​It started in October, 2021.  I’d managed to get away on holiday in the midst of the various Covid related travel restrictions.  I spent a week by the pool, reading.
 
I used to read loads.  In my late teens and early twenties I consumed books like they were chocolate.  I’d read series after series, mostly fantasy but with a few historical fiction novels and the odd sci-fi book thrown in too.  Every night I’d read before bed.  Sometimes I’d fill bits of my day with my nose stuck in a book, too.
 
Then life happened, and I stopped.
 
I didn't stop reading completely, of course.  I still read every now and then, and I always read on holiday.  And it was during my holiday in October 2021 that my love of books was rekindled, and the story idea I'd been thinking of on and off, for over a decade re-emerged in my head. 
 
I wrote my first novel around 15 years ago.  I was in a graduate job where I had to stare at a screen all day but didn’t have enough work to keep me busy.  So writing a novel was a way to look busy.  No one really cared what I was doing, I just looked like I was doing something.
 
In 2021 I found myself in a similar position.  I had to sit at a computer all day, I had to be there in case anyone called or emailed, but the work I had to do didn’t fill my day.  So I decided to write.
 
The Queen of Vorn first materialised in my head soon after I’d written my first (not very good) novel.  I’d started writing it a couple of times before, and never really got into it.  But in 2021 I started again, and this time I couldn’t stop.  By Christmas that year, the first draft was written and I started on book 2 then 3. Meanwhile, I asked people to read my first book.  They were friends and family, people who weren’t exactly experts on writing.  Back then I was excitable, and possibly deluded, and so when their positive feedback rolled in, I believed it.  Except that doubt nibbled at me.  I just wasn’t quite sure.
 
So in the spring I asked an independent editor to give my manuscript a review.  I got her report back a month or so later and it didn’t make for great reading.  I mean the report was well written, but it didn’t exactly tell me what I wanted to hear.
 
My novel stank.
 
OK, to be fair, that’s not what she wrote, but that was the gist.  The report flagged up all the major structural issues that I already had a suspicion were there.  It highlighted the massive holes in the plot, and made it clear it needed a lot of work.  I mean, like a total re-write.
 
Mentally, I wasn’t ready for that.
 
So I cracked on with more writing.  I wrote a sequel trilogy, did loads of work on it, got it edited, published it, then un-published it.  Previous blogs talk about why I did that, that’s not the point of this post.  I want to focus on The Queen of Vorn, and its journey to a whole new world.
 
Last year, over two years since I’d written the first draft, I re-wrote The Queen of Vorn.  I was finally ready to sort the thing out. 
 
I’m sure it ended up a hell of a lot better than it was, but it still wasn’t right.  I wasn’t sure about the first few chapters; I tweaked them and reviewed the rest.  I kind of thought it was pretty good.  Then I employed someone else to give it a review.
 
This review didn’t say it stank, but it did tell me there was certainly room for improvement.  So off I went and re-wrote the thing again.  I’ve just finished version four.
 
I was curious how much of the original novel remains, I compared the chapters based on my plot log and created a nice little diagram to show the changes.  Take a look below.

There’s a lot of red there.
 
If you look at the key, you can see that red shows chapters that I wrote then axed.  There’s 33 of them all together.   I average roughly 3,000 words a chapter, so that’s nearly 100,000 words I’ve deleted in my mission to make the Queen of Vorn half decent.  For comparison, you can see the word counts of the versions themselves at the bottom of each column.
 
That’s a shed load of words that will never again see the light of day.
 
But besides all the stuff I’ve chopped, I’ve done a hell of a lot of heavy editing, too.  All the orange chapters have been significantly altered from their original versions.  Even the green ones will have been tweaked – I’ll have re-written poor descriptions and improved clunky dialogue.
 
The Queen of Vorn has taken a lot of words, a lot of time and a lot of heart ache to get it right.
 
I’m hoping now it’s half decent.
 
No one has read this version yet.  I’m going to let it stew for a bit while I work on another novel.  I’ll then come back to it and give it a read-through.  I’ll correct grammatical errors and maybe make some changes to descriptions that don’t quite work, or I might flesh out some bits and cut others.  But the bones will certainly stay the same.
 
Then it will go back to my editor.  Hopefully for a line and copy edit.  Hopefully she won’t flag up major plot holes or structural issues.  Hopefully, when she’s done, it will be almost ready for publishing.
 
Hopefully.  Time will tell.
 
I’ve written this blog for anyone who’s curious about what goes into writing a novel, or for anyone who’s writing their own.  Back in October 2021, I was deluded into thinking that I could get things right first time.  I was wrong.
 
I waffled on in my last blog about a writer’s growth.  The Queen of Vorn was the seed for me, the story that really did start my writing journey.  I’m determined to make it good.  I hope one day you get the chance to read it, that you’ll agree it's good, and you’ll tell me so.  When that happens, I’ll know all this work was worth it.
 
Curious about how it starts?  I’m sending out my first chapter in my August newsletter.  Sign up below for your chance to get an advance preview.

​I’ve written seven novels, eight if you include the terrible collection of words I threw together in my early twenties.  And up until very recently, I’ve never bought a book on writing.  Other than what I was taught in English lessons up until the age of sixteen, I’ve never had any formal training in writing, either.  I approach writing, as most things in life, by just giving it a go and seeing what happens.
 
So how’s that working out?
 
For me?  Not too bad, actually.  Primarily because I’m pretty good at being self-critical and being open to feedback.  I’ve not read any books on novel writing, but I have had some professional advice from editors and a fair bit of feedback on various bits of my writing from people who have a vague idea what they’re talking about. 
 
It’s because of this feedback that I took the three novels I self-published last year off the market.  Being prodded to view my stories in a certain way allowed me to see the flaws and since then, I’ve employed more professional help.
 
I’ve talked about Snowdon Publishing Services before – they’re a small business that helps authors in a whole range of areas relating to writing and publishing.  It was Peter from this company that helped me see the flaws in my published novels.  It’s Karen, his daughter, who’s helping me grow as a writer.
 
So, after writing seven novels, and getting three of them market ready, what more is there to learn?
 
Lots.
 
I’m inclined to think good story tellers are born, not made.  But just like some people are naturally good at sports or DIY and others aren’t, no one becomes a top sportsman without training, and no one gets good at fitting a kitchen without at least a little bit of practice and instruction. 
 
At the risk of sounding a tad arrogant, I think I’m quite good at making up stories, but there’s more to a good novel than just a decent over-arching idea.
 
Character Sheets
 
One of the things Karen suggested I do, was create character sheets.  Before I started to use the template she’d provided, I thought it was enough to keep my character’s profiles in my head.  I was wrong.
 
Why?
 
Because when I read the questions on the character sheet, I realised I hadn’t fully considered all the aspects of the character I needed to.  Sure, I knew how they looked, what their back story was and what kind of personality they had, but I didn’t really get what motivated them, because I hadn’t given it enough thought.
 
The first question on the sheet that started to make me think was What is the emotional wound that causes the flaw?
 
Err…
 
At first glance I didn’t know the answer.  I was struggling to work out what the emotional wound was for some of my characters.  But when I thought about it, I realised that all of them did indeed have this kind of wound.  And when I considered this wound more deeply, I was able to develop a far greater understanding of their motives.
 
Themes
 
Karen also asked me what my theme was.  Um, I had to scratch my head for a moment because I wasn’t sure.  I then Googled ‘themes’ to see what a theme looked like.  Then I figured it out.  A theme is the main idea or underlying meaning that is explored in a novel.  When I thought about the story I’m currently working on The Queen of Vorn, I realised my theme is "do what’s right, not what’s easy". 
 
Now, with this theme in mind, I thought about the first chapter of The Queen of Vorn that I’d recently re-drafted.  I thought about my two main characters, Emma and Tom.  Both of them do what’s right, not what’s easy, but in very different ways.  In Emma’s case, it’s trying to unpick the gap in her memories as a young child, in Tom’s case, its heading towards danger to provide medical aid to wounded soldiers.  I also realised I’d not done the greatest job of portraying this theme, but I knew with a few tweaks, I could make this theme pop out, and the story would be improved as a result.
 
Beat Sheets
 
What the hell is a beat sheet?  It’s basically a list of key parts of your story.  When I did a revision to the plot of The Queen of Vorn, I ran it past Karen to get her thoughts.  She mentioned plot beats and started linking parts of my story into these beats.  This is an idea that is talked about in a book she also mentioned, called Save The Cat! Writes A Novel.  There’s a diagram of this format below.

I’m not going to talk about beat sheets here, mainly because I’m about to digress and go back to the point of this blog post.  I’m going to talk about a writer's growth.
 
You see, after Karen mentioned Save The Cat, (more than once), I thought maybe I should buy a copy.  It arrived a few days back and I started to read it.  After skimming over just the first few chapters I saw a lot of her advice written in those pages and expanded upon besides.  It was one of those moments when I realised how little I knew, but conversely, how much I did know, too.
 
When I read about beats in more detail. I saw how, to a large extent, my plot slotted in to a tried and tested formula, while bits that were out of sequence were highlighted.  In some cases it made sense for these bits to be out of sequence, in other cases, I realised bits needed to move.
 
I read about how a character’s wants and needs should fit in with the theme.  Everything Karen had told me started to fit together but I also realised that I had so much still to learn.
 
So what?
 
So what is a phrase we use in the army when we’re working out a plan to defeat the enemy.  “We know there’s three tanks hidden in that wood block and they have artillery defending their flanks; so what?”
 
The so what here is that in reading Save The Cat, I learned that I’m naturally good at writing stories.  I instinctively put a plot together that fits a tried and tested formula.  I figured out I already use themes, and my characters have wants and needs.  I learned that I did most of this without thinking about it, but with a bit of conscious effort, I can really improve on my delivery.  I’ve identified some of the gaps in my knowledge and found ways to improve my writing.  So the so what in this case is this:
 
You always have more to learn, never stop learning, never stop growing.

Back in October 2021, I started writing.  The story that had been rattling around my head for the best part of ten years, finally got written.  By Christmas 2021, I’d finished my first draft and I launched myself straight into the sequel.  By the end of spring, 2022, I’d written three draft novels and was deluded into thinking I could actually write.

​I started querying my first novel, I also paid an editor for a review of said novel.  When I got my feedback, I realised it stank.  I gave up querying and parked my first trilogy and cracked on with the sequel trilogy.  By autumn of the same year, I’d drafted another three novels.
 
Wow!  In around twelve months, I’d committed over 600,000 words to paper.  That’s a lot by anyone’s standards.  I find writing first drafts easy; the stories rattle around my head and fight to come out.  I’ve never had writer’s block; I’ve never struggled to come up with a plot or to work out a direction of travel for my stories.  But that’s half the problem.
 
I’m incredibly impatient.  I hate indecision and I have a bias for action in everything I do.  I can’t deal with uncertainty and things I can’t control.  It’s the main reason I don’t run a property development company anymore.  I can’t deal with the stress caused by the uncertainty of the process of selling houses I’ve renovated or built.  But this characteristic often leads to poor, rushed decisions.
 
When it comes to writing, I don’t take time to think plots and characters over for a long period of time, I quickly decide how things should go, and start scribbling.
 
In writing, as in life, this doesn’t always lead to the best outcomes.
 
Lesson 1.  A rushed novel is (probably) a flawed novel. 
 
If you prioritise speed over perfection, you will move too quickly to spot the bits that still need work.
 
So after I’d drafted six novels, then what?  Well, I convinced myself I knew what I was doing after all that writing practice.  I’d had some positive feedback from the few people who’d read my novels and a few suggestions of tweaks I could make.  I decided that was enough to allow me to do my own developmental edits.
 
Lesson 2.  Your average alpha reader (an alpha reader is a first draft reader – beta readers tend to read your almost finished novel) is no substitute for a pro. 
 
Friends and family may be able to give you some basic feedback, but they won’t give your novel the critical review it needs.
 
Friends and family had given me some nice feedback, but my professional review and my own instincts made me realise that my first three novels needed loads of work, so I decided to focus on the second three which were in a better state.  These were the ones I was going to self-publish.  They were set twenty years after the first trilogy and had been written to stand alone – think Star Wars episodes IV – VI.
 
I started work on getting my second trilogy publishing ready.  I shifted chapters around and re-wrote bits.  I read through each of the manuscripts a few times and improved descriptions, made dialogue less clunky, made sure things flowed better and thought I’d fixed everything I needed to fix.  I then employed a pro to do a line and copy edit of my novels.  For those who aren’t editing experts, line editing looks at decent use of language, readability and flow, while copy editing looks primarily at technical accuracy and decent spelling and grammar.
 
Lesson 3.  A line and copy editor will not fix a flawed novel.  
 
They will only make sure your English is good, they will not point out massive plot holes or under-developed characters.
 
After I’d done my own developmental edit based on the feedback of un-qualified alpha readers and got my novels edited by a pro, I was convinced my second trilogy was awesome.  I employed a pro-cover designer too, and got some pretty covers…
 
Lesson 4.  A cover designer will only every work to your brief, don’t expect miracles.
 
I’ll come back to the lesson above shortly.  So there I was, with my newly edited novels and shiny covers.  I got them whacked online at six-week intervals and rushed them out the door.  It kind of sounds like I should have paid attention to lesson 1 here – DON’T RUSH!  Because I rushed, I wasn’t able to have the sequel ready for pre-order on day one.  I should have waited until they were all ready. 
 
Anyway…
 
By summer 2023 I’d published all three books in my second trilogy and then tried a lot of things to sell them.  I tried Amazon ads, Facebook ads, I used promo sites, I worked on my author platforms on my website, Amazon and Goodreads, I even employed a marketing agency.
 
I sold a few hundred books; take a look at an earlier blog to see the figures.

​I sold the equivalent of 450 books, if you include pages read on Kindle Unlimited, but as I followed the stats over time, I noticed something – my readthrough wasn’t great.  People who bought book 1, weren’t buying the sequel.  On the plus side, a lot of people who bought book 2 did buy book 3, so things were looking good there, so what was the issue with book 1?
 
I had good reviews for book 1.  It was averaging 4.3 stars and I had quite a few reviews from people I’d never met independently singing my book’s praises.  I was really struggling to work out what was wrong.  Then a lovely chap called Peter from Snowdon Publishing Services helped me figure it out.
 
Lesson 5.  Your novel is flawed, the question is, how flawed? 
 
Even best-sellers have flaws, but little flaws can be overlooked, the best marketing in the world can’t save a heavily flawed novel.
 
It took time for me to conclude the first novel in my second trilogy was full of issues.  I’d always had doubts about the first chapter and wondered about other threads besides.  Peter flagged up the issues with chapter 1, I was also beginning to doubt the rest of the manuscript too, in part because of the stats on the read-through.  So I pulled my whole trilogy off the market and employed Peter’s daughter, Karen, to give my manuscript a review.
 
Lesson 6.  Be prepared to start again.  
 
One definition of insanity is to keep trying the same things and to expect different results.
 
One of the reasons I’d started my self-publishing journey with my second trilogy, was that it would give me a chance to start again.  I could re-launch with my first trilogy, and good god, I’m so very glad I have this opportunity.
 
Karen’s review came back, I gave it a read and it was like the rose-tinted filters I’d viewed my novel with were ripped away.  I could see the whole thing so much more clearly now.  Every flaw she flagged made complete sense, I agreed with it all.  The novel is fixable – it has a good overall concept and some good characters, there’s just bits that aren’t delivered as well as they could be.  I’m going to fix that book, but not yet.
 
Right now I’m preparing to launch the first trilogy. 
 
I’d re-written my very first novel in the summer of 2023 and tried to query it to literary agents for a time.  But soon after I’d made the decision to pull my second trilogy off the market, I decided to self-publish the first trilogy, too.  I’ve asked Karen to review book 1 of my very first trilogy.  She’s provided some very valuable feedback and I now know what I need to do to it.  I’m going to crack on shortly, just as soon as I’ve finished the re-write of my second novel. 
 
When I re-read my early work, I realise how bad my writing was back then.  The amount I’ve learned from my writing journey to date is immense. 
 
Lesson 7.  You will get better the more you write.  
 
You are a better writer than you were when you wrote your first, first draft.  You are not as good as you will be in years to come.
 
I’m getting my covers re-designed too.  I said I’d come back to lesson 4 – well, back when I was trying to rush my novels onto the market, I employed a rather expensive American to design my covers thinking that because he was expensive, he’d work miracles.  He didn’t.  He produced pretty covers but they didn’t link to the story as well as they could have done.  When you’re marketing, you’re paying for clicks.  If people click on a pretty cover that doesn’t link to your blurb, you’re wasting money.  Your covers have to be right, so you need to give a lot of thought into what graphics will sell your story and guide your designer accordingly.
 
After I decided to pull my first trilogy off the market and had received the professional feedback from book 1 in my second trilogy (The General’s Son), I made a metal ‘to-do’ list, it looks a bit like this:

• Get a manuscript review of book 1 in my first trilogy (The Queen of Vorn) Done!
• Re-write book 2 in my first trilogy (The Prince of Vorn) Almost done.
• Use feedback from review of book 1 to get the manuscript into shape.  Not started.
• Get a manuscript review of book 2.  Not started.
• Re-write book 3 in my first trilogy. Not started.
• Use feedback from review of book 2 to get the manuscript into shape.  Not started.
• Get a manuscript review of book 2.  Not started.
• Get all three books line and copy edited.  Not started.
• Begin work on the second trilogy. Not started.

 
You can see that there’s a lot of work to do here, and if I pay attention to my first lesson, I realise I really shouldn’t rush things. 
 
I’m going to take my time getting my novels ready this time.  I’m going to make sure they are all pretty much ready to publish before I even release the first book in the series.  If I’m focussing on editing, I won’t have time to do marketing.
 
I’m going to plan properly this time, I’m going to have a marketing strategy, I’m going to have polished novels that really are as good as I can get them before I send them out into the world.  I’m going to heed my own lessons.
 
It’s going to take time.  But as I said in my last blog, few authors have success overnight.  Very, very few.  It’s a marathon, not a sprint.  I’ve started a whole new race but I’m pacing myself this time so that when I get to the end, not only will I have the energy to tell the world what I’ve achieved, I’ll finish with the strength to start another race, but next time, armed with all I’ve learned from the first race, I’ll do even better.

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