My Novel's Journey: Mind Over Psyche Excerpt

This is an excerpt from Chapter 11, chosen at random.

Tasmae drowned in cold, heavy waters; bathed in fire; was torn from the inside.  The whole time, images and emotions pounded up on her: anger and hate, despair and confusion, passion and ambition.


Make it stop! Make it stop! Makeitstop!


That’s enough! Her warrior self exploded.  Gardianju! Tell me what this means.  We don’t have time for this.


Too many signals, all in conflict.  She hung by a thread over an abyss, but when she blinked, it turned into a padded pink box.  She screamed and tried to climb.


The rope snapped.


She fell.





Tasmae was again flung from the Remembrance, this time full of adrenalin.  Taking advantage of her guardians’ surprise, she dashed from the room.


She ran through the empty compound thinking only that the walls were too close, the air too heavy, the shadows full of phantoms ready to ambush.  She cried with delight to see the sun burning bright.  She drank in its heat.


A unicorn waited at the door.


Despite muscles that felt bruised and hands that felt raw, she threw herself onto his back and let him carry her to an open field.


Once there, however, she panicked at being alone with the images left from the Remembrance.  She couldn’t make herself go back, either.  Leinad would take her, by force, if necessary, and make her complete the Remembrance.  I can’t let him, she’d thought wildly, I can’t. 


She couldn’t be alone, and she couldn’t seek out anyone Kanaan.  Not like this.  She was contaminated with the insanities of Gardianju; she couldn’t risk touching someone’s mind now.  She was barely handling it, and it was part of her Talent.  No healer would touch her, no friend offer comfort.


Her mind reeling, she slid from the unicorn’s back and sat upon the ground, legs crossed, arms wrapped around her stomach, rocking slightly.  She didn’t know why she was doing it.  She couldn’t make herself stop.  The unicorn nuzzled her gently, sending a cautious query, but she didn’t respond.  She was trapped.  Alone.


Suddenly, an everyn dove out of the sky and landed beside her, wheedling its way onto her lap.  No, sister, he told her.  You are never alone.


Another everyn joined, then another and another, until she was surrounded by a dozen or more, until her lap and arms were full of small dragon-like creatures, their cheeks stroking her skin, wings enveloping her.  Carefully, they teased the tortured memories of Gardianju from her, replacing them with affection and reassurance. 


We are the first of the Greater Beasts and brothers to the animals; share the chaos with us.  We can handle it.  We have done this duty before; it is our God-sent Talent.  It is our avocation, our joy to help you as our ancestors had helped other Miscria.  Take our aid, sister.  Accept our love.


They guided her through a cleansing, led her gently to Divine Love.  Words floated through her mind:  Mercifully guard my every thought and grant that I may always watch for Your light, and listen to Your voice, and follow Your gracious inspirations.  I cling to You and give myself to You and ask You, by Your compassion to watch over me in my weakness…


She blinked, suddenly aware of her surroundings.  Not only everyn surrounded her now:  unicorns and some lesser beasts had joined the circle of love and support.  A large, wolflike creature had shoved his way through enough to lay its shaggy head upon her lap, and she scratched its ears gratefully.  Normally, they were solitary creatures, feral and sometimes dangerous.  She thought she knew which images it had shared for her sake.


It tolerated one more scratch and took off with an explosion of motion that sent several everyn flying and squawking in protest.  She found herself laughing, and thanked the beasts who had saved her from herself and helped her back to sanity.  Then she closed her eyes again, gave her gratitude to God, and felt His love in reply.  The words came back to her.  Sometimes, the Miscria were given words, like the recitation to call the Ydrel.  But these were not from the Remembrance, or from Deryl.  Even the accent was different.


Joshua.  Tasmae rose and asked the unicorn to take her to the human.

My Novel's Journey: Mind Over Matter edits-Wrap Up

It's done! I'm sending it off to the publisher! Mind Over Psyche (was Mind Over Matter) is finally finished and I feel really good about it. I'm sure my terrific editor at DragonMoon will have some suggestions, but in the meantime, here's a wrap-up:

Beginning Word count before rewrite: 132,000 approx
Word count after re-write: 99,427 (557,249 characters)
Word Count after backwards edit: 98,640 (553,096 characters)
--# changes found in backward edit: 1100, approximately

Major changes:
--Flashbacks made real-time
--Subplot removed/diminished
--Deryl's motivation made stronger
--Character I thought would come back didn't
--First chapter trashed and elements woven into subsequent chapters
--2-page chapter incorporated into preceding chapter so that chapter lengths are more even.

I'll be at the Catholic Writers Conference Online next week, but I'll post an excerpt for Thursday.

My Novel's Journey: Mind Over Matter edits

Sorry this is late, but I did finish the backwards edit on Mind Over Mind.

Incidentally, I'm changing the title (publisher approving, of course) to Mind Over Psyche because it fits the plot better. I'd like to use Mind Over Matter for last one, I think.

What's a backwards edit? You start with the last sentence of the manuscript, read and evaluate it, make changes. Then you read the next to the last sentence, evaluate and make changes. Then the one before that... You keep going until the first sentence of the manuscript.

So why edit backwards?

It forces you to look at each sentence on its own merit.
It keeps you from getting caught up in the plot.
It stops your mind from filling in blanks based on context.
It lets you look at a sentence for language use rather than mere utility.
Sometimes, you catch logical disconnects that you didn't see reading forwards.

Here are a couple of examples:

Man, did I use the words "suddenly" and "just" a lot. Neither I nor my critiquers (save one) notice when caught in the plot, but when backwards, I realized I'd used it several times on one page.

I caught a lot of passive voice. Taking the sentences out of context made me more aware of passive voice (was, is are) and progressive (am doing, was doing). Many times, I could cut those. Ditto for adverbs.

I realized that I had Deryl riding a unicorn BEFORE he put his clothes back on. Lady Godiva, he is not! Changed that.

I found places I could add more foreshadowing.

I discovered one place where I headhopped. It was seemless when reading it forward, but jarring backward.

I made a lot of sentences stronger.

Old: He was aware, too, or how hard Tasmae had hit him and how much his neck and throat ached.

New: His neck throbbed from Tasmae's choking and his head with it.

I also had the joy of realizing that I love this book just as much backward as forward. When I can say that, I know I've done well!


Now, I have to put in the changes. The manuscript is 98,350 words. What do you think it will be when I'm done?

My Novel's Journey: Mind Over Matter edits

I love my Critique buddies!

I got back a few comments on Mind Over Mind last week--not a lot, but very helpful.

Everyone agreed the first chapter was too confusing--the POV was from a minor character so it set up the wrong expectation, the transition to the second chapter was jarring, and no one really understood the information I was trying to get across. After re-writing the entire chapter twice, I decided it was simply not going to work. Instead, I split what I needed into a different chapter and a scene, told it from a major character's POV and wove them in later. Then I had to make sure the rest of the manuscript matched up, but it's a lot better.

One critiquer didn't like the final conflict, and I realized I needed to do more foreshadowing. That wasn't too hard. She also thought it was too long, but going over it, I didn't agree and didn't know where to cut, so I am leaving it for the second-round critiquers.

I have done the read-aloud test, this time alone for time sake and because some of the topic is not really suited for a 10-year-old boy, but I really enjoyed it. Next job, the backward-by-sentence check for grammar, wording and typos.

My Novel's Journey: Mind Over Matter--what I hope to get from my critiquers

Mind Over Matter is off to my crit crew, which is usually a few trusted readers who are also good writers, plus a couple of folks who volunteer.

There's a difference between a critique and an edit that a lot of folks don't get. Edits are very specific and are usually corrections rather than suggestions. Naturally, finding typos constitutes and edit. Going through a manuscript and picking out all the passive voice, is IMHO, an edit. Edits also are focused on what is wrong in a story.

Critiques are more general and broader reaching--comments on voice, point of view, plot progression and the like. Sometimes, these combine with edits, like if a critiquer points out an instance of head-hopping. (That's changing the point of view from one character to another in the middle of a paragraph or scene.) Critiques also focus on what's right. So a critique might sound like
"I didn't believe Joshua's motivation when he..."
"You mentioned this fact four times. We get it already!"
"This is an intense scene!"
"I love how you..."
"You do really well when you ____ in this scene; I'd like to see you do more of that in _____chapter."
"This flashback threw me out of the story; could you rewrite it in realtime and put it earlier?"

I'm not looking for a line-by-line, because I'm not ready for that, and I also do pretty well with that on my own. However, I'm hoping I can get some good feedback on the book as a whole.

My Novel's Journey: Mind Over Matter edits

It is done!

I finished the major revisions of Mind Over Matter Thursday afternoon. I knocked it down from 132,000 words to 98,500, primarily by killing a subplot and some deep background, plus removing a few redundancies. I've got it with some friends for a general critique of plot progression and character, to make sure I didn't cut too much and leave important points unexplained. In the meantime, I plan to let it sit until Monday, when I'll read it out loud to check the flow, then print it and read it backwards to make sure the sentences are free of errors and written as well as possible.

This is the most extensive revision of a manuscript I've ever done. I found it interesting that I could cut so much that seemed so very important when I was writing it, and come up with a better story. I remember reading that Spider Robinson had a similar experience. He would send a story to (I think it was) Amazing, and Campbell, the editor, would send it back saying, "Great story! Cut it by a third." He said he'd sweat over each word, believe the idea impossible, do it anyway, and come up with a better story as a result.

I think I've greatly improved Mind Over Matter. I can't wait to get a pub date on it!

My Novel's Journey: Mind Over Matter edits--lesson time

Last week, I didn't talk much about the lessons I've learned--or knew and applied--in my editing marathon, so I thought I'd talk about a three now.

Less is More: Last week, I met my goal of cutting 32,000 words, and I think I can cut more. Some of it was redundancy and a cutesy parceling out of bits of info when really, just saying it didn't hurt things at all. However, I also cut out a subplot, some favorite scenes, a couple of instances when we saw an event from two character POVs. Rather than losing the richness of the story, it has made the primary conflict harder-hitting and the story moves faster.

Kill the sacred subplot. I loved the subplot of Joshua's failed romance. I used it to show the differences between Kanaan romance and human. Also, his ex shows up near the end. (No spoilers on how, other than it's awesome.) Nonetheless, I spent way too much time in background and flashback for something that ended even before Mind Over Mind. Some of it was gut-wrenching writing, too, but let's face it: Josh is stuck on an alien planet. Is he going to stress over an affair gone bad? It distracted from the main theme. Machete time! Subplots should support the theme.

Be open to change: I started the rewrite process by re-reading the hardcopy and making notes. After about the fourth chapter,however, I didn't even look at the notes because the revision moved far beyond the simple changes I'd planned. The notes helped to jumpstart my brain, but as a character-driven seat-of-the-pants writer, I get a lot of energy by letting my characters take control. Even in revisions, I'm a pantster.

My Novel's Journey: Mind Over Matter edits

It's been 3 weeks since I started the Mind Over Mind edits. I'm on page 208. I'm down from 132,000 words to 105,000 and am thinking I can cut 10,000 more. I am scrapping one major subplot/deep background about Joshua and building up the romantic tension with Deryl and Tasmae. I've also cut a lot of redundancy and explained some information earlier on instead of being cute and trying to give it piecemeal (which really ended up just rehashing things again and again).

Two minor characters, Ocapo and Terry, are taking on bigger roles, and it's fun to see them more often. Leinad went from cranky guardian to legitimate threat, and the beasts and the keep itself (which is semi-intelligent) are siding with Deryl and Josh openly. Deryl's less angsty, and Joshua, more so. I had to kill a couple of "cute" scenes, but they didn't really fit emotionally, anyway.

I had to do some pretty major manuscript surgery this past week, and just as I thought I was smooth sailing, they hit me with a new issue: thanks to the changes above, things have gotten a lot more serious a lot faster. Joshua has to get out of Dodge immeditately, and Deryl is going to be on his own when he wakes up from the psychic experience he's sharing with Tasmae. Sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun--once I write it--but I must admit, the thought leaves me with a "what, again? I thought I was done with cut-and-paste!" feeling.

No matter. The book has spoken! I shall obey!

Here's one piece of text I changed. In the first, I have Deryl and Joshua talking about Josh's fiance', Sachiko, who is not in this book. In the second, I have Deryl showing Tasmae his telekinetically-created shield.

OLD:

Deryl gave a grunt of assent, then rose and went to the rack of weapons along the wall. He pulled a sword down, eyeing the craftsmanship. They’d taken his basic ideas, sure, but they’d gone well beyond anything he’d imagined. He swung it around, testing its balance. “It’s a salle, not a studio.”

“For you, maybe. I’m a dancer, not a fighter.” Joshua moved to the bench, picked up his towel and wiped off the sweat as he spoke.

“Oh, I don’t know. Sword fighting can be a kind of dance, too, you know. Have you seen Sachiko do her black belt form yet?”

“She’s got a black belt in Kendo?”

Deryl moved to where Joshua had been, took up a position, then began to move the sword in the established routine Sachiko had taught him. “Sachiko has four black belts,” he informed his friend. “And some other martial arts training as well. Her dad’s ex-Navy, special ops--“

“That explains a lot,” Joshua murmured.

“--and he wanted his only daughter to be able to handle herself.”

“She can do that,” Joshua admitted, and Deryl felt a sudden flash of Joshua’s memory of how she’d taken down and immobilized a manic patient that probably outweighed her by a hundred or more pounds.

Neither Joshua, toweling his hair dry and thinking about Sachiko pinning McDougal down with a knee and a hand, nor he, concentrating past Joshua’s inadvertent but strong memory and back his routine, noticed Tasmae silently enter the room and unsheathe her sword.

“You’ve got to get her to show you,” Deryl was saying. “She’s something to watch. Like you said, she’s got a temper. Sometimes, on really bad days at work, we’d sneak into the gym after hours and go at it with broomsticks, and I’d let her take it out on me. Or try to, at any rate. I’m very good at defending myself--“

Suddenly, he swung around and blocked Tasmae’s blow.

Joshua dropped his towel at the loud clang of metal, and saw Deryl push off of Tasmae’s swing and back away. He saw his friend grin at her, eyes sparkling, but she looked deadly serious.

NEW:

“It’s a personal shield,” Deryl explained as he approached Tasmae. “Telekinetic. I imagine it covering me like armor, but I control it. I can protect myself from anything, but, if I want to touch something—“ He reached out and brushed back a strand of her hair. “I can,” he finished, his voice softer than before.

Tasmae raised her arm to knock his away, but again encountered his shield. Slowly, she set her hand on his arm.

He smiled.

Tasmae raked her nails across his arm.

“Yeow!” Deryl backed away, grabbing his arm. He backed up fast when she followed up with a kick.

“Must you always concentrate on them?” She asked. Though she continued to advance on him, swinging and kicking, she didn’t sound angry at all. Just calculating.

“Only to alter them,” Deryl replied, puffing a little as he ducked and blocked her blows. She kept pushing him back to the far wall where practice weapons waited neatly in a rack.

“Do we teach this to children, then?” she demanded. “Or can you fight and keep the shield?”

“Oh, I can fight!” Deryl spun, snagged a sword in his left hand and lunged toward her, swinging the sword wide. When she stepped back, he returned to a more natural stance while swinging his blade in a back-handed figure eight.

“Nice,” Joshua called from the other side of the room.

“Sachiko taught me,” Deryl replied.

My Novel's Journey: Mind Over Matter edits

It's been about four years since I wrote Mind Over Matter, the second book in my Miscria trilogy. Now, with the edits to Mind Over Mind done and DragonMoon happy with the manuscript, it's time to clean this one up. The goal: Have it ready by March to submit to DragonMoon.

The nice thing about having worked with an editor and the first book is that I know what Gabrielle likes and does not like, and I can look at this manuscript with "new eyes." Four years of sitting while I grew as a writer certainly helped. This is actually my second manuscript, written in a crazy month and clocking in at 132,000 words when I added a couple of chapters from the first book that I decided to cut so that Mind Over Mind did not end on a cliffhanger.

I had printed it out back in 2007, which helped relieve some of the scare when I could not find the file. (Did find it) and so I could read it without the temptation of tweaking on the computer. Now, I could see the redundancies, the unneeded background, the self-indulgent prose, the unnecessary flashbacks. the story was still sound, and the characters lots of fun, but (as Gabrielle pointed out), making the action more present and less explanatory makes them really shine.

So that's been my goal, with steps of 1-2 chapters a day, a total of 6-8 a week. The first few chapters were easy, but when I hit chapter six, I hit Land O Flashback, and it's been a tough slog moving things and rewriting. Re-imagining a scene is fun, but time-consuming, and sometimes intimidating, especially when you haven't lived the characters in awhile.

Naturally, now that my characters had room to move, they wanted to boogie! One character, the heroine, is taking more of a backseat (she did this in the first book, too), while a minor character that didn't get a big role until the last third of the book is now a major player. I'm hoping things get back on the old track at least enough so I don't have to rewrite the last 300 pages, but regardless, it's going to be a fun ride--for me, for my editor, and eventually for you!