My fantastic editor Farrah Penn is currently doing the "line edits" on Book 2 in The Tales of Gymandrol series. I'll be reading those and editing my story based on her recommendations this weekend. (Hopefully I will get those done this weekend!!) I'll probably hole up at Starbucks on Friday night and write and write and delete and write some more. :)
There are a few things that I already know that I need to work on. First of all, one of the "bad guys" needs to be more...bad. He's a bit whiny right now and he needs to have more of a psychotic side to him. (And this is hard for me to do!) Secondly, I need to make my main guy less perfect. He needs to have some of the shine taken off of him. But I have to do it in a way that he is still likable. I've been thinking about flaws to
Oh, The Title. So, I named my story after a very important event that takes place during much of the novel. After I finished writing my story, I went to Barnes and Noble and was wandering around (as I'm wont to do) the children's area. To my surprise and chagrin, I found a book with the same name as my story! And by an author that I adore!! In my same genre!!! *huge sigh*
Where does that leave me? Scrambling to find a new Title. Yay. (Not really yay.) The first Title was SO easy to come up with and everything else seems flat to me. I've made a list of action words and nouns that are in the story to see if I could find something to combine to make the Best Title Ever! It hasn't happened yet. Everything I've written feels like a Nancy Drew mystery or a Hallmark Channel movie.
Examples: "Finding Emma" (NO), "The Secret of the Princess" (NO), "The Forlorn Princess" (NO), "The Mystery of the Lost Princess" (NO), "Finding the True Princess" (NO). Grrrrr....This is going to take some time. If you have any ideas, throw them at me! I'll give you credit in my "Acknowledgments" area of the book. :)
Happy writing!
Bouncing around various things stemming from those rejected ideas (and yeah, some are very Nancy Drew-ish, hehe):
ReplyDeleteEmma's Secret; Lost Emma (or Emma Lost); Princess Lost (makes me think of 'Paradise Lost' LOL) (or The Lost Princess); The Princess's Secret; The Princess Secret (no possession, like "A Mission" or etc); Princess X (couldn't resist, hehe); The Princess Mission; Emma's Mystery; The Princess Search ...
As to making the good guy less perfect? Make him a smart ass? It's both endearing and infuriating, especially if he doesn't know when to NOT be a smart ass ;o)
I have no idea how to make a bad guy more psychotic -- good luck with that :o)
SO looking forward to this!!!