Bookbaby Blog Post - Blow Up your Novel

Radical revision: four ways to blow up and rebuild your novel

by Chris Robley on June 9, 2015 in Editing, Writing Tips

You’re stuck. Something about your book just isn’t working, but you’re not quite sure what it is. Time for drastic measures.
Yes, you could tinker away at the sentence level or rearrange a few chapters here and there — but when your ideas stall or you’ve written yourself into a corner, maybe it’s time to do something radical to shake things up and revise your book. Why not GO EXTREME!? You can always return to your original stinker of a draft if these attempts at radical revision fail, right? So yeah; you’re totally safe to play around and get your hands dirty.
Here are four things to try when your manuscript feels like it’s falling flat.
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Explosive stuff

Douglas

More Russell Blake

Four Years

June 11, 2011. A day that shall go down in literary infamy. On that day, I pressed publish on my first novel, a little ditty titled Fatal Exchange. Little did I know it would change my life.

Having just typed “the end” on Emerald Buddha, the sequel to Ramsey’s Gold, it’s fitting to me that tome’s my 40th book. Counting my blog, I’ve easily clocked 5 million words over that four years, and probably closer to 6 million if I throw in all my message board posts.
So what’s changed during that time?

Read on by clicking here.

Dealing with Criticism

I had a long discussion with an author the other day about her slumping mood due to having received a spate of one star reviews on her latest book, which caused her to question the direction her writing had taken, whether she was really cut out to be an author, etc.
Here’s my view on negative criticism:
Everyone’s got an opinion. You can’t make everyone happy. You aren’t trying to please the entire world, just those you target with your work. And sometimes, even those folks ... 

Read on by clicking here.

Have a good read

Douglas