The parish council of Woodville Village is delighted to unveil the new village logo:
Village Head Librarian, Miss Araminta Cranberry, stated, “This is a vast improvement on the previous village sign, which many said looked like a squirrel nailed to a cross. This new design is much less likely to deter visitors and frighten children and animal lovers. It also better represents the magical heritage of the village, as well as hinting at the incident in 1973 that no one here talks about. No further questions, please.”
The logo was designed by Mr Andrew Bowden of www.ididthat.uk – Mr Bowden won the contract after completing the three trials of endurance and finally agreeing to accept payment in doubloons and bitcoin. Mr Bowden is from the county of Essex, but parish councillors agreed not to hold that against him and he was released from custody after only a few hours.
Why do I love editors? Because they help me create a better book. I’ve spent the last week or so in the first round of edits for my next book Babes in the Wood, and here’s what I learned…
Apologies in advance for… the wind…
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, folks, Mark Stay here. Last time we talked, I’d just started the edits on book two of the Witches of Woodville: Babes in the Wood. Well, after a week and a bit of intense editorialising they’re done. They’re off to my… Well, I say “done”. This is probably the first round, but they’re off to my editor, Simon & Schuster, Bethan, for her to have a look at. Lessons learned? Well, um, this took longer than the first book. Now, the first book was Alpha-read and Beta-read up the wazzoo. Lots of eyes on that before it went off to any publisher. So it was in very, very good shape. This one was in good shape, too. But, uh, there is a murder mystery element to it. Which… Writing any kind of mystery like that is, is storytelling with the hood off, you know, everyone can see the working parts because you put them there on display for people to… To notice things. And if everything doesn’t quite make sense, then it really stands out in a way that other stories, you know, you can probably get away with the odd teeny weeny plot hole. So this one, most of Bethan’s notes were just little clarifications. Can you make this a bit clearer? Can you hang a lantern on this? You know, can you emphasise this a bit more? Uh, of course, during, uh, during my edit, I realised one massive plot hole was that I have a murder and never once explain how the murder was done. Only I could do that. Um, this is why you have editors, folks. So, uh, that was handy. I was able to… The thing is I’d written it down. I put it in my notebook. This is one good reason why you should have a notebook, folks, for each project that you’re doing, because I had actually written it down. I just hadn’t put it in the actual novel. Small point. But, you know, we always catch it in the end, which is good. So, yeah, really happy with it. And it gave me the opportunity to add a few extra layers, a few extra flourishes that… Particularly towards the end I wanted to ramp up the tension a little bit more. So I’m really happy with it. Really happy with it. So that’s gone off to Bethan. She’s in the middle of editing another book. So it might be a few weeks before I see it again. But until then, I’ve got a short story to edit. I’ve got a short story to finish. These are the Miss Charlotte Quartet stories. So, I’m gonna spend this weekend… Beautiful… I’m gonna spend this weekend rereading that and giving that a final polish, and getting that ready. So if you subscribe to my newsletter, you can get these stories for free. Free! Number one’s out already. I know. Good, innit? Number two is coming on the fourth of April in ebook and audio… Got to record that too. And then three and four are on their way. So that’ll keep me busy. That’ll keep me out of trouble. So yeah. If I hear any more on the edit… I’ll let you know. I’ll get back to you. In the meantime, I’m just going to pop into my local library. Happy reading. Happy writing. See you again soon.
I’ve got the notes from my editor on my manuscript. Now what? After a week of avoiding my edits, it’s time to knuckle down. Here are five quick tips to help you sort through editor notes before you start your next draft…
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello folks, about a week ago, I put up a video talking about how I just got my edit notes from my editor, Bethan at Simon & Schuster, for the next book in the Witches of Woodville series, the The Babes in the Wood book. And if you were watching that video, you might think, oh, he’s got his notes. And we talked a bit about things like the edit triage and and, you know, just looking at headlines, bullet points and making notes and stuff like that. And you’d be perfectly forgiven for thinking that immediately upon me, you know, finishing that video, I would jump straight into the edit. So what have I been up to since then? Procrastination, mainly, we can talk about procrastination, if you like, maybe later. But, actually to be fair, I have had a couple of rewrites on two short stories and also some light rewriting on a horror movie which essentially took all week. So, you know, I’ve been doing that. I think, to be honest, it is a good thing not to jump in with both feet. As soon as you get your edit notes, you know those ideas, you know, you read and review those notes that your editor has sent you. Let them simmer in your brain, gain some acceptance from that time. Procrastinating. That’s my excuse. And I’m sticking to it, During the meanwhilst, here are five tips on the first things to do before you start your edit…
Save a copy. Seriously, save it. The original one that your editor sent you. Save it, file it away, leave it untouched. Don’t change anything because there will come a point in the edit where you’ll come across something and you think, oh, what did my editor say about that? And you won’t have any way of knowing…
Accept all changes. I’m going to show a little video here. There’s a thing in Word and other similar word processors called “track changes” where the editor will turn that on and every single change that they make comes up as a change. And you have a choice to accept or reject that change. Frankly, when it comes to the punctuation and grammar changes, there will be hundreds of them. Just “accept all”, you know, there’ll be a way of doing that easily on your bit of software. Google it. You’ll find a YouTube video that will tell you how to do that just “accept all” because frankly, they know their punctuation and grammar. Just accept it. They may make changes to a sentence or may make changes to a particular word. A good editor will leave a note saying, “I’ve changed this… Is that OK?” Or “Does this make more sense?” And, you know, you can maybe go back to your original document, which you will have saved, and have a look and see if that change is harmful or gratuitous in some way. But frankly, in my experience, they don’t make any crucial difference. These these are words that, you know, just there for clarity… Changes are just there for the reader. This draft is not for you. It is for the reader. Hence, all drafts from now will be for the reader as well. Just ask yourself, “Is this a hill I’m willing to die on?” Because in my experience, by the time you got round to the copy edit and the proof edit you’re kind of… You can’t even remember what that word was anyway, so just accept all changes.
So after that, you’ll be left with the comments. I’ve got about three hundred and thirty comments left on my document now from down from five hundred something. Go through those comments, read, make notes, reply to yourself, you know, make quick fixes if you want. Sometimes, you know, you’ll have duplicated word in a sentence or a paragraph and they’re pretty easy to fix. But don’t be tempted to make any big changes yet. Wait till you get to the end, because sometimes editors will see something that bumps them out of the story, make a comment about it, suggest changing it, and then later on, when they get to the end, they realised that was actually part of a plot twist all along. So don’t change it because it may be something that just needs a little bit of clarification or might be fine, just as it is. So read the comments, make notes.
Don’t just focus on the criticism. Look at the praise, too, because a good editor will leave you praise. It’s called the praise sandwich. It’s like, “This works.” “This is a bit rubbish.” “This is wonderful.” Fragile egos of writers strikes again. But actually praise is really helpful because it tells you what’s working. Lean into that when you rewrite.
And don’t feel you need to reply to the editor’s comments. You know, sometimes they’re just posing a question just to prompt a thought from you. You know, they’ll say, is this really necessary? Do you really… Does this make sense? Did they really do that back then? So the editor isn’t necessarily asking for a reply when you send back the next draft, although if you feel you would just want to clarify a point, that’s fine. But it’s usually a good sign that it’s something that’s bumped them out of the story. Might need a quick fix. So think of it that way.
So, folks, five tips. I think that was five. Pretty sure it’s five… Five tips for when you start your edit. I hope that was useful. If it was, give us a thumbs up, leave a comment. All that jazz. Share with writing groups, all that good stuff. If you’ve got any comments pop them below and I will reply. Stay tuned for some goodnews coming about the next book. Some cool news coming on Friday (cover reveal). So, yeah, stay tuned for that. And in the meantime, happy writing.
I’ve just got my first set of notes back from my editor for the next Witches of Woodville book BABES IN THE WOOD, so this is a great time to take you on the journey with me from editing a book to publication. I run through what a marked-up manuscript from an editor looks like and how I plan to tackle over 500 changes and comments…
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, folks, Mark Stay here. The second Witches of Woodville book Babes in the Wood, is coming in October 2021, October 28th, I think, just in time for Halloween. And it’s March now, March the 5th. And I’ve just had my first round of line edits turn from my editor, Bethan, at Simon and Schuster. So I thought what I’d do on the ol’ YouTubes is start a whole new thread of the road to publication for Babes in the Woods, starting now. So where I am now, I’ve already written a couple of drafts which have gone to friends, beta readers who’ve made comments and sent thoughts back to me, and I’ve made changes before sending it off to Bethan. I’ve also had… This book involves Kindertransport children, so Jewish children fleeing the blitzkrieg and the Holocaust and coming to England. And I’ve already had a reader, a Jewish reader, go through that and give me all sorts of feedback and notes on that as well. So it’s in pretty good shape. Bethan has come back with a marked-up Word manuscript, which has got… 560 comments or changes, which I’m pretty happy with, actually, I think my first book Robot Overlords had well over 3000 comments and changes on there, so that’s doing pretty, pretty good. So, yeah, we got the first round of edits. I got this marked up manuscript of all sorts of little bumps in the road. So we have a look at some of these on screen. So Bethan’s… uh… Just if you’ve never done this before, we have a thing on Word and Pages and bits of software like that could tracked changes where any changes or comments that your editor makes is marked up so you can see it and easily recognise where a change has been made and accept or reject that change. And also, she’s left comments. And Bethan is brilliant because she doesn’t miss a thing. She notices all the little bumps, all the little things I got wrong,anything that bumps her out the story. But she also does the old “praise sandwich” as well, which is where you say, “Oh, this is good, this needs work, but this is great.” So the author’s poor, fragile, ego isn’t too bruised. What I’ve got now is what I call the edit triage, which is where I go through the comments. I make my own notes in a notebook. I try and take it off the page. And also Bethan has sent me a separate document as a kind of summary of her editorial notes of the big, big problems to solve, which is why the triage thing comes in. If you’ve got you know, do you think of your book as a patient lying on a gurney, you know, what do you have to fix first to save their life? You know, what’s the what’s the biggest injury? So rather than worrying about, you know, slightly… Any punctuation or grammar or anything like that, at the moment, you look at the bigger picture, start wide and move in and move in. So, yeah, really, really good notes. I’ve got a month to sort this out, which should be plenty of time. So we’re in March now. Book is published in October…
Yes, October. Babes in the Wood is book two of the Witches of Woodville series and available to pre-order from retailers now. Visit your retailer of choice or go to the bookshop at WitchesOfWoodville.com and now back to your regular programming
… which if you’re an indie author thinking, well, why are you taking so long? Why does it take so long to get the book to market? Well, part of that is that we’re working to retailer critical paths. So someone like Simon & Schuster will be selling in two retailers, six, seven, eight, nine months in advance of publication. For some retailers, they ask for a lot longer ahead of publication or sometimes over a year. So, yeah, that’s one of the reasons. And of course, you know, a publisher Simon & Schuster will be doing it in forty, fifty, sixty books a month depending on the month. So the marketing departments, the publicity, the art departments, they’ve all got to you know, they’ve got huge, huge workloads to work through. So better to give yourself plenty of time to do it properly, then have it as a last minute rush. So, yeah, I’m looking forward to this. I’m going to I’m going to dig in and start figuring out the big changes I need to make. There’s a murder mystery element to this, which I’ve never done before. And what’s been great with Bethan’s notes is, you know, she just said: a bit of clarity here, a little bit more mystery here. Wouldn’t she have thought this here, stuff like that. So it’s it’s been very, very helpful. So, yeah, I’m going to jump in and maybe check in in a week or maybe two weeks to give you an idea of how I’m getting on. And then after that, we’ll go through the whole rest of the process.
Things like looking at bits of cover art, looking at the blurb, looking at how we might publicise this one, what with lockdown, hopefully not being a thing by the time this comes out. So, yeah, first step on the path to publication. I hope you’ll join me further down the road.
I explain what it’s all about here on one of my walks…
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello folks, how are you? Hey, who wants a free short story? You do! Definitely well, you can have one right now. Just sign up to my newsletter if you haven’t already. And it’s called I’ll See You in My Dreams. And it features Miss Charlotte, Southhill, who, if you’ve read The Crow Folk you’ll know, she’s one of the witches in the Witches of Woodville, and she has something of a mysterious past, maybe a bit older than she at first looks, which is why the story starts in 1593. And it asks the question, “Would you stop time to save someone you love?” Let’s have a listen to a quick bit right now…
Charlotte Southill first met Time when the plague came to London. Many thought the bitter winter would kill the summer’s pestilence, but it endured and the deaths only increased. The theatres and taverns closed. The streets were lousy with rats and handbells clanged as bodies were taken away on carts. Charlotte had never so much as caught a cold in her 38 years, but that was a reason for that. Lizzie was not so fortunate. She complained of aches and a fever two days ago. On the first day she kept vomiting. Then the swelling came. Charlotte had tried every apothecary trick she knew, but nothing would work. Lizzie’s breath rattled. Her body was riddled with buboes, and it was now only a matter of time.
OoOOOoooh! I have no idea what clip I was going to use, but I assume it’s going to be an “Oooh!” bit, you know, for the sake of marketing. Well, I hope you enjoyed that, because there’s going to be four of them. Four short stories in the Miss Charlotte quartet. Four. Quartet. See what I did? And they’ll tell a much bigger story over the course of the four stories, one a month every month for the next four months. So, yeah, just sign up to the newsletter and hopefully enjoy them. There’ll be e-books and there’ll be audio versions as well every month. So yeah, sign up now, put a link below and do that sort of thing. But yeah, it was, it was, it was fun to write. Short stories are hard, they’re really hard. There’s no room for my usual waffle. I have to be very concise. I have to thank my editor, Julian Barr, for really cracking the whip on this one. He’s a tough taskmaster. And to Andy Bowden for the cover art, which is just splendid. And thank you to everyone who’s bought a copy of The Crow Folk, who’s put a review up. It’s always massively, massively appreciated. Four weeks in the Hive chart in the UK, that’s the chart for a lot of the independent bookshops in the UK. I thought I was going to be out after three weeks. I was at number 19. I got back up again to thirteen. So thank you. Thank you all. You’re all bloomin’ marvellous. Um, Book 2, uh, Babes in the Wood coming in October, October twenty seventh. I see preorder links for that pop up online because that’s what happens. Publishers put it on their database, push a button and (blows raspberry) it feeds out to the Internet. That’s the actual noise that it makes when they push the button. And so yeah, I’ll put a link on the website so you can find it on there: witchesofwoodvile.com and any pre-orders would be appreciated. Check out The Hive, check out Bookshop.org – that helps indie bookshops. And of course, as you know, Amazon, Waterstones and all those lovely people as well. Whatever way you want to do it, any pre-orders much appreciated. So, yeah, free short story. Get in, enjoy and happy reading.
If you’ve enjoyed reading The Crow Folk, then do please consider pre-ordering the next book in the series BABES IN THE WOOD. Here’s a quick blurb…
July, 1940
Fleeing the Nazi blitzkrieg, a trio of Kindertransport children come to stay with Lady Aston at Hayward Lodge in Woodville. Their arrival triggers a murder mystery involving a magic apple tree, modern art, a U-boat, and a demonic hound. Faye Bright must play nanny to the terrified children while gathering clues to uncover the dark magic that threatens to change the course of the war.
I had so much fun writing this one. There’s all kinds of gleeful and exciting stuff to be revealed, so stay tuned.
In the meantime, if you’re the kind of person who likes to pre-order nice and early and then enjoy the surprise when a book arrives in the post (I know I do!), then you can find links to most retailers at the Woodville Village Bookshop here.
I say “most”… some retailers can be slower than others when updating their catalogues, so I’ll be updating as and when.
Also, if you were one of the lovely people who ordered from Coles Books to get a signed book and art print…
Ooh, pretty!
… and you would like to do so again for Babes in the Wood… why not drop them a polite line and ask if they will? A little bit of positive customer feedback goes a long way these days. Oh, and I’ve had a sneak peek of Harry Goldhawk‘s “rough” of the cover art for Babes in the Wood. If you though the cover of The Crow Folk was gorgeous, then you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. More news as I get it!
Mark Stay Writes 