Today, the Wayward Wormhole writing retreat kicked off week-two with instructor Premee Mohamed, who really hit the ground running. We had a mind-blowing presentation on revision in the morning and started the group manuscript critique sessions in the afternoon. All this fun is taking place in Oistins, Barbados.
This post will be short since I’m excited to get started on analyzing my manuscript, and it’s already late here.
Premee Mohamed Teaches Revision
I have nine pages of notes from Premee Mohamed’s revision presentation, plus the slide deck, so—more to come on this topic, for sure. So much to share, so little time and energy! I can at least tell you about the homework exercise I’m anxious to start.
Three Helpful Things
After finishing the early draft and putting it away for a while, the author needs to open that file back up and call upon their right brain. Consider the novel or novella in the following terms:
What is Exciting?
What drew you to the story idea in the first place? Why are you writing it, anyway? Where is the passion? Where is the love?
What Did You Imagine?
What did you set out to do? Did you hit the book’s genre expectations? How about the tone; is it what you wanted? What movies or games inspired you? Can you see that influence in the work?
Where Did It Go?
Did the story end up where you imagined it would? How do you feel about that?
I also got some feedback on my novella in the afternoon, and I’ll share that later.
Meanwhile, enjoy yourself with my latest novel, The Talking Cure.
“The Talking Cure is a marvelous story—an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery infused with a strong sense of the Weird… and a hearty dose of magic on the side. It’s ideal for all fans of the sinister, the surprising, and the strange.”
—Cherie Priest, award-winning author of Boneshaker
Find The Talking Cure at these fine locations:
Left Bank Books in St. Louis
Do you enjoy or dread story revision? Comment on the blog.
If you enjoyed this blog about book revision, you might like to read about editor Ruth Thaler-Carter.
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Wolfhearted is also available as an Audible audiobook, here.
Earlier this year, St. Louis Writers Guild published Weird STL, an anthology celebrate the strange, spooky, and just plain wonderful stories of our hometown. This volume of short stories, poems, a play, and essays includes a Sean Joye universe short story, “Big Magick.” Joseph Arwald, one of the baddies from The Big Cinch, tells us what really happened to the Ferris Wheel from the St. Louis 1904 World’s Fair.
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