Read Around the Rainbow: After The End

After the end sounds like some kind of near-death experience, doesn’t it? In this case it refers to writing, and what comes next when an author finishes the book. Then again, since this involves editing and writing a blurb and synopsis, maybe the near-death experience isn’t so far off after all.

To be honest, I quite enjoy the editing process. Most of the time. I’m a bit of a geek, and what geek doesn’t like nit-picking something to death? I usually do at least three editing ‛passes’ on anything before I either self-publish it or send it out. The first is the general ‛fix all those screaming issues you spotted while you were writing it’ one. Then comes a line-by-line, picking up on spelling mistakes, typos and continuity errors. Lastly a final read-through to get the rhythm of the actual writing and make sure everything makes sense. I can’t guarantee that I’ll pick up on every single error, but I’m lucky enough to have had formal training in proofreading, which helps.

Writing a blurb isn’t usually too bad either. By the time you’ve done all that (points upwards) to a book, you know it well enough to be able to tell other people what it’s about. I have a tendency to be too wordy (surprise! lol) and sometimes have to trim my efforts down afterwards, but I can hopefully make it sound amusing, or enticing, or both. Like this one, for my book Ghosts Galore, for instance, which I really enjoyed coming up with.

‟Cash-strapped artist Adam Price is the owner of Greystones Hall, an ancient manor house he shares with a plethora of ghosts. He adores the place, but life is a constant battle to pay the bills and he’s lonely, too, following the death of his beloved grandfather two years earlier.

Lonely, that is, until the Ghosts Galore crew offer to film an episode at Greystones Hall. Adam’s a bit dubious about letting them loose in his home, but allows himself to be persuaded by the fee they’ll be paying him. Led by handsome producer Carl, dotty medium Stella and pleasant-but-nondescript historian Guy, they fill the house with wiring, cameras, lights and people. But when filming starts, things soon go wrong. The crew turn out to be using dodgy tricks. Carl refuses to believe in ghosts in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. And Stella stirs up a new and malevolent spirit, more dangerous than any that have been known at Greystones Hall before, who seems to have a violent dislike of Adam’s art.

As Carl and Stella disappear and the local vicar is powerless to help, Adam turns to Guy—who has a secret of his own—for help. Together they must solve a centuries-old mystery involving lost paintings, a priest hole, and a death that might have caused all the negative energy in the house. But that’s not all the pair discover, on a night of adventure that also brings unexpected romance…”

Synopses, however, are a whole different story (pun fully intended) and quite frankly an invention of the devil. I’ve yet to meet a single author who enjoys doing them, and I’m no different from the rest. Summarising an entire book, including all the main characters, all the main plot threads, all the main action points and the ending, in no more than two pages of text, and still making it sound vaguely readable, is HARD. Trust me. I suck at it, and it’s one of the things I definitely prefer about self-publishing over having a publisher. Even the best/nicest/sweetest publishers want a synopsis. Amazon, bless them, don’t.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that finishing the book isn’t the same as finishing the work because there’s still a lot of ‘process’ to go through. All the slaving and nit-picking and sweating blood is worth it, though, when the end result is a nice, shiny new book. That’s one of the best feelings in the world!

Like the sound of Ghosts Galore, by the way? You can find out more about it on my website here.

And don’t forget to check out this month’s other posts on the trials and tribulations faced by the rest of the webring mob once they’ve finished writing their books:

A L Lester :: Holly Day :: Amy Spector :: Ofelia Grand :: Ellie Thomas :: Addison Albright :: Nell Iris :: K L Noone :: Lillian Francis

Pic credit: Anne Karakash on Pixabay.com