The_Merchant_of_Venice-William_Shakespeare

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Young Bassanio, whose parents were rich and left him with money, spent all his possessions and had a lot of debts. He decided to marry a rich and beautiful Portia and asked for help from his friend – the Venetian merchant Antonio. Antonio borrowed money from Shylock, the Jewish moneylender. Condition of the deal was that Shylock has the right to cut a part of flesh a pound weight from the body of the merchant if he did not pay back on time. When Antonio ships wrecked and the deadline for payment of the bill has been expired. The case of failed deadline would be heard in the court.

The_Collector-Peter_Viney

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It’s August 1st, 1993 today. The twentieth-century film Jurassic Park is in the cinemas this week. It’s a new film, and the pictures of dinosaurs are on everything. They’re on packets of cornflakes, magazines, comics. All these packets here have got the Star Trek picture. But I need packet with dinosaur picture. I can get 300,000 units for that packet at home. The dinosaur picture on that packet is by Kate Hermann. She’s a very famous artist at home. Many people collect food packets with her pictures on them, but they haven’t got the dinosaur picture. No one has got that picture. Kate Hermann’s picture is famous, because the colours of the dinosaurs are correct. Dinosaur pictures usually have all the colours wrong.

A_tidy_ghost-Peter_Viney

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     Marlyn and Rick live together several years. They marriage are pretty good, but they haven’t their own place to live. So last few years they saved the money to buy a new house. And when they moved into it, strange things began to happen. Have they got a ghost – a very clean and tidy ghost? Marilyn decides to find out more about their new home. Her investigation become more and more exiting, but in the end there are very unexpectable final.

5 things people never tell you about exercise & weight loss.

     Alllllllrighty then! My 6am client didn't show up, so instead of going back to bed-

I decided to get my blog on! 

      Today I present to you (drum roll please.. yes I am expecting you to be frantically tapping on your desk right now) 

The top 5 things people never tell you about exercise & weight loss!

Lets do this!

      1. Any movement is better than no movement.

Hey Mel, what do you think of Cross Fit? Is Zumba good? Should I do HIIT once or twice a week? Im thinking about bootcamp, is that good for toning? Lots of people ask me about exercise and how they should best move to reach their goals. Yes some goals require specific movement patterns, but for the general population who are exercising for health, I always say anything! Just move, go for a walk with a friend, try yoga, pole dancing, group fitness, stretch in front of the TV at night, throw the ball with your dog- just move. The body wants to move and is designed to move, don’t stress about the very best way to do it, because the very best way will be different for everyone.

My parents love to dance, so that is what they do. :)

2. Don’t underestimate your need for REST.

Back in my Les Mills teaching days, I would do 3 pump classes in one day and then get into bed and not be able to sleep because of the sharp pains running down my legs- only to then get up the next morning at 5.45am to attend a spin class. I mean really Mel? Come on!

Your body needs to rest, rejuvenate and repair. If your body is sore, it is telling you that it needs to rest.

I actually remember saying to someone “I wonder what it feels like to walk up a set of stairs and not be in pain?”- insert face palm here.

It wasn’t till I started resting that I actually started seeing results, and there is a good reason for that, your body needs to rest. 

If you struggled to rest (cause you’re a super fitness freak) try a long walk, a massage or some flow yoga.

3. Find exercise you actually enjoy.

When fitness professionals say things like “no pain no gain” or I watch the poor contestants on the Biggest Loser cry while they run on the treadmill it really.. how do I say this nicely.. it makes me feel sad inside.

Since when did exercise become a chore? Movement is fun, do you see little kids at the park crying because they get to run around and play? Arghh.. no (not unless they fall over). Just last week my work collogue once sent me the group fitness timetable at a local gym and asked me which class she should do, my response… “the one you enjoy the most.”

Its Dr Phil logic- (insert a thick southern, bald, accent here) "If you enjoy it, you will do it."

If you don’t enjoy exercise you just haven’t found the right type of exercise for you- so keep looking. There are a billion trillion ways to move your body, keep trying till you find something you love.

Woah yeah, looks like fun!

4. Listen to your body.

Your body is telling you stuff all the time, start listening to it. 

You know don’t have a headache because of a aspirin deficiency right? You have a headache because your eyes are sore from straining at the computer, you are stressed out, you haven’t had enough water, you need food or sleep or rest. If you bloat after eating, maybe that is your body telling you that its not working properly. Pay attention to what your body is trying to tell you, are you actually hungry? Is going to the gym right now the best idea when your throat is aching and you feel tired?

5. Experiment with what works for YOU. 

Why do you think there are SO many different dieting methods out there? Because, they’ve worked for SOMEONE. Ashy Bines gets her bikini body from her clean eating whoo harr, I take a flexible dieting approach with myself & my clients and Freeleethebananagirl eats nothing but fruit and we all claim to look at feel amazing. A Paleo diet works for some and weight watchers for others. There are ripped yoga instructors and there are ripped cross fitters- both do completely different exercises. You get my point right? What works for your old mate down the road or what works for Oprah might be different to what works for you.

As long as you avoid those ‘quick fix’ diets and choose a sensible long term approach, I don’t see the harm in trying different methods- even if you do not achieve your goal, you will probably learn something in the process, which is valuable in itself.

I hope this has given you some guidance & motivated you to try something new!

Mel xx

melvfitness.com.au

New Jack Daniels Novel Q & A with Jude Hardin

The first Jack Daniels novel in four years, LADY 52, is now available on Amazon Kindle for $3.99.

What do Lt. Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels and private investigator Nicholas Colt have in common? 

Billiards, bourbon, bad jokes… 

And murder. Several, in fact. 

A homeless woman’s remains are found near Chicago twenty-six years after she disappeared. Her daughter—now retired in Florida—suspects foul play, and she hires Colt to fly up there and check it out. 

A prominent Chicago physician is slain outside a convenience store, horribly mutilated. A senseless street killing? A robbery gone wrong? Or something much worse?

As the homicide cases and those involved converge, it quickly becomes apparent that Jack Daniels and Nicholas Colt are in for the most challenging—and deadly—time of their lives. 

Filled with humor, suspense, and mystery, LADY 52 is sure to satisfy longtime Daniels and Colt fans, and is a perfect introduction to both series. It's approximately 250 pages long. 

Q: Why the collaboration? Why now?

Jude:When Joe started talking about franchising the characters from his Jack
Daniels series, I knew it was something I wanted to try. I’ve been a fan since WHISKEY SOUR, the first book in the series, came out in 2003. I started thinking that Jack and my PI character Nicholas Colt might make an interesting team, so I started putting together some scenes for them. I think it worked out pretty well.

Joe: Jude was one of my first blog commenters, way back in 2005. When he wrote his first novel, POCKET 47, I read it and enjoyed it. Very much in the Robert B. Parker/Robert Crais school of action, mystery, and humor. When we did the Colt/Daniels short RACKED, our styles blended very well, our characters had chemistry, and the fans liked it. Doing a novel was a no-brainer.

Q:There’s violence in LADY 52, yet there are moments of hilarity as well. Why mix the two?

Jude:Joe was one of the first authors to do that kind of thing with mainstream thrillers, and I wanted to try to match the tone of the previous books in his series. Plus, Colt has always had his own brand of humor, and I tried to maintain some of that as well. 

Humor’s tough, because you never really know what’s going to work and what isn’t. But if I’m amusing myself along the way, I figure I might be on the right track.

Joe: I laughed at a lot of Jude's jokes, and he's told me he's laughed at mine, so I think we found a good balance.

I really try to make the reader experience as many emotions as possible in a book. Make them laugh, make them cry, make them nervous, make them frightened, turn them on. Fiction is an entertaining way to give the limbic system a vicarious work-out.

Q:There’s a hot sex scene in LADY 52, in a car no less. Why include something like that in a thriller?

Jude:Well, like our friend Ann Voss Peterson says, a sex scene in a novel should really be about emotion. Sometimes the emotion might be love, but often it’s fear. It’s about adding to your characters’ challenges and vulnerabilities, taking them into an intimate moment and ideally revealing an emotional side of them that the reader wouldn’t otherwise get to see.

Joe: I didn't write my first explicit sex scene until the sixth Jack Daniels book, CHERRY BOMB, and I really thought it added to the book. The Codename: Chandler series I write with Ann (three novels, three novellas) have a lot of sex in them. Along with revealing character, I think a well-written love scene is just plain fun, like snappy dialog or a cool fist fight. Which is why I write erotica under the name Melinda DuChamp.

This sex scene, however, was all Jude. I think maybe I added a comma.

Q:There are a couple of major twists near the end, some things most readers probably won’t see coming. How did those come about?

Jude:I don’t want to reveal too much, so I’ll just say that a good mystery usually involves a backstory that remains offstage for most of the book. It’s that backstory that sets the wheels in motion and motivates the characters to do what they do. I never outline, so some of the plot elements were a surprise to me as I composed them. That’s a good thing, I think. If I can surprise myself, maybe I can surprise the reader as well.

Joe: Jude came up with a really fun plot that seems to be going in a certain direction, then takes a 180 degree turn. But it is a mystery, and the clues are there for readers to solve it before Colt and Daniels do.

Q:How many books does Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels appear in? Nicholas Colt?

Jude:LADY 52 is the eighth novel featuring private investigator Nicholas Colt. He’s a world-class guitarist who gave up on music when his wife and daughter and all the members of his band died in a plane crash. He was the sole survivor, so he carries that weight around along with everything else. LADY 52 is brand new, but in the Nicholas Colt universe the events in the book occur between those in my novels COLT and POCKET-47. So while it’s the eighth Nicholas Colt book I’ve written, chronologically it’s book #2 in the series.

Joe:This is Jack's tenth novel, and it fits in between BLOODY MARY and RUSTY NAIL.

Q:So how did the collaboration process work?

Joe:It was a breeze for me. Jude knocked out the first draft, and then I fleshed out the main bad guy and some of the mystery elements, added a few scenes and jokes, and tweaked my characters. Jude did a good job writing Jack and company, so it was fun to build off of his framework. It's a 60k word book, and probably 15k-20k of it is mine. So I got off easy. :)

I think anyone who is a Nicholas Colt fan will enjoy this, and anyone who is a Jack Daniels fan will enjoy this. It's a fun merger of their respective universes, and hopefully our fans will cross-pollenate and buy more of our books. Readers who like SNUFF TAG 9 will like FUZZY NAVEL, and vice-versa.

I also wrote many lines, and a whole scene, in Colt's POV. Jude will have to comment on how I did, there.

Jude:Joe has a lot more experience with collaborations than I do, and he’s written at least twice as many novels, so I pretty much let him take the reins once I turned in the first draft. I was really impressed when I read his approach to Nicholas Colt and some of the other characters I created. The goal is for everything to be seamless, and he nailed it! As for the actual mechanics of working together, we passed the manuscript back and forth via DropBox, and we addressed any questions and concerns through email. He changed some of my stuff here and there, and I changed some of his, and we bounced ideas back and forth until we were both happy with what we had.

Q: Will you collaborate again?

Joe: My schedule is crazy busy… I sat on LADY 52 for more than three months before I could find the time to work on it. But I'd work with Jude again in a heartbeat.

Jude:Writing a novel is a lot different than, say, writing a TV show, in that it’s generally a solitary affair, so it was a pleasure to work with another author for a change, especially a seasoned professional like Joe. I had a lot of fun with it, and I would absolutely do it again. I could see Colt and Daniels together at least one more time, maybe at a nine ball tournament somewhere between Florida and Illinois. Hmm…

Joe: If the fans want it, I say let's do it.

Q: What's coming up for both of you?

Joe:I've got a huge list of collaborations coming up. We just released the next Jack Daniels/AJ Rankowski thriller, BEAT DOWN, that I did with Garth Perry, and THE SEXPERTS: GIRL WITH A PEARL NECKLACE, which is a Melinda DuChamp funny erotica novella. Blake Crouch and I are still doing LAST CALL, wrapping up the Jack Daniels/Luther Kite story, and this month HOLES IN THE GROUND, a sequel to ORIGIN, will come out, co-written with Rob Iain Wright. And more. Lots more.

Jude:I’m working on a brand new series called iSEAL, a trilogy of techno-thrillers about a failed Navy SEAL candidate desperate for a second chance. As a pathway back into the program, he volunteers for a research study, allowing himself to be a human guinea pig for a revolutionary new brain-computer interface. I’ll just say that things don’t go so well for him after the surgery. The first book is out now, and the second is on the way.

No One Knows

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

In 2007 I wrote a blog post called Unreproduceable Phenonmenon. For the link lazy, here are the high points:

"Books," I said, "are like a science experiment without a control. If a book is successful, everyone is quick to take credit for it, and when a book fails, everyone scratches their heads, but no one can explain why either happens because publishers can do the exact same things for two different books and get two very different results."

My friend said, "I get it. Publishing a book is an unreproduceable phenomenon."

Every book is released into the world under unique circumstances. Some of the things that factor into a book being published are:

• Type of book
• How it's written
• Who the author is
• Date of release
• Amount of advertising
• Amount of publicity
• Amount of marketing
• Publisher enthusiasm
• Bookseller enthusiasm
• Fan enthusiasm
• Library enthusiasm
• Cover art
• Print run
• Catalog placement
• Size of advance
• Foreign sales
• Movie sales
• Coop budget
• Distribution
• Similar releases
• Market saturation
• Price
• Word of mouth

Now common sense would say that many of these factors are within a publisher's control, so the more that they do, the better off the book will be. But there are so many factors that even a big book with huge expectations can, and often does, flop.

So the current publishing model is to do the bare minimum, and see if magic happens on its own. And magic happens often enough to keep everyone in the game, trying to figure out how to reproduce it.

But that's the problem. Publishing is an unreproduceable phenomenon.

I once compared publishers to those Skinner pigeons who pecked a lever that offered a treat at random intervals. The pigeons kept pecking, even though their efforts didn't yield any direct, controllable results.

If it's true that no one really knows what they're doing, and that luck is ultimately responsible for a book's success, then it really shouldn't matter what the author does because fate will decide what happens. Just write the best book possible and cross your fingers, right?

Well, sometimes that works. Sometimes you buy a single lottery ticket and win. Sometimes you buy ten tickets a week for thirty years before you win. But most of the time you never win.

Which begs the question: what should authors be doing if no one really knows what to do?

The answer is easy. You have to do everything you can to become your own unreproduceable phenomenon.

You'll do some things that work, and other things that won't, and when success comes you'll hopefully be smart enough to know that it wasn't any specific thing you did that made you a hit, but more likely a combination of things plus luck.

Luck doesn't mean you can stop trying. Luck means you have to keep trying until luck happens.

Joe sez: Now, more than six years later, a few things on my list of factors no longer apply, and a few others do. For a self-pub ebook author, I'd submit these are the major factors of concern:

• Type of book
• How it's written
• Who the author is
• Amount of advertising
• Amount of publicity
• Amount of marketing
• Fan enthusiasm
• Cover art
• Distribution
• Price
• Book description
• Formatting
• Proofreading 
• Word of mouth

As authors, we lost a lot of factors that were beyond our control, and that's a good thing. Release dates no longer matter (the best release date for an ebook is yesterday), we had no power over publisher enthusiasm, print run, catalog placement, and coop . We now can control cover art, distribution (to an extent), and price. 

The downside is we now also control advertising, publicity, and marketing, but considering most legacy pubbed books got very little of that I consider our position now to be much better.

But even though we mutinied and took over as captain, the sea still decides our ultimate fate.

In other words: there is still no way to guarantee success, and most authors will still fail to make a living at this business.

This can be extremely disconcerting. We've all heard about the self-pub shadow industry, we've seen the numbers, we've become part of this revolution, and our sales are still below even modest expectations. Which makes no sense, because we all know self-pubbed authors who are rock stars and are making a fortune.

They aren't you. Stop comparing yourself to other authors.

Now you probably have questions...

Q: What are bestselling self-pub authors doing right that everyone else is doing wrong?

A: Maybe a lot. Maybe nothing. But it comes down to luck. They got lucky. 

Q: There has to be a reason my books aren't selling well.

A: There may be many reasons. Maybe your books aren't good. Maybe your covers suck. Maybe you aren't doing enough promotion.

But there are books that sell well that aren't good, have bad covers, and aren't promoted at all.

It comes down to luck.

Q: I used to do things that helped me sell books, but now they don't work.

A: You got lucky before.

Q: How do I improve my sales?

A: No one knows for sure.

Q: Amazon must know.

A: If Amazon knew, every book it published would be a #1 bestseller. That isn't the case. Even with all the data Amazon has, it can't force a giant hit.

Because even with information, experience, and smart plans, publishing is still an unreproduceable phenomenon.

Q: So how do I make money in this business?

A: You get lucky. No one owes you a living.

Q: I feel helpless.

A: You are helpless. 

That may sound callous, but it's true. If you want job security, find something else to do. If you feel entitled, or that you deserve success, you're probably going to end up very disappointed.

No one knows why some books blow up and others don't. Maybe you can take some solace in the fact that somewhere, in a parallel universe, George RR Martin is wallowing in obscurity and your series is a #1 TV show. But, in this universe, it isn't the case. Learn to live with it.


Q: If only things were different!

A: They aren't. 

You can complain all you want to about how Amazon changed its algorithms, or how BookBub is unfair for not accepting you, or how there is too much competition, or how prices are too low, or how free is ruining everything, or how the tsunami of crap will destroy us all, but your complaints won't change things. It would be wonderful to snap your fingers and rearrange the world as you prefer it to be. That isn't the case.

We live in the here and now. We don't live in the wish and hope. 

You can curse the rain all you want, but you'd be better off getting an umbrella.

Trying to change what people want to do will never work. 

Q: So what do I do?

A: The best you can. Work hard. Experiment. Innovate. Control all you can control, and make sure it is as good as it can be. But that's still no guarantee of anything. The odds are against you succeeding. They might be better than they were under the legacy system, but ultimately both types of publishing work the same, exact way:

In order to succeed a whole lot of people need to buy your books.

That will always be beyond your control, or your publisher's control, or Amazon's control. 

The longer I'm in this business, the more I realize how little power I actually have. So I work on leveraging the power I do have.

I write good books, which I try to make as professional as possible. Good covers (and if a cover doesn't seem to work, I change it), good formatting, error-free, good product descriptions. I experiment with price, platform, and advertising. I try different genres and different pen names. I collaborate. I franchise. I discuss and debate with smart peers. I work with agents. I pay attention. 

Getting a complete stranger to buy your books isn't easy. Getting a million of them to is waaaaaay beyond anyone's means.

Becoming a success is a dream, not a goal. It isn't within your power. 

All you can do is your best, and cross your fingers. 

What I said six years ago still applies: Luck doesn't mean you can stop trying. Luck means you have to keep trying until luck happens.

Guest Post by Lisa Alber

Launch Day! Or, You Mean I’m NOT the Center of the Universe?

A guest post by Lisa Alber, author of KILMOON, A County Clare Mystery

Thank you Tess Gerritsen and Joe Konrath. My mom is suffering as I write this.

***

Today is Tuesday, the traditional day for book releases. I’m an excitable debut author, and today’s my day. Get out the balloons! It’s all about me! See my book cover over thereà? 

See, see? That’s my baby. Isn’t it about the best-looking book baby you’ve ever seen? (See bottom of this post for a description.)

Cue in: Fly buzzing and bouncing off my office window. The sound of anticlimax.

I’ve spent so many months preparing for this day that I almost forgot I was a writer rather than a social media wizard or a marketing guru. I became addicted to checking my blog stats and my Facebook likes, and to brainstorming cool and innovative promotional activities (none of which I implemented). I was trying to build my platform and increase my “discoverability” in preparation for today. Twitter parties, blog hops, and QR codes. I learned so many new terms I thought my head was going to topple off my neck.

The truth is, in many ways I’m an indie author semi-stuck in a traditional mindset. I blame my beginnings as a fictionista in New York City. I worked at a couple of the Big Boy houses, and I loved it. The behind-the-scenes glamour lived on within me even after I fled the big city back to my native west coast. I viewed getting my novel published through a nostalgic haze. I imagined myself walking the halls proud as Jackie O. in her senior editor days. I imagined being feted and courted … Or, at the very least I imagined a dedicated publicist. I wanted those preorders, and I wanted the big build-up to launch day!

The notion of a launch day meant something to me. Only, it didn’t matter so much to Amazon. My ebooks were available ahead of my official launch date. Also, having preorder status mattered to me. Preorder status goes with launch day. It’s the chocolate to the peanut butter, or the peanut butter to the chocolate. Together, they make a delicious whole. Unfortunately, in the indie world preorders can be hard to come by.

Now my debut novel is officially out there, and you know what? I’m still staring out the window, the fly is still buzzing. I’m sitting here thinking, I’m not sure how much preorders and official launch dates matter except to appear legitimate. But legimate to who? My fellow writers? Most readers don’t care. Why did I spend so much precious brain energy fretting about it all? I can only control what I can control.

I count myself lucky to be with an indie press. I’m not feeling the pressure to makes my numbers within six weeks. In the indie world a launch date is floating and flexible. At any time I can re-activate my promotional efforts to grow an audience over time.

So in the end, on this, my launch day, I’m feeling rather liberated. Foremost in my mind:

1. Keep writing. For frick’s sake set some boundaries on my crazy online efforts.

2. Don’t sweat the small stuff. I don’t know how many hours I wasted trying to “get” Google+. Forgettaboutit.

3. Be myself, not a wizard or a guru. On Facebook, I still receive more comments for my funny pet photos and absurd observations than for Kilmoon news. People, and potential readers, want to know about me as a person not a capital-a author.

4. No one really cares about my book launch except me. I’m not the center of the universe today. If you happen to buy my book based on meeting me here today, I’ll be thrilled (oh yes I will, and I’ll send you a thank you note if you let me know you did buy Kilmoon), but I’ll also be surprised.

5. Even my family forgot today was my launch day. Of course, I forgive my mom. In fact, my mom is my best fan because every time I bring up my novel she gets excited all over again, bless her supportive but forgetful self.

P.S. At the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention last September I got my guts in order and introduced myself to Tess Gerritsen. She was so gracious as I told her about my mom and extended my appreciation for her charitable efforts. Talk about a fangirl moment!

About Kilmoon

Merrit Chase travels to Ireland to meet her father, a celebrated matchmaker, in hopes that she can mend her troubled past. Instead, her arrival triggers a rising tide of violence, and Merrit finds herself both suspect and victim, accomplice and pawn, in a manipulative game that began thirty years previously. When she discovers that the matchmaker’s treacherous past is at the heart of the chaos, she must decide how far she will go to save him from himself—and to get what she wants, a family.

Lisa evokes a world in which ancient tradition collides with modern village life and ageless motivators such as greed and love still wield their power. Kilmooncaptures the moodiness of the Irish landscape in a character-driven mystery that explores family secrets, betrayal, and vengeance.

“Brooding, gothic overtones haunt Lisa Alber’s polished, atmospheric debut. Romance, mysticism, and the verdant Irish countryside all contribute to making KILMOON a marvelous, suspenseful read.” —Julia Spencer-Fleming, New York Times & USA Today bestselling author of Through the Evil Days


“This first in Alber’s new County Clare Mystery series is utterly poetic … The author’s prose and lush descriptions of the Irish countryside nicely complement this dark, broody and very intricate mystery.” —RT Book Reviews (four stars)


“In her moody debut, Alber skillfully uses many shades of gray to draw complex characters who discover how cruel love can be.” —Kirkus Reviews

About Lisa

Lisa Alber received an Elizabeth George Foundation writing grant based on Kilmoon. In addition, Ms. George asked Lisa to write a short story for Two of the Deadliest: New Tales of Lust, Greed, and Murder from Outstanding Women of Mystery (HarperCollins). She featured Lisa’s story in an “Introducing…” section for up-and-coming novelists.

Lisa is currently trying to find time within her busy social media schedule to finish her second in the County Clare mystery series, Grey Man. Ever distractible, you may find her staring out windows, dog walking, fooling around online, or drinking red wine with her friends. Ireland, books, animals, photography, and blogging round out her distractions. Lisa lives in the Pacific Northwest. Kilmoon is her first novel.

You can find Lisa at: website| Facebook| Twitter| blog

Guest Post by Chris Eboch

Chris Eboch on Perfecting Your Plot

I have opinions on the publishing business, but I’ll leave those discussions to others. My strength is writing craft. I’ve given writing workshops around the world, I’ve critiqued hundreds (possibly thousands) of manuscripts, and I’ve judged a dozen contests, so I know where writers struggle. (I’ve also written 20 traditionally-published and eight indie-published books.)

One thing people agree on when it comes to indie publishing (or traditional publishing, for that matter) is that you need a great book. But how can you tell if you have one? Frankly, most writers are not good at judging their own work. Sometimes we’re so in love with the ideas and characters that we can’t see the flaws in the manuscript. Sometimes we know what we wanted to convey, so we don’t realize we didn’t put it clearly on the page. Sometimes we’re simply not experienced enough to recognize the problems, let alone know how to fix them.

Even critique group members and beta readers can only help so much. Some critiquers are great as cheerleaders, line editors, or grammar mavens, but don’t know how to see the big picture. Some may sense problems but not know how to offer advice for fixing them. In my freelance critique business, I’ve worked with many clients who have worked through a manuscript with a critique group but still feel it needs help. They are always right.

Hiring a professional editor is a great option (visit Karen R. Sanderson’s blog, The Word Shark, for some Editor Spotlights). But before you do that, make the manuscript as strong as you can on your own. This will help you get the most from the pro’s feedback, while saving time and money. (I don’t recommend that you self publish without getting professional editorial help, but if you do, it’s even more important that you thoroughly edit on your own.)

See the Big Picture

“Big picture” revisions can include cutting or adding chapters, reordering scenes, changing your plot, and developing character arcs and themes. For this kind of revision, it’s important to see what you really have in your manuscript, not simply what you intended to do.

I developed a system for my own use which I share in my book Advanced Plotting. The goal is to first step back from the manuscript and view it as a whole, so you can see the big picture. This helps you find places where something is missing; sections that don’t make sense or don’t fit smoothly into the whole; scenes that are redundant or otherwise unnecessary; and other problems, such as chapters without enough conflict.

Once you understand the big picture problems, you can plan how to fix them. From there you can narrow your focus to the scene and paragraph level, finding and fixing smaller flaws.

If you outline before writing, you can also use this exercise to analyze your outline before you start writing. This can reduce your need for later revisions.

You can get The Plot Arc Exercise as a free Word download from my Kris Bock website (left-hand column), but here’s a brief overview:

Write a one- or two-sentence synopsis for your manuscript. What genre is it? What is it (briefly) about?

Define your goal. Do you want an action-packed page turner? A novel that explores an issue and makes people think? Keep the synopsis and goal in mind when you’re making decisions about what to add, cut, or change in the manuscript.

Outline. Don’t be intimidated by the word. You don’t need Roman numerals or subheads, just a brief description of what happens in each scene. Think of it as the equivalent of a photo album of your vacation. If you try to remember what happened on your vacation, you might get confused about what you did on each day, and you might even forget some of the highlights. A chronological photo album, with one photo per event, helps keep your thoughts organized while triggering memories of each event.

Writing an outline after you finish a draft of your novel helps you see what you did. You’re not going to edit yet, but rather analyze and make notes. You can use this outline in many ways.

Here are some things I like to do:

• Make a note of the number of pages in each chapter. If some are unusually long, I may want to divide them. If I can’t find a good cliffhanger spot as a new chapter break, that’s a sign I may not have enough action in that chapter.

• For each scene/chapter, list the emotions. Underline or highlight the major emotion. This helps ensure I have strong and varied emotions. If a scene only has fear for five pages, that’s not as emotionally powerful as a scene that has fear… relief… surprise… and more fear. Ups and downs are important.

• Keep track of subplots by briefly mentioning what happens in each chapter where that subplot appears. I might use a purple pen to keep track of the romantic subplot and a green pen to track a subplot with the main character’s father. I can make sure I didn’t neglect a subplot for too long.

Find or Design Your Own Tools

You can take my Plot Arc Exercise and adapt it for your own needs. You can also find a variety of other tools to help you analyze your plot. If something doesn’t feel like a good fit, don’t give up on the idea – try some other methods. Be patient with the process. It takes time, but the results are worthwhile.

Here are several sources for analyzing your plot:

• Advanced Plotting includes a tool for analyzing your plot, plus articles on fast starts, developing middles, plot points, cliffhangers, and more advice on making your work stronger
• The Plot Arc Exercise is available as a free Word download
• Christopher Vogler explained how novelists can use the archetypical structure of The Hero’s Journey, and you can find many examples of those stages online
• Darcy Pattison’s Novel Metamorphosis offers another way to inventory and analyze your novel
• Martha Alderson, The Plot Whisperer, has several books on plotting and structure
• The Blake Snyder Beat Sheet lists 15 plot points. (See also his Save the Cat book)
• Lee Wardlaw at Project Mayhem shares a simplified version of a Plot Map
• An example of plot mapping via Caroline Starr Rose
• Links to cool plot tools from Molly Blaisdell
• For more story analysis, visit Doug Eboch’s Let’s Schmooze blog on Screenwriting

I hope you’ve found this post helpful. If you’re interested in some of the issues that come up when self-publishing novels for children, I’ve blogged about that here.

Chris Eboch writes novels for ages nine and up. The Eyes of Pharaoh is an action-packed mystery set in ancient Egypt. The Genie’s Gift is an Arabian Nights-inspired fantasy adventure. In The Well of Sacrifice, a Mayan girl in ninth-century Guatemala rebels against the High Priest who sacrifices anyone challenging his power. In The Ghost Miner’s Treasure, a brother and sister help a ghostly miner find his long-lost mine. Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page, or check out her writing tips at her Write Like a Pro! blog.

As Kris Bock, Chris writes novels of suspense and romance involving outdoor adventures and Southwestern landscapes. Counterfeitsstarts a new series about stolen Rembrandt paintings hidden in a remote New Mexico art camp. Whispers in the Dark features archaeology and intrigue among ancient Southwest ruins. In What We Found, a young woman finds a murder victim in the woods. Rattledfollows the hunt for a long-lost treasure in the New Mexico desert. Read excerpts at www.krisbock.com or visit her Amazon page.

Whispers in the Dark is on sale for $.99 through March 22.

See Chris Eboch’s books on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords.

See Kris Bock’s books on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords.