Time, the Magic Elixir—Set Your Novel Aside for a Spell

Partial Outline for Tempest at Dawn

I believe novels are like wine, they need to age in a metaphorical cask for just the right amount of time. The chart on this page was a timeline I developed for Tempest at Dawn, my novelization of the Constitutional Convention. This chart reflected what happened during May, 1787, the first month of the Constitutional Convention. (Each number has extensive hidden notes.) I also develop separate charts for each of the following three months, plus similar charts for before and after the convention. My table for the cast of the story retained an unbelievable amount of data on all fifty-five delegates plus a dozen or so outsiders. I had spent three years studying the convention and the framers. It was a daunting task and I wanted to squeeze everything into my novel. To quote Pretty Woman, “Big mistake. Big. Huge.”

The real story of our nation's founding.

My original draft was over 240,000 words. My agent harangued me to cut, cut, cut. By the time he agreed to shop the book, it was about 175,000 words. Despite his enthusiasm, it didn’t sell, and I threw the manuscript into a drawer (actually a computer file folder) for several years. After I had successfully self-published a western series and The Shut Mouth Society, I decided to take another look at Tempest. I felt I had captured the story, but diffused the drama with too much detail. Now I went after the manuscript with hedge clippers instead of scissors. After that, professional editing and proofreading got the final published manuscript down to 140,000 words. Still a big book, but now it moved with an energized pace.

Time was the medicine that cured the ills of Tempestat Dawn. I got far enough away to lighten my emotional attachment to the project. Writing a book is consuming, but intensity can also cloud judgment. 

After your final draft is done, set it aside for a bit and let your book mellow. Does it need to be years? Absolutely not. When I finish a novel, I go on a trip. Get some real distance between me and the book. I prefer going surfing or taking a road trip with friends. Something that feels like a reward. It can be as short as a week, and is seldom more than a month. For me, travel shortens the time I need to be truly objective about the final draft.  Every writer is different, so this may not be the best way for you to clear your head. I only know that I do solid revisions after getting mentally and physically away from the book for a spell.

One last thing: it’s not easy to abandon your book. There’s excitement on completion and an anxiousness to get it out there because it’s your best work to date. Probably true, but it can always be better. Give it a little time and look at it again with fresh eyes. (I also have a couple of trusted people read and comment on the book while I’m gallivanting around.) Try it once and see if it works for you. Like I said, every writer is different.

Yeah, this skit has it about right.

Many years ago, in what seems like a prior life, I wrote a nonfiction book on enterprise computing. At the time, I was a Chief Technology Officer for a Fortune 50 company. Since nonfiction is all about credentials, I had no trouble finding an agent and publisher. I was pretty happy. I had a Boston agent and Wiley & Sons as a publisher. This was going to be good.

I wanted to title my book Dinosaurs and Whippersnappers. I thought that would be a catchy title for a book about managing computer professionals. Unfortunately, my editor disagreed. In fact she disagreed with everything I wanted to write. She insisted that focus groups had determined that books with the word Digital in the title were in high demand. Against my wishes, she re-titled the book The Digital Organization. She also wanted the book to be about corporate America, insisting that I leverage my familiarity with a celebrity CEO. I also couldn't criticize any inane technology fad because Wiley had surely already published a book that claimed the craze would blow away all prior technology, reduce the corporate labor force by half, and eliminate childhood illness. 


None of this was good advice. By the time the book was eventually published, technologists were sick and tired of books with Digital in the title, my celebrity CEO had lost his luster, and all of my technology advice and references were woefully out of date. Business leaders, however, still had to manage computer professionals and my chapter on this subject kept the book alive in some MBA programs.

What brought all of this ancient history to mind? A hilarious skit by Mitchell and Webb. Way too close to my personal experience. Take a gander. 



The irony of all of this is that Wiley is still marketing The Digital Organization. Traditional publishing moves at a glacial pace, so this technology book was already obsolete by the time it hit bookshelves in 1997. Yet Wiley continues to offer a Kindle version for $49.95. Not many authors recommend against buying one of their own books, but I suggest you give this one a pass.

By the way, this experience taught me a lesson. Never write a book that has a shelf-life of six nanoseconds. This is a big reason why I write historical novels. They last forever. Even the contemporaneous books of Mark Twain, Jane Austen, Raymond Chandler, and Louisa May Alcott are now read as historical novels. I may not be of their caliber, but I sure want to write in their genre.

Mistakes Aplenty

Hi, I'm looking for a Bible for my mother but I'm not quite sure who the author is

Here are three sites that allow us to laugh at other people's mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. I know I've made more than a few. Although it's great therapy to be reminded that other witless people abound, I fear one day I'll open an article to find my own mistakes broadcast to amuse the world. So far, I've escaped this humiliation but it remains a fearsome nightmare.

Witless Questions Customers Ask in Bookshops 
(The comments outdo the article examples)

Query Letters From Hell

What NOT to Do When Beginning Your Novel

Frederick Faust, aka Max Brand

Frederick Faust was one of the most prolific writers of all time, publishing nearly thirty million words in his lifetime. Faust had more pen names than Destry had bullets. (In the film, Destry Rides Again, based on the Faust character, James Stewart famously shoots his Colt seven times.) He wrote more than 500 novels and short stories—all with two fingers on a manual typewriter. In his day, Faust was one of the highest paid writers in the world. Late in his career, Warner Brothers paid him $3,000 a week and he made a fortune from radio, film, and television adaptions of his Dr. Kildare character. Despite writing poetry and fiction in every genre, it was Westerns that made Faust famous, albeit under the pseudonym Max Brand.

Although Faust had once worked on a ranch, he was not a true Westerner. He was born in Seattle in 1892 and grew to maturity in California. He attended the University of California at Berkeley for four years without graduating. He was enamored with the Greek and Latin classics his entire life and often incorporated ancient mythology into his stories. His real life’s ambition was to be a poet, and he wrote genre fiction in the afternoons so he could pursue his passion for poetry in the mornings.

Faust wrote his first Western as a magazine story in 1918. Faust’s editor had recently lost Zane Grey to a competitor because Grey’s Western stories had become so popular. This editor convinced Faust to try to fill his boots. Faust’s first Western novel, The Untamed (1919) was highly derivative of a 1910 Grey Western titled The Heritage of the Desert.

Grey and Faust were different writers. Grey was enthralled with the landscape and expansiveness of the West, while Faust preferred to explore internal conflicts. Grey brought setting almost to life as a character, while Faust had a knack for describing animals in a way that made them vital characters in his stories. Faust preferred pursuit plots, delayed revelation, and his fiction was character driven. Faust was a more literary writer, especially when he put his mind to it.  Jon Tuska, a literary critic/agent, wrote: “The Biblical overtones that run throughout Faust’s Western fiction are as striking and unique as his imagery from classical literature. Indeed, Zane Grey’s avowed pantheism is wan beside the vivid evocation of the presence of God in Faust’s fiction, whether as the Great Spirit of the Plains Indians or the Christian Deity … every story Faust ever wrote seems to have to a degree both surface action and a subtext, a story within the story that functions on the deepest level.”

Although Faust received praise from literary critics, his lack of historical accuracy, scant descriptions of the landscape, and minimal actual experience on the frontier generated harsh criticism by those who admire realistic detail in Western fiction. Additionally, His writing quality was inconsistent. Most of his books and stories were produced at a breakneck pace, which sometimes amounted to 6,000 words in a single day. His work has also been butchered by editors who severely abridge his serialized stories for publication as novels.

Frederick Faust was a one-man fiction factory. He was also a great storyteller who invented enduring characters. Faust believed that “there is a giant asleep in every man.  When that giant wakes, miracles can happen.”  This was certainly true for him.

Guest Blog Post: Meet Author James D. Best

From 
Free Kindle Books and Tips

"Continuing the guest blog posts by independent authors, best-selling author James D. Best tells us the background of his novel, Tempest at Dawn, plus some other interesting facts about him I didn't know prior to reading this post. A friend of mine at work has read it and said it was great, and I have added it to my Kindle."

Read my Post by following this link. Thanks.

Rejected Books that Became Bestsellers

Jill Harness reports at Flavorwire that these are ten huge bestsellers that were originally rejected numerous times. She writes, "Anyone who has ever wanted to work in a creative field, be it writing, painting or playing music has been told they better develop thick skin. After all, it doesn't matter how good you are, someone will always be there to tear you down. It's hard to think of a better example of this than to look at some rejected books that would later become some of the best-selling titles in the world."

Read her complete article

How to Get Your Book Published, No Nonsense Advice

Selling your book

How to Get Your Book Published from James D. Best

View more presentations from James D. Best.

2nd Annual Avondale Writers Conference

I will be presenting at the 2nd Annual Avondale Writers Conference in Avondale, Arizona. The title of my talk is How to Get Your Book Published: No Nonsense Advice. The all-day conference is on Saturday October 29th, starting with registration at 8:00 AM. I'm refining my presentation during down moments on my road trip. We've driven from Las Vegas to Salt Lake. City. Great country, great company. Next stop, Butte, Mo.
Conference Link

New Cover for The Shut Mouth Society

For a long time, I've wanted to change the cover of The Shut Mouth Society. Although the story has strong historical elements, it's a contemporary thriller. The old cover looked like a historical novel, or even a non-fiction book on Lincoln. With the completion of Murder at Thumb Butte, I was able to dedicate some time to work with a designer on a new cover.