Last night I received the my critique from a fabulous blogger and friend Hart Johnson of "Tart" fame. Visit her blog you will love her... everybody does! http://waterytart23.blogspot.com/
To my delight she enjoyed my five thousand word excerpt. She commented on the strong characters and the believable circumstance between Aidan and his psychotic dad. She even dislikes Aidan.
Everything I wrote accomplished what it set out to do. I was on top of the world until.... the axe hit.
A huge technical flaw: I flipped my tenses! NOOOOOO!
Unfortunately, yes. Of course I freaked. Only three days away from submitting to ABNA. Thousands of tenses need to be corrected.
Don't let this happen to you.
My first two novels I wrote in third person. I never had issues with tense. THE BLINDED GARDENER is in first person. Since I have never written in first person before I fell into this trap.
According to my wonderful friend, Hart, this can happen when you make the switch. Thankfully she caught this. But now I am more crazed than ever going through 57000 plus words to fix this mess. I had spent hours last night and today editing... Hence, the late post.
I am only on page 56 of my 225 page novel. I really need all of you cheers and support now more that ever!
So DON'T let tenses ruin your novel. Make sure the correct tenses are consistent throughout, or you can be going crazy like me.
I've got to get back to editing. Everyone, please forgive me. I might not be able to visit you this weekend. This annoys me so much. It is the highlight of my day to visiting all of you.
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE!
18 comments:
Oh no! I had a problem with POV switches in the beginning of mine. I am in revisions now and changing those. Good luck!!
Ouch! We're sending our whole-hearted support from here in North Devon. Good luck!
Glad she caught it though! Now I'm really afraid to ever attempt first person.
Ooh! (handing you virtual cups of coffee) I haven't written in the first person (as yet) but I do pop my POVs if I'm not careful.
You have lashings of support - best of luck. We'll all still be here after the weekend.
.....and breathe...
All the work is really in the editing. You have to hang tough and get in there and clean it up! Blogging is the last thing you need to worry about!!!
love me some Tami Hart critting! But don't fret! At least that's an easy fix, right? Time consuming, but not requiring additional content. Best of luck~ :o)
That has got to hurt. Best of luck getting it done and staying sane.
I had the same problem with mine last year. Luckily you can spot them pretty quickly when you know they're there. Just avoid the traps I fell into. Try not to change everything to "had ___" and "was __-ing" or it'll read even worse.
You'll make it!! I CANNOT imagine ABNA will close the first day, so you've got time (I think it's a good indicator they stretched the window to submit to 2 weeks that even they are afraid they won't fill the first week).
erica
so sorry you have so much unexpected work ahead of you but good thing the watery tart found those bad tenses so you can fix them BEFORE you send. good luck:)
Sorry to hear you have to revise again. Good luck.
I think writing in first person is really difficult. I haven't tried it yet. Good luck with the editing.
She really is wonderful. Good luck with your revisions and what not! Never fret, it will all be worth it!
Hart is great to help like that. How did I miss the wrong tense in your first chapter? Tell me you didn't use the wrong tense in those pages, please. If you did, I can only plead my cold. Rats. I hate that you have so much more work to do than you thought. Roland
Good heavens, yes--don't worry about blogging. Good luck making the switches. Rah! Rah! You can do it!
Ugh, that's why I don't write in first person. But I really should try it sometime. Great that you tried it!
Awwwww! Thanks for the love, Michael! And it IS pretty easy. Just time consuming. You will make it!
*giggles at Roland* I noticed it a couple times in the first chapter, but the chapter break was the big flip, so i can see how you missed. And when I switched from 3rd to first person it was TOTALLY instinct to ALSO go 1st person, even without WANTING to (as I have 3 PoVs and only one is 1st) Very hard NOT to do present in 1st.
Ooh that sounds like a major headache. Tense? I bet you are. Hope the tense inversion task isn't too ardous. Glad your CP liked your writing, that's the main thing. :O)
I am not one to judge, since just a few days ago, while working on the very final edits to send back to my editor, I stumbled upon one of my male characters who wanted to tear another character apart with his "bear" hands.
Happens to us all :)
I had this problem when I switched to first person though mine was slightly different. I switched from past to present instead of first to third. I had never written present. I don't know what came over me.
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