“Update on The Farpool”

My next science fiction novel, The Farpool, is nearing the end of its first draft.  This will probably occur by the end of June.  I’m anticipating that the first draft will weigh in at around 300 pages, maybe a little more. 

Then the fun begins.  This is called editing, about as much fun as flossing your teeth, but equally necessary.  My normal practice during the first draft is to pause briefly every 100 written pages or so and re-read from the start, to see if the story flows and is tracking with my outline. Now, after completing the first draft, comes the Big Edit.  Re-read from the beginning and try to act like a disinterested reader.  Does the story grab me?  Does it pull me in?  Does it flow and make sense?  Are the characters, in this story, largely intelligent marine creatures, believable?  What can I cut out?  What can I do to tighten things up?  And is the setting believable and what of it can I cut out…usually a good bit.  I expect this will take several weeks, maybe a month.  But the end result should be a cleaner, tighter, more compelling story.

One thing that I am keen to do with this book is to use this story, especially the ending, as a way to set up the next book.  I have planned this as a series, probably three books.  So I have to lay the groundwork in the first book for the conflicts and story elements to come.  So far, I’m doing that by dropping hints, setting up conflicts that won’t really be fully resolved in this story.  And I’m writing the first story with a longer time horizon so the reader will understand that the story goes on.  In fact, because of a military conflict which has damaged their sun, the Seomish in The Farpool will be using the wormhole to emigrate to Earth and populate our oceans and live there…in other words, two intelligent races existing on the same planet.  And Humanity doesn’t really know about this, except for one young man: Chase Meyer.  Chase is the protoganist and a key character in the first story and his story will continue in the next.

Additional steps to be accomplished over the summer include finalizing the cover art (this is really important, since we all judge books by their cover), then write up my short and long book descriptions and tag lines for Smashwords.  Also, I’ll have to make a decision on what Smashwords category to upload this story into…probably General Science Fiction.

By the way, Smashwords offers authors a feature call Pre-order.  In this feature, you can upload a cover, some descriptions and other small details and Smashwords will post it as a pre-order.  You don’t have to upload the finished story until later, at a time of your choosing.  Smashwords promotes this as a way to build an early audience and enhance the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.  I’ll decide on this late this summer and possibly upload the full story in the fall.

Which brings me to the world of marketing.  There are a lot of good marketing ideas out there but for authors who have limited budgets and who also work a full time job, the possibilities are limited.  I expect to make use of this blog and another that I write as a possible venue for marketing efforts.  So you can expect to see more in this direction on The Word Shed in the coming months, perhaps even including excerpts and sample chapters from the story.  I could even create a new blog just to engage readers and assorted hangers-on in a give and take about the world of The Farpool.  And it wouldn’t hurt to update my own website at wix.com, to include the first of what should be multiple Farpool stories.

So, look for additional details about The Farpool in the upcoming posts, including character background, details of setting, where the series is going and anything else I can think or you tell me would be interesting.  I view The Word Shed as a medium for me as a writer-author to talk with and listen to my readers.

Don’t be shy.

See you on June 13.

Phil B.