I’m excited to have author and marketer extraordinaire Kristina Stanley back on my blog! Instead of sharing her bestselling alpine mysteries today, we are talking about writing help for authors – something Kristina knows much about. Her new app Feedback For Fiction does just this! Writers, find out how you can participate in this exciting new app.
Today Kristina is talking about rewriting that first draft.
Whether you’re a plotter or a panster, you’ve completed a first draft. Congratulations! Now what?
If you’re anything like me, you’re asking yourself:
- Where do I start my manuscript rewrite?
- How do I keep track of all the writing tips I’ve read and apply them to my story?
- What should I change to make my story better?
- Am I ready to share my manuscript with others?
Wouldn’t it be nice to have an app that would help you through the rewriting process?
But First: What is Rewriting?
A comprehensive rewrite is the first step in the self-editing process. I’m not talking about copyediting or proofreading. You can do that after you’ve completed your rewrite.
Rewriting your first draft means analyzing your story from a high-level perspective and fixing any weak areas. You want to make sure that the story structure makes sense, the scenes are tense, there are no plot holes, and you haven’t left any subplots unfinished.
During the rewrite, you also take a hard look at your characters. How often do they appear? What are their goals? What gets in the way of their goals? Characters will drive the tension in your story, and tension is what keeps a reader reading.
Finally, the rewrite should examine your settings. Do you make the most of your settings? How often do you use the same setting, and is it too often? Do your settings help with the tone of your scenes? Settings are key to keeping your reader engaged, so don’t ignore them.
How can we help you?
We’re building Feedback, an app for writers that provides a guided approach to tackling comprehensive rewrites.
With Feedback, you can focus on plot, character, and setting. You can evaluate on a scene-by-scene basis or on overall novel structure. Feedback will show you the most important structural elements to work on first.
Feedback will guide you through the rewriting process by asking you questions specific to your manuscript, enabling you to evaluate your own story.
Once you import your manuscript, Feedback automatically captures information such as word count, number of scenes per chapter, character names, and chapter and scene breaks, using this information to create the first set of reports. Any updates to your manuscript will still need to be completed in the writing app you used to create your first draft.
Feedback helps you visualize your manuscript. Forget about yellow stickies or white boards. Feedback will draw character arcs, provide reports on scene evaluation, and show your rewriting progress.
Feedback is a learning tool. If you’re having trouble with a certain element of fiction, just click on the rewrite tip associated with that element and find out how to improve your writing. There’s no need to search through dozens of writing books to find the piece of advice you need.
On the technical side, Feedback will be a secure, web-based app. This means you will be able to access Feedback from any device you use.
Find out more:
Our goal is to launch Feedback in the spring of 2017. In order to create an app that is valuable to writers, we’d like your input on building Feedback. Sign up, and we’ll send you updates on the development progress and ask you the occasional question to help define the product. As a bonus, we’ll send you rewriting tips available only to our subscribers.
Are you as excited about Feedback as we are? Show your support by helping us spread the word and share this post.
You can find us at www.FeedbackForFiction.com and follow us on Facebook.
Your support means a lot to us, so thank you!
ABOUT KRISTINA:
Kristina Stanley is the best-selling author of the Stone Mountain Mystery Series. Her first two novels garnered the attention of prestigious crime writing organizations in Canada and England. Crime Writers of Canada nominated DESCENT (Imajin Books, July 2015) for the Unhanged Arthur award. The Crime Writers’ Association nominated BLAZE (Imajin Books, Oct 2015) for the Debut Dagger. Imajin Books published her third novel in the series, AVALANCHE, in June 2016.
Her short stories have been published in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and The Voices From the Valleys anthology. She is the author of THE AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO SELLING BOOKS TO NON-BOOKSTORES.
As the co-founder and chief creative officer of Feedback Innovations, a company started to help writers rewrite better fiction, she made up her own job title because she thought it sounded cool!
Find out more about her and Feedback at www.FeedbackForFiction.com.
Donna, Thanks for having me today! It’s great to be a able to share with your readers.
So great to have you on and sharing this new tool for writers, Kristina!