Polish the Sample Chapters of my Novel

I’ve got one file of the first thousand words, which some agents ask for.

I need to put together a second file with the first five pages.

Perhaps I should also get together another file with five pages that are in the middle of the action, instead of just the beginning. A sample, rather than the first pages. I need to consider re-introducing the prologue. I think it adds a good contrast to the present day story, even though I took it out, thinking that it was too far from the action and too gimmicky… but it’s a genre book, and I think genre books are allowed some gimmicks.

What else do agents ask for? 20 pages? What does a partial consist of? I think I might be in trouble a bit if an agent asks for the whole thing, because I have not edited the last chapters very much at all. But then again, I’ve been told that you want to make sure that your novel is 85% done before sending it out. I think I am farther than that. It’s all there, it just needs to be tightened and polished and maybe insert a little depth and richness.

I’ve actually had a few beta readers, although not in its final draft form.

Why do I always feel like I am a beginner, when I am actually a lot closer to done?

my revision process has completely deleted the prologue and the first chapter, which was all set up and exposition. It is more fully in the middle of the action, although that action is the romance, and this is more about action than romance. Well, perhaps a kind of doomed romance that isn’t really doomed. Or is it?

has been serving to polish the chapters. I need to make sure I can include chapter two with a sample, not just chapter one, because that’s where all the action happens. Does that mean I should shorten chapter one? I might be able to. Well, something to check later. Not right now.

I did want to say that I am beginning to feel very satisfied with my title change. It went from Wolf Run, which I find bland and undistinguished, to Girl of Freaks. I like the edge of that. And the connotations of a deck of tarot cards and prophecy, not Queen of Wands (or clubs for regular playing cards) but girl of freaks. Also it points out to how she feels about herself, and who she turns out to be.

Well, I should get writing now before I have to go to work in an hour and a half.

Not procrastinating. There is a difference.

I have about 7 or 8 people reading my book right now. The feedback has been pretty good so far.

BUT I still need to tighten and polish, especially the beginning. It’s sad that the best part of the book is the end… when it’s the first part of the book that gets a reader hooked, and the first couple of pages that get it sold.

However, I need to give some time to nanowrimo and let this book rest. So I am going to write the second book in the series. The good thing there is that I will be able to insert some tidbits from the future into the first book. Just little hints, little bits of foreshadowing.

I want it to be the best book I can make it, and that requires a little extra time. So I delay my goal by a couple of months. That’s okay. Right?

I took a quick pass over the first chapter and discovered that it was not as bad as I had feared.

This is probably because while I was doing my third draft, I spent a lot of time on the prologue and the first chapter, because I knew the biggest problem of my novel was in that first chapter. I should probably check out the second chapter, actually. I think the problem might have shifted there. But…. I could probably get away with just the prologue and the first chapter for sample chapters, since the second chapter really is maybe kind of TWO chapters, and there’s a lot of action in the second half of it. And the next chapter is kind of a lull in the action, and I don’t really want to end a proposal type thing IN the lull.