rushes towards us down the hill, blaring its horn, lights blazing. I squeeze my eyes shut. Wind rocks the car as the two vehicles skim past each other.
Hi Harry, this is an Extract from ‘Answers to Absolutely Every Question’.
George, having accidentally killed his love rival Ray, dies in an RTA. He arrives in the afterlife and, during his reception interview, discovers that Ray is there too and is looking for him.
When they first told me I was dead, I was frightened and then bloody angry because this had to be a really sick joke. But sitting in the waiting room for over an hour, I had time to think about what’s happened to me. Being dead, but not being dead, being somewhere else instead. Then there was the sudden realisation that someone else has taken control and I didn’t have to make any more decisions. Well, after the shit I’ve been through lately, it was actually a bit of a relief.
And now? The shit has just followed me here. And the thing is, the man who killed Ray – that wasn’t the real me; I’m not violent, I’m laid-back, polite, I open doors for people and give up my seat on the bus for old ladies. I’m an inside lane sort of bloke. But on that one night three weeks ago, I had a flash of uncontrollable anger and here I am, most likely facing hell and damnation, or at least being beaten to a pulp by Ray the butcher.
The old man can see I’m frightened and he looks pretty pleased with himself. He doesn’t wait for me to say anything but picks up the phone and says, “You can come in now, Arnold.”
Arnold must have been in the next room because he appears within seconds; a tall bloke dressed in an old-fashioned sort of suit, like they used to wear in black and white films.
Hi Harry, this is the opening extract from my dark-comedy adventure novel, titled; The Broken Ballad of Mr Tallywhacker. I would describe the story as a blend of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Blackadder dropped into the world of Shrek.
Extract
Percy’s mood was one of disquieting melancholy, as though he was emotionally prepared for the impending tragedy.
All that morning his mind was awry with unwelcome insights; the most poignant of which seemed to be centred on his specific reason for living. At first he attributed this to a fourteen hour sleep, that, even by his lethargic standards was unusually long. He paced around his bedroom, pondering his existence, which was a deeply troubling notion to consider. Dissatisfied, he huffed and lay fully dressed on his bed. Here, he dreamt up various scenarios that would cause his life to expand with meaning and adventure. The permutations of his own mind took him by surprise, and he found himself drifting away in a seamless transition of unrelated hypothesised events, all of which culminated in the conclusion of adventure being a dangerous proposition.
Percy was often troubled by the stillness of his days, and considered whether this was boredom, but couldn’t define this to be either true or false, for he had no idea whether his life was boring or not, as this was the only life he had ever known. Nevertheless, he couldn’t budge the sentiment that he was somehow missing out. He was eighteen years old, and yet the bountiful lust of youth seemed to have passed him by without a care, he reflected. Lifting himself from the mattress he moved to the window, his preferred spot for his favourite pastime: daydreaming. He was, he decided, pining for action, and something deep inside of him knew life held more possibilities than the lonely existence he had lived. In fact, he was sure of it.
Hi Harry. It would be great to get your red pen on my 250 word extract.
Untitled as yet.
Elevator pitch: Nun turns Bootlegger.
Chapter 1
Peel away my skin and you won’t find sinew, muscle or bone, but an abyss, dark and treacherous. Touch the surface – and you could – your world will collapse in on itself, you will disappear, an anonymous droplet falling into my blackness. Sound will die. Conflict will surrender. Oblivion, singularly effortless, devoid as it is, of siblings.
You can call me Hope (it’s what the mother calls me) and I’ve been buried alive for as long as I can remember. I’m actually not being melodramatic. I haunt a subterranean penal colony called Exisle, resolutely thorough in its indifference to my existence. I’m an ecclesial inmate of ‘The Priory of Our Lady of All Waters’ (a mouthful I know, others call it The Priory, I have my own name for it) serving a life sentence for crimes against mankind. Or some such. Probably. I don’t fully recall.
Many of my sisters wear veils, me most of all. Today mine is a blaring yellow. It’s not appropriate for mourning, but then I’m not to mourn. Mother says so.
‘This is a time for celebration, Hope.’ Bulbous breasts bustle me through the doorway of my room. Cell. Sanctuary. ‘No tears today.’ She loops my tear receptacle from around my neck and it disappears into the sleeve of her habit. Reward or punishment? No matter, my tears will fall and the mother won’t have them. Not today.
A waft of jasmine. A latch slotting home.
Alone.
Alone with my thoughts, a baying congregation.
Hi Harry, this is my thriller, ‘The Depths of Deception’.
From the middle of chapter 3 – a couple of paragraphs back, our hero (Fin) asked his girlfriend (Gail) to move in with him. This is the tail end of the ‘heated debate’ which followed.
‘I’m sorry.’ Gail was shaking her head. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘Didn’t know what?’
‘I’m not the sort of woman men have serious relationships with.’
What the hell did that mean? ‘What about Andrew?’ Her ex. They’d been engaged and then broken it off. Fin didn’t know why. When they’d started seeing each other, she hadn’t wanted to talk about it, and he hadn’t been inclined to push the topic of her ex-fiancé.
‘I do… care for you,’ she said.
Careful choice of words there.
‘This is… What we have is nice, isn’t it?’
Nice. The word every man longs to hear drip from his lover’s lips.
‘I like you.’
Even worse.
‘But this isn’t a long-term thing. I never meant for it to become more.’
‘Why not?’ The words barely came out. It was the first time he’d opened his heart to anyone since he was a kid. He’d thought he’d found the right person to risk it on. How could he have misread the situation this badly? She was the good thing he had in his life, untouched by all the crap he saw each day in his work. His relationship with her had given him hope in people. Christ, how could he have got it so wrong?
‘I’m sorry. I should have said something sooner.’ She turned, pacing in the other direction, never coming near enough for him to reach out to her. ‘You just didn’t seem like the type—’
‘The type?’
‘Look, I’m not—’
His phone buzzed. It took a few seconds for the sound to register.
Hi Harry,
My extract is from my thriller ‘Body on the Beach’. The protagonist found a body on the beach and ran away, because she can’t afford to get involved.
“Someone must have found the body by now. Every time I hear a car I run to the front window, then back to the kitchen to keep busy. The dishes are dripping on the drainer, the oven is gleaming and now I’ve even mopped the floor. The kitchen is spotless and smelling of bleach. I spray a flowery air freshener around and go to the front window yet again to see whether anything is happening. I bag up the rubbish and recycling, bring them out to the bins and take the opportunity to have a good look up and down the lane. Nothing. It’s all quiet.
It must be nearly three hours since I got back home. Why is there no sign of police or emergency vehicles? They should have come down my end of the lane, but even if they came down the far end, I should have heard them. What if no one finds the body and the tide comes in and washes it away? I need to know if it’s Darren, but I can’t get involved, so I can’t go back to the beach and look. I go back inside, get out the wax polish and when sunlight gleams off the pine table I think I might have done enough.
When I look out the front window again, a cat is creeping through the bushes and long grass towards the bird feeders. Blue tits and sparrows are greedily picking out the best bits oblivious to the danger.”
Hi,
Here’s an extract from my historical novel about sibling rivalry in 18th century Japan.
Hope you find time to cast an expert eye over it…
‘In this world we walk on the roof of hell gazing at the flowers’
Kobayashi Issa
Shadow Dancing
シャドウダンス
– Okaasan! Okaasan! They’re coming, they’re coming!
Masumi and Kena looked sharply, for a moment they thought the children had seen the samurai coming up from Honbashi for the land survey. It was Setsube, the first day of spring that had Tosaburo and Yua jumping for joy on the doorstep as they heard the demons’ screams approaching.
– Maki-maki! We need some beans okaasan, some beans.
Food was scarce, but it was a hard hearted villager who could resist throwing a few beans at the demons and chasing bad luck from the village. Eniko and Rushi, their heads covered with hideous cotton masks ran up to villagers and grimaced and shouted in their faces. They ran into houses, upset pots and pans while the children threw beans at them and shouted ‘Fuchi wa uchi, oni wa soto’, Demon out, fortune in! The more cunning children used the commotion to pilfer any food left out, adding to the confusion as they were caught and scolded by matrons. The brothers ran down the streets dancing, shouting, screaming, grimacing, pursued by children and even a few adults who pelted them with beans. The poor ran behind to pick up any fallen beans before they were lost in the mud, slush and melting snow. They ran past the shrine, where even Kameyo came out to watch the fun. They ran out of the village, over the stone bridge on the Tamoto, past the eta shacks and doubled back round through the paddies, back over the bridge to the village, leaving the children spread out in a ragged Indian file far behind. They were quick enough to duck into their homes, pull off the masks and reappear at their doorsteps, red faced and breathless, eyes alight with mischief, shouting ‘Fuchi wa uchi, oni wa soto’ as the leading children arrived.
– Have you seen the demons children? Where are they?
The younger children ran off in small groups to look for the demons in different houses and to try to grab some more food left out by inattentive housewives.’
Hi Harry, really grateful for this opportunity. My book ‘Urban Warriors’ is about an eighteen year old British Iranian girl form London who is about to discover that she is a descendant of Cyrus the Great and what it means to be an urban warrior in the 21st century.
This is the first page of the book, the next being chapter 1. The idea is to give a flash-forward of what’s to come. This paragraph is then repeated in chapter 7 when the reader has followed the mysterious events that lead up to it.
Many thanks,
RJ
—-
Lightning struck illuminating the sky informing me I was nearly there. How long had I been running for? The thud of my combat boots echoed in the open. The surrounding greenery barely visible amidst the darkness of the storm. I continued to run. Twisting and turning the small pathways up the heath, my legs carried me faster than I could have ever imagined. Rain hitting me hard, clothes drenched clinging to my skin I continued to run. The clap of thunder, the aggressive bark of a stray dog echoing in the open, my legs continued with determination. I barely recognised my own strength. Adrenalin pumped inside me, my pounding heart beating to the rhythmic thud of my boots. I was there. The silhouette of London’s skyline before me, I had reached the top of Parliament Hill. A picturesque setting to most, but not tonight. Here in the midst of the storm, the black of the night, the people of London were tucked away in the comfort of their homes while I stood waiting. Waiting for it to come, waiting for it to hit me, waiting for the fix that had led me there. With my arms open wide, I looked up to the heavens. When it happened. Zeus, God of the Sky, God of Thunder, struck his weapon upon me.
‘Maria,’ I heard a familiar voice call out to me.
‘Huh?’
‘Maria.’ The softly rolled ‘r’ in my name. ‘There are many things happening to you right now which you can’t explain.’
‘I…’ I tried to answer, but struggled. The voice continued.
‘So many questions you’re desperate to ask, so many answers you need explaining.’
‘How… how do you know this?’
‘The time has come Maria. The time has come for me to explain your story.’