C.W.Holeman III

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Books in Progress

A Term At Briarwood Academy

Outline


Drafting


Capitol Crimes & Ghastly Galas

Outline


Draft


Revisions 51/170

Beta Reads 20%

A Dakota Entendre

Outline


Drafting


Revisions
17/17!

Beta Reads
98%

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Joke of the Week

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who know binary, and those who don't.

My Writing Process

I break my writing process into two main sections: The first is Drafting, and the second is Editing.

Drafting

  1. Collect various ideas and combine them into a one sentence elevator pitch.
  2. Expand that into a three paragraph / three act rough outline.
  3. Expand each paragraph into individual chapters with the important events and emotional beats for each chapter.
  4. Draft each chapter individually (See: Writing Tools). Never edit and never look back. If I realize that I need to make a change in the past to fix something going forward, I simply make a note at that point, and then continue writing onward, as though that change had been made retroactively.
  5. As this is not currently a full-time gig, I set myself an absurdly achievable goal for getting a certain number of words written each day. Currently that goal/requirement is set to 144 words (1 Gross). Once I'm in the swing of things, I rarely stop at 144 words. I typically average closer to 300 - 500 words per day. This is a goal that I can meet while in the line at the grocery store on my phone, or between commercials if I'm watching some television in the evening. By ensuring that my goal is always achievable it's easy to build momentum each day and across weeks and months.

Editing

I've recently completely rebuilt my Editing process. I'm currently trying a method suggested and outlined by Jonathan Mayberry at the Superstars 2024 writing conference.

Editing Rules

  1. When doing one edit pass, mark & move on from changes you notice from other passes.
  2. Complete one full edit pass before beginning the next.
  3. Update Edit Passes after each book to refine your process.

Editing Tracker

In order to keep track of my editing passes. I try to complete one chapter edit pass per day. This means that one chapter gets one editing pass each day. I keep a spreadsheet like the following in order to keep track of where I should be on any given day. In general, I try to stay ahead of the deadlines. Many editing passes take more time than others, so on the easy ones I try to blow through as much as possible.

Editing Passes

  1. Cut Transitional Content: Skip the cab ride. End chapter. Start @ new place.
  2. Grammar & Language Usage (5 Edits)
    1. Passive voice
    2. Use strong / precise word choices:
      • Adverbs: Replace weak adverbs: Very, great, just
      • Adverbs ("LY"s): keep only the really needed ones. Bad: Totally, really, slightly, actually.
    3. Verbs: Use strong / precise word choices:
      • How often using them? Can you use something else instead half the time.
      • Use strong ones: Ran vs scampered, Sat vs crouched, Looked vs spied, Got vs captured.
      • Appeared to, felt, look, realize, watch, shrugged can, decide, see, saw,
    4. Elimination Edit:
      • Cut overused words: A bit, a little, a lot, at some point, Am, are, in, was, were, been, being
      • Repetition
      • Figurative vs literal language
      • Purple prose
  3. Character Arc: Do they evolve?
  4. Character voice: Vocal traits, etc.
  5. Motif & Theme: Do you need to hammer or trim?
  6. Structure & Development
    1. Pacing - Shorter Chapters
    2. Chapter ending hooks
  7. Clues, Red herrings, & foreshadowing: add snippets.
  8. Author voice
  9. Tighten word count, cut to the bone:
    • Sat down vs sat.
    • Stood up Vs stood.

Current Version: 2024-02-18. General editing method provided by Jonathan Maberry.

Still have questions? Ask me.