April 15, 2025 • 52 mins
Discover how a 72-year-old data scientist overcame perfectionism to publish her debut science fiction novel after decades of dreaming about it.
Are you stuck with half-finished manuscripts or endlessly revising the same chapters? Does your story refuse to translate from your imagination to the page the way you envision it?
You're not alone. The very perfectionism that drives you to write can become the biggest obstacle to finishing your novel.
In this episode, Cheryl Arko shares her transformative journey from decades of false starts to published author at 72, revealing the exact strategies that helped her finally complete her science fiction novel after years of struggle.
Tune in to hear:
- [14:31] The reverse outlining technique that revealed why Cheryl’s scenes weren't working (and exactly how to fix them)
- [17:47] How entering a writing competition boosted her confidence and validated her manuscript's potential (and earned her a finalist spot!)
- [20:39] The two-phase writing approach that freed Cheryl from perfectionism paralysis (and helped her make twice the progress in half the time)
- [29:35] How developing her antagonist into a more three-dimensional character solved plot problems Cheryl had been stuck on for months
- [35:01] The practical reasons Cheryl chose self-publishing at 72 (and how to decide what's right for you based on your timeline and goals)
If you've ever abandoned a manuscript or worried it's too late to realize your writing dreams, this episode proves that with the right approach, you can finally type "The End" on your novel—no matter your age or how long you've been trying.
🔗 Links mentioned in this episode:
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
every scene that was not working well, did not have a
clear-cut decision, and so forme that was a big aha moment and
, from my writing, made merealize that the scene needs to
kind of focus around.
This decision is going to bemade, and how the character
makes it is going to determinewhat happens next.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy
podcast.
My name is Savannah Gilbo andI'm here to help you write a
story that works.
I want to prove to you thatwriting a novel doesn't have to
be overwhelming, so each week,I'll bring you a brand new
episode with simple, actionableand step-by-step strategies that
you can implement in yourwriting right away.
So, whether you're brand new towriting or more of a seasoned
(00:45):
author looking to improve yourcraft, this podcast is for you.
So pick up a pen and let's getstarted.
In this episode, we're goingbehind the scenes of Cheryl
Arco's writing, editing andpublishing journey to get an
inside scoop on how shepublished her debut science
fiction novel at 72 years old.
In this episode, you'll hearfrom Cheryl about what it was
(01:07):
like to work with adevelopmental editor to revise
her manuscript, including thetwo to three key things she
focused on in revisions thattook her story from good to
great.
You'll hear us talk aboutexactly how long each part of
the process took from reworkingher entire outline to revising
her first draft, to line editing, copy editing and reworking her
entire outline to revising herfirst draft, to line editing,
copy editing and actuallyproducing her book.
(01:27):
And you'll hear all about whyCheryl decided to self-publish
her debut novel at 72 years old,despite having interest from a
few different literary agentsand so much more.
But before we get into all thedetails, let me quickly read you
the back cover copy of Cheryl'sbook, so you have a little bit
of context for our conversation.
Here's what it says Prejudicelegacy redemption.
(01:50):
Arise carries a secret thatcould shatter his world.
The telepathic Allegrian hasspent his life atoning for his
dead father's role in humanity'sdisastrous first contact.
Now, as a tech specialist forthe Earth-led alliance, he
serves in silence until sabotagethreatens the lives of dozens
of human children and thetraitor is one of his own.
(02:13):
Forced to work with a brilliantbut hostile human engineer,
arise must dismantle not onlythe deadly conspiracy but also
the deep-seated mistrust betweentheir peoples.
With time running out, he facesan impossible choice Break the
fragile allegrian human treatyand invite the death penalty to
forge a forbidden mind link witha human, or let innocent lives
(02:36):
be lost.
Two worlds on the brink asingle act of defiance.
Can compassion rewrite a doomedfuture?
The Allegrian legacy begins here, a gripping sci-fi adventure
rich in high-stakes dilemmas,deep character bonds and
first-contact intrigue.
All right, so let's dive intomy conversation with Cheryl Arco
(02:56):
to hear all about her writing,editing and publishing journey.
Hi, cheryl, thank you so muchfor joining me today on the
Fiction Writing Made Easypodcast.
I'm so excited to have you here.
Thank you, I'm excited to behere too, and I gave you a quick
introduction already, but Iwould love for you to tell my
audience in your own words whoyou are, what you do, what kind
(03:16):
of things you write and stufflike that.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I've been writing since I was really since I was a
child and my first writing wasactually I would draw what
looked like comic strips, sopictures telling a story and
balloons with the dialogue andstuff, and so I've always been
interested in stories and I'vebeen interested in science
fiction for as long as I canremember, influenced by two
(03:44):
brothers, an older brother and ayounger brother, and my parents
encouraged learning about newthings too.
So, that's always.
It's been fun and other thingsthat I am.
I have a couple of differenthats that I wear for my day job,
which buys the writing classesand pays for the dog food.
I'm a senior data scientist,which is the kind of the
(04:06):
culmination of a many yearcareer in IT.
So I'm kind of, you know,always interested in science and
technology and things like that.
And then my other hobby is I ama dog trainer.
I've been training now this,this dates me, but I've been
training dogs for competitionsince 1965, which means, yes, I
(04:30):
am not a spring chicken and doboth competition with them in
breed and obedience and otherperformance-type activities and
just kind of enjoy them andtheir mischief around the house.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
And how many do you have?
Tell everyone how many you have.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Well, right now I have six Airedales ranging in
age from two to nine.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So lucky.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yes, they keep me out of trouble.
So they keep me out of troubleand actually they fit into my
writing in that when I'm workingon ideas for the storyline, one
of our favorite activities,especially in the summertime
time, is that I go into what wecall the big yard.
I've got a smaller yard whereyou can corral kids up when you
know you're going to have to beleaving the house soon and you
(05:23):
don't want to be playing gamesabout.
Are you going to come in or not?
And then there's the big yard,where it's a.
It's a festoon area, it's acouple of acres and it's a good
place for dogs to play doggypeople with them.
So are one of my favoritesummertime activities is I put
on some I have these really goodheadphones I listen to my one
(05:45):
of my favorite playlists and Igo out with the dogs in the big
yard and I walk the fence lineand I work on story plot lines
and I just kind of play themthrough my head like playing
through a movie.
So I play through the dialogueand how everybody is feeling in
the scene and what's going onand I just kind of walk the
fence line and the dogs areplaying and sometimes it's
(06:09):
really funny because they keeptrack of where I am and
sometimes they just line upbehind me and so I'm walking the
fence line and I've got thissingle file line of dogs behind
me following and I'm working onmy story and they are evidently
working on.
We must follow the leader, so wehave a lot of fun that way.
That's cute.
Yeah, that's pretty much how Ispend my time and I got serious
(06:30):
about wanting to write a storythat could be published.
Oh, it was still a long timeago.
It was probably in the 80s whenI made a short story version of
the story that ultimatelybecame my novel.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I sent it to some you know, some of the science
fiction magazines like Analogand such, and of course, was
rejected, but I had, you know,gotten far enough that I had the
bug that I wanted the story tobe read by somebody other than
me.
Yeah, and that kind of led into.
In the 90s, I got hooked upwith a writing group led by Les
Edgerton, who passed away acouple of years ago.
(07:05):
He was a great mentor andinstructor, though, and that was
a great group, and so fromthere the story grew to become a
novel, but then I knew that Ineeded more.
So now I had essentially afirst draft of a novel, but I
knew that there was a big gapbetween that and something that
(07:26):
could be published, and sothat's when I went looking for
more help with that and led intomy running into Savannah, and
there we went from there.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
And so we're going to walk through all of Cheryl's
timeline today, because I knowthat listeners find it so
interesting and I know you wouldagree too, cheryl.
It's so interesting to hear,when someone started, how long
something took and lessonslearned along the way.
So we're going to go throughall of that.
But, like you said, we metaround 2022 in July and we did a
(07:57):
manuscript evaluation together.
So that was what you're sayingyou knew you needed something
more.
You didn't really know what todo next, so we did that.
And do you remember around thattime, like, what were the big
takeaways from that process?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
finished draft.
You know a draft that neededwork, but there were parts that
something wasn't quite rightwith and I didn't know what it
was.
And that question got answeredby applying structure to it.
And then we identified what wasmissing and what we needed to
do.
But that meant going back andkind of reverse engineering some
of it to find what thoseelements were and put them in.
And I know there's always adiscussion back and forth about
(08:46):
does an outline take away yourcreativity versus being valuable
, but everybody finds what worksfor them.
But I think you do need to havea concept of the way the
structure of stories work,because if you don't, you end up
with what I had, which wasknowing something was missing,
something wasn't working and notknowing where to go from there.
(09:08):
And so getting a system to makean outline that worked for me,
with the right level of detailfor me and the way that my mind
works, really helped answerthose questions and put in the
missing pieces.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, and I definitely want to talk about
you and details, because you aresuch a detail person, which is
one of the things I love aboutyou, but it's also one of the
things that held you up for awhile is researching the right
words and some of the littledetails, like that.
So we'll definitely talk aboutthat.
But yeah, you're right, one ofthe things we talked about was
let's kind of tighten up thisstructure, let's use structure
(09:41):
as a way to make your story thebest it can be, and then the
other thing we had to do wasreally dig into your antagonist,
because you knew who they were.
You had this whole version ofthem in your head, but it wasn't
quite on the page.
Do you remember that?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
yes, absolutely, and when we were working that out
together, when we met, one ofthe fascinating things was we
would focus on let's tell thisscene from the antagonist's
point of view and you know I wasalways my story is like a third
person, close with theprotagonist and when we focused
(10:17):
on the antagonist, we discoveredthings that were going on that
just hadn't been obvious beforeand that made the story pulled
together better, made the storyricher and helped and by
developing the antagonist more,it just, you know, added a whole
layer of depth to the storythat had not been there before,
yeah, and so what we did foreveryone that's listening there
(10:39):
were a lot of things that werereally already working in
Cheryl's draft.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
So her themes were really strong.
She had a really cool world, areally cool plot, a really
compelling protagonist that weknew readers were going to love.
But it was the antagonist andthe structure that we really
needed to work through.
So sometimes what we would dois we would look at the outline
from her protagonist perspectiveand we would say, okay, these
actions make sense.
And then we might get stuck orwe might say, well, what would
(11:05):
he do next and why would he dothat?
And then we had to flip ourperspective around and say, well
, let's think about where theantagonist is, because maybe
they're already doing somethingthat's going to cause trouble.
So that's what she means by.
Like she didn't write in theantagonist's point of view, but
we got in his point of view tounderstand the bigger movements
of the story.
Anything to add there, Cheryl?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
No, that is exactly right and it really, again, like
we said, that those were thingsthat had been in the back of my
mind so I kind of knew them,but they weren't on the page and
when we got in, you know, intounderstanding the antagonist
better and expressing that inaction, because we, like you
said, we don't actually changeto the antagonist point of view
and telling the story, but theevents that happen and what the
(11:48):
antagonist does reflect whathe's thinking and that just
really enriched the whole storyyeah, and it's interesting too,
because I went back and actuallyread the manuscript evaluation
letter that I had sent you andone of the things was, I said
I'm not sure what theprotagonist's main question is.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Is it because in Cheryl's story I've already read
the summary of the book.
In the summary you can gleanthat there's a problem with
children going sick and alsothis problem with a saboteur,
and they are definitelyconnected.
But something we had to do ineach scene was think about what
is the primary storyline, and wejust had to promote one over
the other.
And the reason I'm saying this,cheryl, is because I don't
(12:31):
think you were on this call theother day, but another writer
was asking me.
I got feedback from my editorand she said the through line of
my story is missing, but thestructure was working.
And she's like how could thatbe possible?
And I thought of you becausethat's exactly what we had to do
, and sometimes it wasn't.
It's not like we had tooverhaul your story, we just had
to make things more clear.
(12:52):
Would you agree?
Yes, definitely, yeah.
And so I want to say thatbecause I know there are writers
out there who they might getfeedback that says the same
thing and they might think it'sthe end of the world.
And it's like, no, no feedbackthat says the same thing.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
And they might think it's the end of the world and
it's like, no, no, there's a lotthat's working we just need to
make the stuff that's in yourhead more apparent on the page,
which is exactly what we did forCheryl.
Yes, yes, and.
And that whole idea ofinteriority kind of fits in with
that, because that was theother big thing that was lacking
in my story.
I knew what the protagonist wasthinking and why he was doing
things, but what I was relatingin the story was more described
(13:30):
from his point of view, butstill just telling you know, he
did this and he said that and sodid this and that and whatever,
but a lot of the reasons why hewas making those decisions was
not verbalized anyplace, andwhen we added a lot more of that
, that made a lot of that moreclear.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Right, and what was interesting is you had known all
of that in your head, and so Ilike to bridge the gap between
the type of feedback a writermight get, which, if you're
listening, you might getfeedback that says I don't
understand your protagonistmotivations, or maybe the
backstory is unclear or whatever, or how they change is unclear
throughout the story, and so Isaid some of that to Cheryl and
(14:10):
she was like well, I knowexactly how he changes, I know
all of his backstory and I knowwhy he's doing everything.
So it was really just aboutmaking it more apparent, which I
think is a really importantdistinction to make, because
some, like I said, some peoplewill take feedback like that and
say my whole story is broken, Ishould just quit.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, yeah, and we'll never, never quit, never quit.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Okay.
So that was like August,september 2022.
We started working togetherone-on-one and we went through
about like 12 months of justlike you know reworking.
I know the beginning,especially because we had to
tighten some things up and planta lot of stuff that comes into
play later, and most of what youhad we kept.
We just made it, we justtweaked it.
(14:52):
So for that whole like 12 monthperiod, we did that, we reverse
, outlined your entire book.
So we said, okay, here's whatwe have.
Where are the scenes that work?
Where are the ones that don'twork?
How can we plant cluesthroughout the whole thing?
How do we make sure that eachsection's the proper pace and
length, and things like that?
Do you remember going throughall that for about a year,
(15:13):
cheryl?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, I do, and I think that one of the reasons
that that took a whole year isthat for me there is always a
constant struggle to keep thebig picture in view, because I
get bobbed down in details, wordchoices and such for a scene
that maybe wasn't even going tomake it all the way to the final
(15:34):
draft.
So I had to kind of keeplearning to watch the big
picture even while you are, youknow, putting words on the page.
It was a slow lesson for me tolearn, but I think I finally got
it, because when I stoppedlooking up every single synonym
(15:54):
for this word and that word andwhatever, and just focused on
tell this part of the story andhave what the character is
thinking, have what they'redoing, what everybody is doing,
and then later go back and makeit be all the right words to
have it just in the right placeand that, doing it in two passes
(16:16):
like that rather than trying todo it all in one single pass,
it was just much faster to do itin two passes like that.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah.
And so what I think from myperspective, what I saw you
doing which I know a lot ofother writers do is, let's say,
we were working on chapters onethrough five or scenes one
through five, whatever.
You would revise them and thenyou would want to send them back
to me to get the finalcheckmark and I kept having to
say, like we're not final untilwe get to the end, and come back
around and you would tell metoo on our calls.
The other day I spent 30minutes with my thesaurus and
(16:47):
I'm so mad at myself.
So it's those two thingshappening.
And then, once we got into thezoomed out version of we have to
look at the rest of youroutline to make sure that we
know where we're writing to.
And you had some interestingand fun personal deadlines in
between there that we can talkabout in a second of like I need
to write 50 pages by tomorrow.
But once you kind of zoomed outand we looked at the whole
(17:09):
story, you were like, okay, Isee that it's kind of more of a
work in progress and I need tojust get to the end and then I
can worry about my thesaurus andhave fun with that.
Remember that, yes, Yep,definitely so, during this year
too, during 2023, and during oneof those times where you were
rushing to get a bunch of pagesdone.
Do you remember what that wasfor?
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, it's kind of interesting because I have like
a love-hate relationship withdeadlines.
You know I hate the pressure,but on the other hand it appears
that when there is thatpressure I can do it.
What had come up is that in mywriting group with Les Edgerton,
he was encouraging members tosubmit their stories to the
(17:53):
Killer Nashville WritersConvention or Conference for
some of the prizes that they had, and so it's like, oh, the
deadline was actually just acouple days away and I thought,
okay, okay, I'll just look andsee what it wanted.
And for unpublished manuscripts, what it wanted was the first
50 pages of the manuscript and Ithought, well, I can do that.
And then I looked at it andit's like me and I haven't gone
(18:14):
back and like polished this upyet, and it was like I have 24
hours to do this in.
And so I did and I it had, youknow the, the, the new things
with.
You know the, the additionalinteriority and more development
of the antagonist right away.
You know all the stuff thatwe've been talking about in it.
And so I polished that up and Igot it in and it actually did
(18:37):
end up being a finalist for the.
That's the Claymore Award atKiller Nashville for Best
Science Fiction Fantasy and Iwas astounded.
And then I thought and wow, Iactually was able to do that and
I to do those 50 pages likethat.
I don't think I could have donethat if it had been a couple of
years earlier.
I think it was because I knewwhat needed to be in there,
(19:01):
because we had talked about it,and so it was just much easier
to plow through and get thatwork done because I had a clear
picture in my mind of what I wastrying to do with it.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
That being said, too, it wasn't the final version
that ended up in your book.
It was pretty close, but therewas still polishing and like
line editing and copy editing todo.
So it's pretty amazing what youwon.
You were a finalist in thiscompetition or contest, whatever
you want to call it with pagesthat weren't totally perfect or
totally done Right.
(19:34):
I mean that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, and I think it's because we had talked
through the structure of thestory so much that it really
held together.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
The story was louder than the unpolished words or the
right words.
Right, the story mattered morethan anything else and we had
that nailed.
So, yeah, yeah, very cool, andit's so funny in hindsight just
thinking, thinking of.
On one hand, that feels so longago.
On the other hand, it feelslike it was yesterday when you
were up late at night rushing toget your 50 pages done.
(20:04):
But totally worth it, and Ithink this was part of the
turning point.
To correct me if I'm wrong,that was you realized.
Okay, maybe I can get throughthis faster and I don't need to
spend so much time on wordchoice or polishing my prose,
would you?
Speaker 1 (20:17):
say that's right.
Need to spend so much time onword choice or polishing my
prose.
Would you say that's right?
Absolutely, If I hadn't beenbefore.
It made me a believer regardingthe structure and the elements
that we talk about.
When you and I, in Story Laband Notes to Novel and so forth,
when we talk about what goesinto a scene, it's like yeah, it
works.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
And so there's kind of two things.
If I'm a listener, I might bethinking, wow, on one hand,
you're saying it took about 12months to go back through and do
these revisions and you'resaying that you were stuck in
the weeds on word choice.
So as a listener, I'm going tosay, ok, I'm not going to do
that, I'm going to take advicefrom Cheryl.
But, on the other hand, the 12months where we did some really
(21:06):
deep work on your story and whenit came time to write, you were
able to then fly through thenext version of it Granted, yes,
you did have a full draft andthings to work with.
But do you want to talk alittle bit about, like, remember
, when we made your version of,cheryl wanted a spreadsheet?
Because, of course, of courseshe did.
She's the details slash dataperson, right, cheryl?
Yeah, right, yeah.
So she wanted a spreadsheetwith each of her scenes.
And do you want to just talkabout what that was like and
some aha moments you had duringthat phase?
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, yeah, so I modeled.
I had like a page for eachscene and I modeled them after
the structure with the fiveelements Okay, let's see if I
get this right the incitingincident and the complications
and the turning point, theclimax, and then the big day,
which is the big decision, andthen the resolution, what
(21:49):
happens afterwards.
And so when I took all the C'sthat we had and I plugged them
into that formula, if you wantto call it that, there was
something that turned up thatwas quite fascinating.
Every scene that was notworking well did not have a
clear-cut decision, and so forme, that was evidently that was
(22:10):
a big aha moment and, from mywriting, made me realize that
the scene needs to kind of focusaround.
This decision is going to bemade, and how the character
makes it is going to determine,you know, what happens next.
And so when we went through andeither tweaked the scene to
make sure that there was a realclear decision or, in a couple
(22:34):
cases I think, we combinedscenes and in a couple of cases
we realized that there wassomething missing and we created
a whole new scene, because wecouldn't get from scene A to
scene B without something elsehappening and another decision
had to be made.
That was important, and so weadded a scene for that.
And then it's like then thewhole plot just kind of clicked
together once we did that.
(22:54):
Then it's like then the wholeplot just kind of clicked
together once we did that.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah, and what's really cool is, if we kind of
think back to what we saidearlier about you had to put in
interiority to show yourcharacter Arise's arc, and then
we had to figure out theantagonist and how he works into
the structure.
That is really what you'retalking about on a scene level
too, because the crisis showsthat choice in a scene and for
(23:19):
listeners we'll link to anepisode in the show notes about
this scene structure if you wantto learn more.
But the crisis moment reallyshows how the events are
affecting the character and whatthey're going to do, based on
motivations, worldview, value,all kinds of things like that.
And then those scenes, a lot oftimes when there was something
missing between point A andpoint B, that's where we would
say, well, what is theantagonist up to?
And every time it was likesomething just clicked into
(23:40):
place a little more and then bythe end you had this like a
reverse outline that showed allof your scenes and we could say
they work enough for us to feelconfident to go through and now
just tweak your pages, rewriteyour pages, whatever we needed
to do.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yeah, yeah, and that rewriting went a lot faster with
having those outline notes tofor each scene to look back to.
Yeah, so you had that version,which was like definitely the
strongest version up until thatpoint in six months or less
faster, and especially, the moreI let go of trying to do what
(24:20):
you might call the wordsmithing,where you're trying to polish
up the words, the more I let goof that for this stage, the
faster it went.
We even had some fun with itbecause we'd even put, like you
know, modern day language inthere saying, well, this guy,
you know, did that and he said,darn, I wish that hadn't
happened, whatever, and I even,you know, let myself, you know,
(24:40):
write it that way at firstbecause that had the feeling in
it.
It's like the character isfrustrated, or the character is
is afraid, or the character, youknow, whatever the character is
just express that kind ofcolloquially and then to go back
and put it into the right toneand words that I want to use.
Then it was kind of fun becauseit's like, well, I already know
all the feelings and all theyou know and what's going to be
(25:03):
said and what's going to happenand what each character is going
to do.
Now I just need to smith it ina way that fits the tone of what
I want to tell the story.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
And there were even for listeners, who do this
because I want to make thelisteners who are, I want to say
, guilty of this too.
I am too.
So no judgment, but Cheryl wasalso the type of writer that
would be like, well, these twosentences start with similar
words, or I use the same wordtwice in a paragraph, and so
she'd be trying to do that asshe's crafting like the big
picture of the scene, which, ofcourse, would trip anybody up.
(25:35):
So if you're listening and youdo that as well, maybe Cheryl
can be your inspiration to youknow, just get through the meat
of writing and use thecolloquial language or the
simple language and thenwordsmith it later.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yes, that was one of my huge takeaways from the whole
process and, yeah and so thatactually made it fun, because
otherwise it was looking morelike it was a daunting task, and
when I approached it in thosekind of like two different
layers, it's like each layer wasfun because it was funny.
(26:08):
It was fun writing it as if itwas like, you know, just me and
my brothers talking withourselves and then, you know,
putting it into the languagethat I wanted to use for the
story.
That was fun too, because thehard work was already done.
I already knew what are thefeelings being expressed, what
are the actions that arehappening and what kinds of
things need to be said, you know, by each character.
(26:30):
That was already laid out, sothen it was just purely a matter
of putting it in the type ofwords that I wanted to use.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yep, and all that wordsmithing, like you said.
I remember you had fun with itand per my timeline that took
about four months, so you wereable to get through that piece
even quicker.
Once, like you said, you wereconfident the story worked and
your scenes had check marks nextto them, and then it was kind
of time to tighten and focus andso a lot of it was the
wordsmithing, like you said, butat that point we also had a
(27:01):
climax that we had to workthrough.
Do you remember that?
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yes, and that was from even from the very
beginning.
One thing that we knew is thatthe climax for the story what I
had, was too drawn out, it got abit repetitive and we knew it
needed to be tightened up.
But looking at all of thesepages, the book ended up being
107,000 pages.
So, and that may sound terrible, 107,000 words, right, cheryl?
(27:28):
Or words, yeah, that must bereally long.
Yeah, we need a truck to cartit around.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, one hundredand seven thousand words, which
I was originally shooting forninety thousand words, because
that was kind of the recommendedamount for a debut novel.
But science fiction and fantasyand I am not writing fantasy,
(27:49):
though the science in my storyis it gets a little bit into
kind of more paranormal typestuff rather than just pure hard
science.
But at any rate, those types ofstories actually are typically
a bit longer than some of theother genres, and so that word
count was okay.
But the climax of the story,the way it was originally
(28:11):
written, was not okay because itkind of kept repeating the same
things without adding somethingnew to the story, and so we
tightened that up.
So every time something newhappened it added to what was
going on in that climax andbrought something new in.
And what's that?
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Yeah, oh, what's interesting too is we could
identify that from your reverseoutline and we said maybe this
will work out or maybe it'll bea little bit too drawn out
feeling.
And then you wrote it becausewe were like we don't know, we
just need to see.
So you rewrote it and then wesaid, okay, yeah, it kind of
parts are working, parts are alittle too drawn out.
So during these kind of lastphases of polishing the
(28:51):
manuscript, we were really hardon the climactic scenes and just
tightened everything as much aswe could, and you know we're
both happy with the result.
So, um, yeah, I just think it'sso interesting to think about.
It's almost like you have thisbig mess, almost, and then you
just sharpen, sharpen, sharpenuntil it gets to the point where
you're happy with it yeah, yeah, and we spent a lot of time on
(29:12):
on on the climax.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
So what?
Like we did on the beginning,which I think makes sense
because those you know, thatbrings the reader in at the
beginning and the start and atthe end you've got to satisfy
the reader.
It's all got to make sense andthe reader has got to feel good
about how it's all coming out,and so we paid a lot of
(29:34):
attention to that.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
And would you say that the climax was easier to
work through after all the workwe had done on your antagonist?
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Oh, definitely, because of course the climax was
a big confrontation between theprotagonist and antagonist and
having all that additionalinformation not just in the back
of my head, but we had beenverbalizing it through the story
all along it really made theclimax come together a lot more
(30:03):
clearly and in a real satisfyingway.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, and in a way I remember watching you kind of go
through the phases of theclimax and there was never
really a version where it waslike, well, what is his
motivation?
Because we knew what theantagonist wanted.
The whole time we'd expressedit, and so at a certain point it
got to just kind of the stagedirection and how is all this
going to come out and actuallyplay out?
(30:28):
And then it was like polishing,because I see a lot of writers
who they'll get to the end andthey're like I don't know why my
antagonist is confronting themright now.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
And I think that was just evidence that we had set up
everything in the draftproperly so that when you got to
that point it just kind offlowed Right, right, yeah it was
, yeah, the the parts that welingered on the most was more of
a what was a little bit more ofa back into the detail level in
that, just making sure thingshappened in the right order
(30:57):
because we knew what things were.
But but it's it's like when dowe want this to happen?
When do we want the reader toknow that?
And so it was more kind of likegoing through that stuff.
But it wasn't a question aboutwhy things were happening, it
was just making sure that theywere in the best order and in a
way that would you know, keepthe reader's attention as they
were moving through it.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah, and we had the fun experience of dealing with
weapons that you've made up andtechnology, and getting those in
the right place at the righttime and making sure that
nothing was usable that wasn'tbeing used.
You know, because that's thething science, fantasy or
science fiction and fantasywriters deal with.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
A lot is right stuff that they make up yeah, yeah,
yeah, because because actuallythere was one weapon we totally
got rid of because there wasjust no reason for it, and once
we had gotten through, it's likewe don't need that particular
weapon.
We can torture our protagonistenough without that weapon.
So, yeah, and that was good.
And one other thing that waskind of fun regarding the
(31:53):
science part of it, because thewhole story idea evolved over so
many years.
Actually, for me, I had to keepchanging the science part of it
because it's like the realworld kept catching up to where
I was and I was right about somethings and not about other
things, and so I had to keepchanging the nature of the
original problem that myprotagonist is trying to solve,
(32:16):
which is the, if you want tocall it, the surface problem,
the technical problem.
I had to keep changing thatbased on what was going on in
the real world.
So that was fun too.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yeah, that's pretty funny and I think you're a good
example of the advice that sayswrite what you know, because you
took your work background andyour interest in science and
technology and put that intoyour sci-fi stories.
That's pretty fun.
Yeah, yes.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Well, not only that, but my protagonist is an IT
person and it's like, okay, howdo you make an IT person?
It's like, okay, how do youmake an IT person interesting?
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah Well you know right?
Yeah, let's make him an alien.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Let's give him an inner wound, let's beat him up a
lot.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
That's something Cheryl's really good at.
That a lot of writers strugglewith is beating up their
protagonist.
She's very good at that, yes,okay.
So then we went to line editing, and then you went to copy
editing and then, somewherearound there, you decided to
self publish your book.
So two questions Was thereanything that stood out during
the line editing and copyediting phase, and then why did
you decide to self publish?
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Right.
Well, there was one big thinghappened during the line editing
.
The editing folks that that Iworked with were just absolutely
excellent, but in the lineediting the editor questioned
something in the climax that wehad thought was we had it, that
we had things pretty tight, andwe actually rewrote the climax
(33:42):
yet one more time and the lineeditor gave me a second line
edit on that.
It was basically moretightening up.
It was like we had removed somuch repetition and it was
looking compared to how it was,it was looking really good to us
.
But the line editor questionedsome things and it's like, yeah,
those are good questions, andso we went back and worked on
(34:05):
that some more.
So I would say you know, don'tshortchange that editing process
when you're getting near theend.
Even though you've done a lotof work and you've worked with
the good editor to get to whereyou're at, there are still
things that you may have missed.
You know that a brand newreader is going to see that.
You just can't see when you'vebeen in it for so long yourself.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
And at that point I mean we were over a year and a
half into it, you a lot longer,but you know I tell writers all
the time, even if, like in thiscase, I was Cheryl's
developmental editor and bookcoach, and there's things that
I'm not going to see clearlyafter a year and a half, of
course.
So it's always a good idea toswitch up your editors if you
want, or at least go through theline editing and the copy
(34:49):
editing after your developmentaledit and beta readers just to
get eyes on your story that youdon't have throughout the
process.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah, definitely, definitely.
And then the final choice, forhow am I going to publish it?
I had always been aiming ittowards the traditional route.
So I had done some queryingwhen I had the first draft done
and it was not very successful.
But you know, I was new atquerying and I had this brand
(35:18):
new, somewhat unpolishedmanuscript but at least I got to
know a bit with that process,got to know a bit about that
process, but at least I got toknow a bit about that process.
And then, when it got to thepoint where we actually had the
additional editing done and wehave a pretty polished
manuscript, I decided for reallytwo reasons to pursue the
(35:41):
self-publishing.
And one has to do with thetimeline, because I'm 72, 72 so
I'm not remember I was drainingdogs for competition and they
can survive.
So you know, not spring chickenhere.
And when I, you know I wastaking a lot of, you know,
webinars and stuff on.
You know the nuts and bolts ofthe publishing process and and
(36:05):
pretty much the standard advicewas to expect that once a
publisher now not the agent,mind you, but once a publisher
has bought your manuscript, it'sgoing to be 18 to 24 months
before you see that actually inprint, right?
And the thing is is that clockdoesn't start ticking until you
(36:28):
actually have the publisher.
Before that you need to get anagent to be willing to take you
on.
And I'd actually gotten to thepoint where I had two agents who
had requested the fullmanuscript, which was a lot of
progress from where I hadstarted.
But the thing is they stillwould have to sell out to a
publisher and every step alongthe way they're going to ask for
(36:50):
changes.
That that's going to bestandard.
And so I looked at even if wehad the publisher buying it.
Now we're looking at 18 to 24months and I thought that for me
, I thought that is just toolong for me, and so I wanted to
take control of the timeline.
And then the other element wasthat at each step the agent and
(37:17):
their editors will look over themanuscript and the publisher's
editors will look over themanuscript and, reasonably,
would ask for some changes.
That's pretty normal.
And I thought about it and Ithought I've got some pretty
strong themes in this story,enough that I actually had an
official sensitivity reader gothrough it to make sure I didn't
(37:37):
cross boundaries too much, andI decided it's not that the
manuscript had not been edited.
It's been edited, you know,inside and outside, and I just
did not want to make any morechanges to it, especially
something that might affect thetheme, and so those and when you
(37:58):
say strong themes, you meanthat in two different ways,
right?
Speaker 2 (38:01):
So you mean there are some things that you feel very
passionate about, like notjudging others and being open to
things that are different thanyou or your experiences, and
then also, we know there arelife and death stakes and
children that are not likeviolently at risk or anything,
but there's a what do we call itlike a disease that's affecting
yeah, there's.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
There's a disease, and actually I believe that
there are two children.
They don't die the page, butthey do die in the process of
the story and that's, you know,it's not for every reader, but
for me it was an expression ofthe stakes and also gave me the
opportunity to show one of mythemes, which is the compassion
(38:44):
that the main character has andthe empathy that he has for
those that are different fromhim.
That, even though there is thisantagonism between the alien
race and the human race and thatwas an important theme to me
and having very seriousconsequences was the way that I
expressed that and and I Iwanted that to stay in the story
(39:08):
.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
So yeah, so that makes sense.
With the timeline and just withthe edits you've done and how
you got it to a place where youwere really proud of it, you
were like, I think I'm good tojust self-publish.
Yep, yeah, so that makes sense.
And this month, well, whilewe're recording it, your book is
up on the internet.
It's ready to purchase or readyto pre-order, and then when
(39:29):
this episode airs, it will havebeen out for just a few weeks.
So I mean, that's prettyamazing.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
It is amazing for me to think of.
It's still kind of hard tobelieve, and it's funny because
it's like there was so, so muchtime put into working the draft
from its roughest form to thefinal form and yet, you know,
all of a sudden it seems likeeverything's just happening so
fast now.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
And you're still in production mode, so I'm sure
part of it doesn't even feelreal and it probably won't until
things slow down a little.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Yeah, yeah, and for anybody that's working in that
phase, what I have found is thatit can look overwhelming if you
look at all the things that youneed to do.
And so I have learned to saytoday I'm going to do X, y and Z
and I can put on blinders andnot even worry about the've been
focusing on signing up to gettrade reviews, and so it's like
(40:28):
I'm not worrying about the otherthings because there's nothing
I need to do about those thingsin the next few days.
So putting on those blindersreally helps, because otherwise
you can just kind of starthyperventilating and definitely
it looks overwhelming otherwise,and it helps that you're so
organized.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
You gathered all the data and you know the deadlines
of when you need things, and soyou're working off a very easy
to execute checklist at thispoint, which is great.
That does help, yeah, yeah.
But well, I want to ask you,cheryl, if you think about the
version of you back in 2022, oreven before that, when you had
joined your other writing group,because you wanted to take this
(41:04):
more seriously.
Now that you've gone throughthis and you know what what are
like, what would you tellyourself to do differently, or
what are you looking forward todoing with your next book?
Speaker 1 (41:15):
well, and I am actually.
I have 200 pages of the sequelto this written and I thought
surely you've already violatedone of the things you said.
So so, before I do, I hadactually had that written when
we were first starting when, Ifirst started working on book
one, but what I'm doing ismaking sure that I've got a
(41:37):
solid outline for the storybefore I go any farther.
A lot of what I already havewritten is going to be usable,
but it needs to fit into a good,solid structure, and so I've
actually, this last week I'vestarted putting that structure
for book two together, and boyis that fun stuff finished up
(42:07):
for book one, so that I can justreally concentrate here on book
two, because I am so anxious toput into play what we just
talked about.
You know, make sure that I'vegot you know the, you know the,
the, the overall structure atthe act level and then the scene
level laid out, and I can seemost of it in my head already
and can hardly.
We're almost to the weatherwhere I can be outside in the
(42:28):
backyard with the dogs.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Yeah for more brainstorming.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Yes, working through details, but I'm actually so
excited about book two I canjust taste it, and so, if
anything, what all of thisexperience has done is just made
me more eager to do it allagain with the next book and and
apply the things that I thatI've learned that that need to
(42:52):
be done.
So the antagonist willdefinitely have a lot more
development and and I will bethinking from the antagonist
point of view about things Ithink I've got a good handle on
interiority now and then it'sjust so much fun doing that.
Write it colloquially first andthen go through and smooth it
afterwards.
It's like that is just so muchfun so I actually, when I first
(43:15):
decided I wanted it to be, youknow, more serious published
novel, I was a bit oftrepidation looking towards that
, but it's like I wanted to doit.
Now it's like it's all lookinglike fun and so I just, I just
can't wait to, you know, betotally embroiled in the next
story.
And this whole story sequenceis going to be a trilogy.
(43:38):
So I've got notes for bookthree already, and when I get
notes I just just write themdown, keep track of them.
So yeah, so that they will cometogether into a structure when
we're ready for that.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Yeah, and I bet too in hindsight, there's things
like you probably heard adviceon the Internet like don't write
and edit at the same time, andyou probably said, ok, I get
that, but whether I put it intopractice is another story.
I bet there's things you lookback on that you're like I just
wish I would have listened tothat advice.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
Yeah, and that's true .
And then, on the other hand, Ithink for each of us there's
probably a point in time whenwe're ready to hear a particular
piece of advice and for me ithappened over these past couple
of years but it's like once Ifinally started doing it, it's
like, oh man, this is not onlyis this easier, but it's fun.
(44:25):
And it's like, okay, this isdefinitely the way to do it.
And yeah, I probably shouldhave done it earlier, but it's
like I wasn't ready to receivethat advice earlier, or
something.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, well, I hope that, whoever is, I feel like
there are people listening thatare going to say I feel like I'm
Cheryl two years ago andthey're going to just take this
as inspiration to maybe justlessen the editing a little as
they write or to try outlining,if they haven't before.
And on that note, cheryl, Iwanted to ask you because I know
that you're a data person, asystems person, you like to be
(44:56):
organized and you're veryanalytical and stuff like that.
But what would you say topeople who are hearing all of
this and they're like, well, ifI do an outline, I feel like I'm
not going to be creative?
Did you feel that at all?
Speaker 1 (45:07):
not the way that we did it.
It's, you know, I you know,before we started, uh, using the
, the outline structure that yougave us in story lab and in
notes to novel, I thought, oh,it could be, it could be that
that's gonna is, you know, gonnamake me stuck with this
particular.
Once it's written down as anoutline, it's like I'm stuck
with it and I can't change it,and all the creativity thought
(45:29):
of it.
But the thing is, is that?
No, the outline actually livesand breathes with you as you're
going, especially when we werereworking the climax and we we
broke it into four scenes andthen we mish-moshed them
together and so the outline keptchanging.
And that was another reason tokeep the outline at a high level
, because otherwise, if you'rechanging all those details over
(45:51):
and over again, that's prettytedious.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
And.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
I think that's one of the things that might keep a
person from wanting to do anoutline.
But by keeping the outline tothe high level of just the five
elements that needed to be inthere, then it became a matter
of ordering them and just makingsure that we didn't leave
anything out, that each sceneled into the next scene with its
five elements, and by doingthat so the outline was actually
(46:17):
, in a way, it was being draftedjust like the actual writing
was being drafted.
Only it was by keeping it atthat outline level.
It could be done quickly.
You know when it was, oh man,we need this to happen before
that happens, or this isn'tgoing to flow together.
Well, it was easy to changethat in the outline because we
(46:39):
didn't have to go back andrewrite all those paragraphs and
all that dialogue and all thataction.
So in that respect, the outlinereally is just a very useful
tool and, yeah, I won't leavehome without it again.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Yeah, I think that's important.
What you said, too, is you'realmost treating it like a draft.
You're writing like a zerodraft through your outline and
you're not going to in the weeds.
And then once you're confidentenough in that it doesn't have
to be perfect, but once you'reconfident enough then you have
so much room still to write ascene and there's so much
creativity that can go into thatas well.
And then if things change, ofcourse, like you said, we update
(47:17):
the outline and we're good togo.
So, yeah, I think that's goingto be helpful for other people
who are.
They might hear you and think,oh, it's easy for you because of
your background and you're soanalytical.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
But I do think that this kind of process can help
plotters and pantsers andeveryone in between.
And one other thing on the youknow being a detailed oriented
person, in some respects thathelps, you know, because I like
to organize things right, but inother respects that made it
harder to let go of putting inall that detail.
And so, whatever your approachis, some of your natural
(47:52):
approach is going to help whatyou're doing, and some of it are
things that you're going tohave to work with, and it
doesn't matter which approach itis, because you need each
element of those approaches.
You need to be able to see thebig picture and then you need to
be able to see the detail, andso one's going to be easier for
you than the other, but they canboth be very doable if you just
(48:14):
put the blinders on and you sayI'm doing this, I'm doing this.
Now, here's my blinders on, I'mjust going to do this.
And now?
Okay, now I'm going to do that.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
I think that's a good point too.
I think we talk a lot about inthe on the internet, about how
plotters need to outline to savethemselves trouble, and it's
almost like we spotlight thethings that the bad things that
happen when you're a I'm sorry,a pantser, and then we don't
talk enough about the bad thingsthat could happen if you're a
plotter, because, like you said,a lot of plotters will hold on
to things too tightly and gettoo in the weeds.
So I, of course, I think it'sall about balance.
(48:49):
It's my Libra nature to thinkabout balance.
But anyway, cheryl, this was sofun to reminisce and go down
memory lane.
I know it's been years at thispoint, but anything else like
that you want to, I mean, telleither your past self or
aspiring writers who want to getto where you are now.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
Just to keep writing and not let yourself, if you
feel like you're getting stuck,just go and do something,
anything, even if it's justrewrite over word for word
something with physical exercisethat if you just start doing
something then it kind of lockseverything or unlocks everything
so that you can go forward withthings.
So, just keep writing.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Yeah, I love that.
And, Cheryl, where can peoplefind you around the Internet?
Speaker 1 (49:40):
I have a website at wwwcheryl-arcocom and that's
always a good place to start.
It has a way to contact me andtell us a little bit about the
book and have some cool pictureson it, and it's a good place to
start.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
Thank you so much, cheryl, and I'm excited to see
how everything goes with thisbook.
Oh, great, Thank you.
So that's it for today'sepisode.
As always, thank you so muchfor tuning in and for showing
your support.
If you want to check out any ofthe links I mentioned in this
episode, you can find them inthe show notes listed in the
description of each episodeinside your podcast player or at
(50:22):
savannahgilbocom forward slashpodcast.
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Your ratings and reviews tellApple that this is a podcast
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And while you're there, goahead and hit that follow button
(50:42):
, because there's going to beanother brand new episode next
week, full of actionable tips,tools and strategies to help you
become a better writer.
So I'll see you next week anduntil then, happy writing.
every scene that was not working well, did not have a
clear-cut decision, and so forme that was a big aha moment and
, from my writing, made merealize that the scene needs to
kind of focus around.
This decision is going to bemade, and how the character
makes it is going to determinewhat happens next.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy
podcast.
My name is Savannah Gilbo andI'm here to help you write a
story that works.
I want to prove to you thatwriting a novel doesn't have to
be overwhelming, so each week,I'll bring you a brand new
episode with simple, actionableand step-by-step strategies that
you can implement in yourwriting right away.
So, whether you're brand new towriting or more of a seasoned
(00:45):
author looking to improve yourcraft, this podcast is for you.
So pick up a pen and let's getstarted.
In this episode, we're goingbehind the scenes of Cheryl
Arco's writing, editing andpublishing journey to get an
inside scoop on how shepublished her debut science
fiction novel at 72 years old.
In this episode, you'll hearfrom Cheryl about what it was
(01:07):
like to work with adevelopmental editor to revise
her manuscript, including thetwo to three key things she
focused on in revisions thattook her story from good to
great.
You'll hear us talk aboutexactly how long each part of
the process took from reworkingher entire outline to revising
her first draft, to line editing, copy editing and reworking her
entire outline to revising herfirst draft, to line editing,
copy editing and actuallyproducing her book.
(01:27):
And you'll hear all about whyCheryl decided to self-publish
her debut novel at 72 years old,despite having interest from a
few different literary agentsand so much more.
But before we get into all thedetails, let me quickly read you
the back cover copy of Cheryl'sbook, so you have a little bit
of context for our conversation.
Here's what it says Prejudicelegacy redemption.
(01:50):
Arise carries a secret thatcould shatter his world.
The telepathic Allegrian hasspent his life atoning for his
dead father's role in humanity'sdisastrous first contact.
Now, as a tech specialist forthe Earth-led alliance, he
serves in silence until sabotagethreatens the lives of dozens
of human children and thetraitor is one of his own.
(02:13):
Forced to work with a brilliantbut hostile human engineer,
arise must dismantle not onlythe deadly conspiracy but also
the deep-seated mistrust betweentheir peoples.
With time running out, he facesan impossible choice Break the
fragile allegrian human treatyand invite the death penalty to
forge a forbidden mind link witha human, or let innocent lives
(02:36):
be lost.
Two worlds on the brink asingle act of defiance.
Can compassion rewrite a doomedfuture?
The Allegrian legacy begins here, a gripping sci-fi adventure
rich in high-stakes dilemmas,deep character bonds and
first-contact intrigue.
All right, so let's dive intomy conversation with Cheryl Arco
(02:56):
to hear all about her writing,editing and publishing journey.
Hi, cheryl, thank you so muchfor joining me today on the
Fiction Writing Made Easypodcast.
I'm so excited to have you here.
Thank you, I'm excited to behere too, and I gave you a quick
introduction already, but Iwould love for you to tell my
audience in your own words whoyou are, what you do, what kind
(03:16):
of things you write and stufflike that.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I've been writing since I was really since I was a
child and my first writing wasactually I would draw what
looked like comic strips, sopictures telling a story and
balloons with the dialogue andstuff, and so I've always been
interested in stories and I'vebeen interested in science
fiction for as long as I canremember, influenced by two
(03:44):
brothers, an older brother and ayounger brother, and my parents
encouraged learning about newthings too.
So, that's always.
It's been fun and other thingsthat I am.
I have a couple of differenthats that I wear for my day job,
which buys the writing classesand pays for the dog food.
I'm a senior data scientist,which is the kind of the
(04:06):
culmination of a many yearcareer in IT.
So I'm kind of, you know,always interested in science and
technology and things like that.
And then my other hobby is I ama dog trainer.
I've been training now this,this dates me, but I've been
training dogs for competitionsince 1965, which means, yes, I
(04:30):
am not a spring chicken and doboth competition with them in
breed and obedience and otherperformance-type activities and
just kind of enjoy them andtheir mischief around the house.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
And how many do you have?
Tell everyone how many you have.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Well, right now I have six Airedales ranging in
age from two to nine.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So lucky.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yes, they keep me out of trouble.
So they keep me out of troubleand actually they fit into my
writing in that when I'm workingon ideas for the storyline, one
of our favorite activities,especially in the summertime
time, is that I go into what wecall the big yard.
I've got a smaller yard whereyou can corral kids up when you
know you're going to have to beleaving the house soon and you
(05:23):
don't want to be playing gamesabout.
Are you going to come in or not?
And then there's the big yard,where it's a.
It's a festoon area, it's acouple of acres and it's a good
place for dogs to play doggypeople with them.
So are one of my favoritesummertime activities is I put
on some I have these really goodheadphones I listen to my one
(05:45):
of my favorite playlists and Igo out with the dogs in the big
yard and I walk the fence lineand I work on story plot lines
and I just kind of play themthrough my head like playing
through a movie.
So I play through the dialogueand how everybody is feeling in
the scene and what's going onand I just kind of walk the
fence line and the dogs areplaying and sometimes it's
(06:09):
really funny because they keeptrack of where I am and
sometimes they just line upbehind me and so I'm walking the
fence line and I've got thissingle file line of dogs behind
me following and I'm working onmy story and they are evidently
working on.
We must follow the leader, so wehave a lot of fun that way.
That's cute.
Yeah, that's pretty much how Ispend my time and I got serious
(06:30):
about wanting to write a storythat could be published.
Oh, it was still a long timeago.
It was probably in the 80s whenI made a short story version of
the story that ultimatelybecame my novel.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I sent it to some you know, some of the science
fiction magazines like Analogand such, and of course, was
rejected, but I had, you know,gotten far enough that I had the
bug that I wanted the story tobe read by somebody other than
me.
Yeah, and that kind of led into.
In the 90s, I got hooked upwith a writing group led by Les
Edgerton, who passed away acouple of years ago.
(07:05):
He was a great mentor andinstructor, though, and that was
a great group, and so fromthere the story grew to become a
novel, but then I knew that Ineeded more.
So now I had essentially afirst draft of a novel, but I
knew that there was a big gapbetween that and something that
(07:26):
could be published, and sothat's when I went looking for
more help with that and led intomy running into Savannah, and
there we went from there.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
And so we're going to walk through all of Cheryl's
timeline today, because I knowthat listeners find it so
interesting and I know you wouldagree too, cheryl.
It's so interesting to hear,when someone started, how long
something took and lessonslearned along the way.
So we're going to go throughall of that.
But, like you said, we metaround 2022 in July and we did a
(07:57):
manuscript evaluation together.
So that was what you're sayingyou knew you needed something
more.
You didn't really know what todo next, so we did that.
And do you remember around thattime, like, what were the big
takeaways from that process?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
finished draft.
You know a draft that neededwork, but there were parts that
something wasn't quite rightwith and I didn't know what it
was.
And that question got answeredby applying structure to it.
And then we identified what wasmissing and what we needed to
do.
But that meant going back andkind of reverse engineering some
of it to find what thoseelements were and put them in.
And I know there's always adiscussion back and forth about
(08:46):
does an outline take away yourcreativity versus being valuable
, but everybody finds what worksfor them.
But I think you do need to havea concept of the way the
structure of stories work,because if you don't, you end up
with what I had, which wasknowing something was missing,
something wasn't working and notknowing where to go from there.
(09:08):
And so getting a system to makean outline that worked for me,
with the right level of detailfor me and the way that my mind
works, really helped answerthose questions and put in the
missing pieces.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, and I definitely want to talk about
you and details, because you aresuch a detail person, which is
one of the things I love aboutyou, but it's also one of the
things that held you up for awhile is researching the right
words and some of the littledetails, like that.
So we'll definitely talk aboutthat.
But yeah, you're right, one ofthe things we talked about was
let's kind of tighten up thisstructure, let's use structure
(09:41):
as a way to make your story thebest it can be, and then the
other thing we had to do wasreally dig into your antagonist,
because you knew who they were.
You had this whole version ofthem in your head, but it wasn't
quite on the page.
Do you remember that?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
yes, absolutely, and when we were working that out
together, when we met, one ofthe fascinating things was we
would focus on let's tell thisscene from the antagonist's
point of view and you know I wasalways my story is like a third
person, close with theprotagonist and when we focused
(10:17):
on the antagonist, we discoveredthings that were going on that
just hadn't been obvious beforeand that made the story pulled
together better, made the storyricher and helped and by
developing the antagonist more,it just, you know, added a whole
layer of depth to the storythat had not been there before,
yeah, and so what we did foreveryone that's listening there
(10:39):
were a lot of things that werereally already working in
Cheryl's draft.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
So her themes were really strong.
She had a really cool world, areally cool plot, a really
compelling protagonist that weknew readers were going to love.
But it was the antagonist andthe structure that we really
needed to work through.
So sometimes what we would dois we would look at the outline
from her protagonist perspectiveand we would say, okay, these
actions make sense.
And then we might get stuck orwe might say, well, what would
(11:05):
he do next and why would he dothat?
And then we had to flip ourperspective around and say, well
, let's think about where theantagonist is, because maybe
they're already doing somethingthat's going to cause trouble.
So that's what she means by.
Like she didn't write in theantagonist's point of view, but
we got in his point of view tounderstand the bigger movements
of the story.
Anything to add there, Cheryl?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
No, that is exactly right and it really, again, like
we said, that those were thingsthat had been in the back of my
mind so I kind of knew them,but they weren't on the page and
when we got in, you know, intounderstanding the antagonist
better and expressing that inaction, because we, like you
said, we don't actually changeto the antagonist point of view
and telling the story, but theevents that happen and what the
(11:48):
antagonist does reflect whathe's thinking and that just
really enriched the whole storyyeah, and it's interesting too,
because I went back and actuallyread the manuscript evaluation
letter that I had sent you andone of the things was, I said
I'm not sure what theprotagonist's main question is.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Is it because in Cheryl's story I've already read
the summary of the book.
In the summary you can gleanthat there's a problem with
children going sick and alsothis problem with a saboteur,
and they are definitelyconnected.
But something we had to do ineach scene was think about what
is the primary storyline, and wejust had to promote one over
the other.
And the reason I'm saying this,cheryl, is because I don't
(12:31):
think you were on this call theother day, but another writer
was asking me.
I got feedback from my editorand she said the through line of
my story is missing, but thestructure was working.
And she's like how could thatbe possible?
And I thought of you becausethat's exactly what we had to do
, and sometimes it wasn't.
It's not like we had tooverhaul your story, we just had
to make things more clear.
(12:52):
Would you agree?
Yes, definitely, yeah.
And so I want to say thatbecause I know there are writers
out there who they might getfeedback that says the same
thing and they might think it'sthe end of the world.
And it's like, no, no feedbackthat says the same thing.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
And they might think it's the end of the world and
it's like, no, no, there's a lotthat's working we just need to
make the stuff that's in yourhead more apparent on the page,
which is exactly what we did forCheryl.
Yes, yes, and.
And that whole idea ofinteriority kind of fits in with
that, because that was theother big thing that was lacking
in my story.
I knew what the protagonist wasthinking and why he was doing
things, but what I was relatingin the story was more described
(13:30):
from his point of view, butstill just telling you know, he
did this and he said that and sodid this and that and whatever,
but a lot of the reasons why hewas making those decisions was
not verbalized anyplace, andwhen we added a lot more of that
, that made a lot of that moreclear.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Right, and what was interesting is you had known all
of that in your head, and so Ilike to bridge the gap between
the type of feedback a writermight get, which, if you're
listening, you might getfeedback that says I don't
understand your protagonistmotivations, or maybe the
backstory is unclear or whatever, or how they change is unclear
throughout the story, and so Isaid some of that to Cheryl and
(14:10):
she was like well, I knowexactly how he changes, I know
all of his backstory and I knowwhy he's doing everything.
So it was really just aboutmaking it more apparent, which I
think is a really importantdistinction to make, because
some, like I said, some peoplewill take feedback like that and
say my whole story is broken, Ishould just quit.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, yeah, and we'll never, never quit, never quit.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Okay.
So that was like August,september 2022.
We started working togetherone-on-one and we went through
about like 12 months of justlike you know reworking.
I know the beginning,especially because we had to
tighten some things up and planta lot of stuff that comes into
play later, and most of what youhad we kept.
We just made it, we justtweaked it.
(14:52):
So for that whole like 12 monthperiod, we did that, we reverse
, outlined your entire book.
So we said, okay, here's whatwe have.
Where are the scenes that work?
Where are the ones that don'twork?
How can we plant cluesthroughout the whole thing?
How do we make sure that eachsection's the proper pace and
length, and things like that?
Do you remember going throughall that for about a year,
(15:13):
cheryl?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, I do, and I think that one of the reasons
that that took a whole year isthat for me there is always a
constant struggle to keep thebig picture in view, because I
get bobbed down in details, wordchoices and such for a scene
that maybe wasn't even going tomake it all the way to the final
(15:34):
draft.
So I had to kind of keeplearning to watch the big
picture even while you are, youknow, putting words on the page.
It was a slow lesson for me tolearn, but I think I finally got
it, because when I stoppedlooking up every single synonym
(15:54):
for this word and that word andwhatever, and just focused on
tell this part of the story andhave what the character is
thinking, have what they'redoing, what everybody is doing,
and then later go back and makeit be all the right words to
have it just in the right placeand that, doing it in two passes
(16:16):
like that rather than trying todo it all in one single pass,
it was just much faster to do itin two passes like that.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah.
And so what I think from myperspective, what I saw you
doing which I know a lot ofother writers do is, let's say,
we were working on chapters onethrough five or scenes one
through five, whatever.
You would revise them and thenyou would want to send them back
to me to get the finalcheckmark and I kept having to
say, like we're not final untilwe get to the end, and come back
around and you would tell metoo on our calls.
The other day I spent 30minutes with my thesaurus and
(16:47):
I'm so mad at myself.
So it's those two thingshappening.
And then, once we got into thezoomed out version of we have to
look at the rest of youroutline to make sure that we
know where we're writing to.
And you had some interestingand fun personal deadlines in
between there that we can talkabout in a second of like I need
to write 50 pages by tomorrow.
But once you kind of zoomed outand we looked at the whole
(17:09):
story, you were like, okay, Isee that it's kind of more of a
work in progress and I need tojust get to the end and then I
can worry about my thesaurus andhave fun with that.
Remember that, yes, Yep,definitely so, during this year
too, during 2023, and during oneof those times where you were
rushing to get a bunch of pagesdone.
Do you remember what that wasfor?
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, it's kind of interesting because I have like
a love-hate relationship withdeadlines.
You know I hate the pressure,but on the other hand it appears
that when there is thatpressure I can do it.
What had come up is that in mywriting group with Les Edgerton,
he was encouraging members tosubmit their stories to the
(17:53):
Killer Nashville WritersConvention or Conference for
some of the prizes that they had, and so it's like, oh, the
deadline was actually just acouple days away and I thought,
okay, okay, I'll just look andsee what it wanted.
And for unpublished manuscripts, what it wanted was the first
50 pages of the manuscript and Ithought, well, I can do that.
And then I looked at it andit's like me and I haven't gone
(18:14):
back and like polished this upyet, and it was like I have 24
hours to do this in.
And so I did and I it had, youknow the, the, the new things
with.
You know the, the additionalinteriority and more development
of the antagonist right away.
You know all the stuff thatwe've been talking about in it.
And so I polished that up and Igot it in and it actually did
(18:37):
end up being a finalist for the.
That's the Claymore Award atKiller Nashville for Best
Science Fiction Fantasy and Iwas astounded.
And then I thought and wow, Iactually was able to do that and
I to do those 50 pages likethat.
I don't think I could have donethat if it had been a couple of
years earlier.
I think it was because I knewwhat needed to be in there,
(19:01):
because we had talked about it,and so it was just much easier
to plow through and get thatwork done because I had a clear
picture in my mind of what I wastrying to do with it.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
That being said, too, it wasn't the final version
that ended up in your book.
It was pretty close, but therewas still polishing and like
line editing and copy editing todo.
So it's pretty amazing what youwon.
You were a finalist in thiscompetition or contest, whatever
you want to call it with pagesthat weren't totally perfect or
totally done Right.
(19:34):
I mean that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, and I think it's because we had talked
through the structure of thestory so much that it really
held together.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
The story was louder than the unpolished words or the
right words.
Right, the story mattered morethan anything else and we had
that nailed.
So, yeah, yeah, very cool, andit's so funny in hindsight just
thinking, thinking of.
On one hand, that feels so longago.
On the other hand, it feelslike it was yesterday when you
were up late at night rushing toget your 50 pages done.
(20:04):
But totally worth it, and Ithink this was part of the
turning point.
To correct me if I'm wrong,that was you realized.
Okay, maybe I can get throughthis faster and I don't need to
spend so much time on wordchoice or polishing my prose,
would you?
Speaker 1 (20:17):
say that's right.
Need to spend so much time onword choice or polishing my
prose.
Would you say that's right?
Absolutely, If I hadn't beenbefore.
It made me a believer regardingthe structure and the elements
that we talk about.
When you and I, in Story Laband Notes to Novel and so forth,
when we talk about what goesinto a scene, it's like yeah, it
works.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
And so there's kind of two things.
If I'm a listener, I might bethinking, wow, on one hand,
you're saying it took about 12months to go back through and do
these revisions and you'resaying that you were stuck in
the weeds on word choice.
So as a listener, I'm going tosay, ok, I'm not going to do
that, I'm going to take advicefrom Cheryl.
But, on the other hand, the 12months where we did some really
(21:06):
deep work on your story and whenit came time to write, you were
able to then fly through thenext version of it Granted, yes,
you did have a full draft andthings to work with.
But do you want to talk alittle bit about, like, remember
, when we made your version of,cheryl wanted a spreadsheet?
Because, of course, of courseshe did.
She's the details slash dataperson, right, cheryl?
Yeah, right, yeah.
So she wanted a spreadsheetwith each of her scenes.
And do you want to just talkabout what that was like and
some aha moments you had duringthat phase?
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, yeah, so I modeled.
I had like a page for eachscene and I modeled them after
the structure with the fiveelements Okay, let's see if I
get this right the incitingincident and the complications
and the turning point, theclimax, and then the big day,
which is the big decision, andthen the resolution, what
(21:49):
happens afterwards.
And so when I took all the C'sthat we had and I plugged them
into that formula, if you wantto call it that, there was
something that turned up thatwas quite fascinating.
Every scene that was notworking well did not have a
clear-cut decision, and so forme, that was evidently that was
(22:10):
a big aha moment and, from mywriting, made me realize that
the scene needs to kind of focusaround.
This decision is going to bemade, and how the character
makes it is going to determine,you know, what happens next.
And so when we went through andeither tweaked the scene to
make sure that there was a realclear decision or, in a couple
(22:34):
cases I think, we combinedscenes and in a couple of cases
we realized that there wassomething missing and we created
a whole new scene, because wecouldn't get from scene A to
scene B without something elsehappening and another decision
had to be made.
That was important, and so weadded a scene for that.
And then it's like then thewhole plot just kind of clicked
together once we did that.
(22:54):
Then it's like then the wholeplot just kind of clicked
together once we did that.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah, and what's really cool is, if we kind of
think back to what we saidearlier about you had to put in
interiority to show yourcharacter Arise's arc, and then
we had to figure out theantagonist and how he works into
the structure.
That is really what you'retalking about on a scene level
too, because the crisis showsthat choice in a scene and for
(23:19):
listeners we'll link to anepisode in the show notes about
this scene structure if you wantto learn more.
But the crisis moment reallyshows how the events are
affecting the character and whatthey're going to do, based on
motivations, worldview, value,all kinds of things like that.
And then those scenes, a lot oftimes when there was something
missing between point A andpoint B, that's where we would
say, well, what is theantagonist up to?
And every time it was likesomething just clicked into
(23:40):
place a little more and then bythe end you had this like a
reverse outline that showed allof your scenes and we could say
they work enough for us to feelconfident to go through and now
just tweak your pages, rewriteyour pages, whatever we needed
to do.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yeah, yeah, and that rewriting went a lot faster with
having those outline notes tofor each scene to look back to.
Yeah, so you had that version,which was like definitely the
strongest version up until thatpoint in six months or less
faster, and especially, the moreI let go of trying to do what
(24:20):
you might call the wordsmithing,where you're trying to polish
up the words, the more I let goof that for this stage, the
faster it went.
We even had some fun with itbecause we'd even put, like you
know, modern day language inthere saying, well, this guy,
you know, did that and he said,darn, I wish that hadn't
happened, whatever, and I even,you know, let myself, you know,
(24:40):
write it that way at firstbecause that had the feeling in
it.
It's like the character isfrustrated, or the character is
is afraid, or the character, youknow, whatever the character is
just express that kind ofcolloquially and then to go back
and put it into the right toneand words that I want to use.
Then it was kind of fun becauseit's like, well, I already know
all the feelings and all theyou know and what's going to be
(25:03):
said and what's going to happenand what each character is going
to do.
Now I just need to smith it ina way that fits the tone of what
I want to tell the story.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
And there were even for listeners, who do this
because I want to make thelisteners who are, I want to say
, guilty of this too.
I am too.
So no judgment, but Cheryl wasalso the type of writer that
would be like, well, these twosentences start with similar
words, or I use the same wordtwice in a paragraph, and so
she'd be trying to do that asshe's crafting like the big
picture of the scene, which, ofcourse, would trip anybody up.
(25:35):
So if you're listening and youdo that as well, maybe Cheryl
can be your inspiration to youknow, just get through the meat
of writing and use thecolloquial language or the
simple language and thenwordsmith it later.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yes, that was one of my huge takeaways from the whole
process and, yeah and so thatactually made it fun, because
otherwise it was looking morelike it was a daunting task, and
when I approached it in thosekind of like two different
layers, it's like each layer wasfun because it was funny.
(26:08):
It was fun writing it as if itwas like, you know, just me and
my brothers talking withourselves and then, you know,
putting it into the languagethat I wanted to use for the
story.
That was fun too, because thehard work was already done.
I already knew what are thefeelings being expressed, what
are the actions that arehappening and what kinds of
things need to be said, you know, by each character.
(26:30):
That was already laid out, sothen it was just purely a matter
of putting it in the type ofwords that I wanted to use.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yep, and all that wordsmithing, like you said.
I remember you had fun with itand per my timeline that took
about four months, so you wereable to get through that piece
even quicker.
Once, like you said, you wereconfident the story worked and
your scenes had check marks nextto them, and then it was kind
of time to tighten and focus andso a lot of it was the
wordsmithing, like you said, butat that point we also had a
(27:01):
climax that we had to workthrough.
Do you remember that?
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yes, and that was from even from the very
beginning.
One thing that we knew is thatthe climax for the story what I
had, was too drawn out, it got abit repetitive and we knew it
needed to be tightened up.
But looking at all of thesepages, the book ended up being
107,000 pages.
So, and that may sound terrible, 107,000 words, right, cheryl?
(27:28):
Or words, yeah, that must bereally long.
Yeah, we need a truck to cartit around.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, one hundredand seven thousand words, which
I was originally shooting forninety thousand words, because
that was kind of the recommendedamount for a debut novel.
But science fiction and fantasyand I am not writing fantasy,
(27:49):
though the science in my storyis it gets a little bit into
kind of more paranormal typestuff rather than just pure hard
science.
But at any rate, those types ofstories actually are typically
a bit longer than some of theother genres, and so that word
count was okay.
But the climax of the story,the way it was originally
(28:11):
written, was not okay because itkind of kept repeating the same
things without adding somethingnew to the story, and so we
tightened that up.
So every time something newhappened it added to what was
going on in that climax andbrought something new in.
And what's that?
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Yeah, oh, what's interesting too is we could
identify that from your reverseoutline and we said maybe this
will work out or maybe it'll bea little bit too drawn out
feeling.
And then you wrote it becausewe were like we don't know, we
just need to see.
So you rewrote it and then wesaid, okay, yeah, it kind of
parts are working, parts are alittle too drawn out.
So during these kind of lastphases of polishing the
(28:51):
manuscript, we were really hardon the climactic scenes and just
tightened everything as much aswe could, and you know we're
both happy with the result.
So, um, yeah, I just think it'sso interesting to think about.
It's almost like you have thisbig mess, almost, and then you
just sharpen, sharpen, sharpenuntil it gets to the point where
you're happy with it yeah, yeah, and we spent a lot of time on
(29:12):
on on the climax.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
So what?
Like we did on the beginning,which I think makes sense
because those you know, thatbrings the reader in at the
beginning and the start and atthe end you've got to satisfy
the reader.
It's all got to make sense andthe reader has got to feel good
about how it's all coming out,and so we paid a lot of
(29:34):
attention to that.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
And would you say that the climax was easier to
work through after all the workwe had done on your antagonist?
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Oh, definitely, because of course the climax was
a big confrontation between theprotagonist and antagonist and
having all that additionalinformation not just in the back
of my head, but we had beenverbalizing it through the story
all along it really made theclimax come together a lot more
(30:03):
clearly and in a real satisfyingway.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, and in a way I remember watching you kind of go
through the phases of theclimax and there was never
really a version where it waslike, well, what is his
motivation?
Because we knew what theantagonist wanted.
The whole time we'd expressedit, and so at a certain point it
got to just kind of the stagedirection and how is all this
going to come out and actuallyplay out?
(30:28):
And then it was like polishing,because I see a lot of writers
who they'll get to the end andthey're like I don't know why my
antagonist is confronting themright now.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
And I think that was just evidence that we had set up
everything in the draftproperly so that when you got to
that point it just kind offlowed Right, right, yeah it was
, yeah, the the parts that welingered on the most was more of
a what was a little bit more ofa back into the detail level in
that, just making sure thingshappened in the right order
(30:57):
because we knew what things were.
But but it's it's like when dowe want this to happen?
When do we want the reader toknow that?
And so it was more kind of likegoing through that stuff.
But it wasn't a question aboutwhy things were happening, it
was just making sure that theywere in the best order and in a
way that would you know, keepthe reader's attention as they
were moving through it.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah, and we had the fun experience of dealing with
weapons that you've made up andtechnology, and getting those in
the right place at the righttime and making sure that
nothing was usable that wasn'tbeing used.
You know, because that's thething science, fantasy or
science fiction and fantasywriters deal with.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
A lot is right stuff that they make up yeah, yeah,
yeah, because because actuallythere was one weapon we totally
got rid of because there wasjust no reason for it, and once
we had gotten through, it's likewe don't need that particular
weapon.
We can torture our protagonistenough without that weapon.
So, yeah, and that was good.
And one other thing that waskind of fun regarding the
(31:53):
science part of it, because thewhole story idea evolved over so
many years.
Actually, for me, I had to keepchanging the science part of it
because it's like the realworld kept catching up to where
I was and I was right about somethings and not about other
things, and so I had to keepchanging the nature of the
original problem that myprotagonist is trying to solve,
(32:16):
which is the, if you want tocall it, the surface problem,
the technical problem.
I had to keep changing thatbased on what was going on in
the real world.
So that was fun too.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yeah, that's pretty funny and I think you're a good
example of the advice that sayswrite what you know, because you
took your work background andyour interest in science and
technology and put that intoyour sci-fi stories.
That's pretty fun.
Yeah, yes.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Well, not only that, but my protagonist is an IT
person and it's like, okay, howdo you make an IT person?
It's like, okay, how do youmake an IT person interesting?
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah Well you know right?
Yeah, let's make him an alien.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Let's give him an inner wound, let's beat him up a
lot.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
That's something Cheryl's really good at.
That a lot of writers strugglewith is beating up their
protagonist.
She's very good at that, yes,okay.
So then we went to line editing, and then you went to copy
editing and then, somewherearound there, you decided to
self publish your book.
So two questions Was thereanything that stood out during
the line editing and copyediting phase, and then why did
you decide to self publish?
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Right.
Well, there was one big thinghappened during the line editing
.
The editing folks that that Iworked with were just absolutely
excellent, but in the lineediting the editor questioned
something in the climax that wehad thought was we had it, that
we had things pretty tight, andwe actually rewrote the climax
(33:42):
yet one more time and the lineeditor gave me a second line
edit on that.
It was basically moretightening up.
It was like we had removed somuch repetition and it was
looking compared to how it was,it was looking really good to us
.
But the line editor questionedsome things and it's like, yeah,
those are good questions, andso we went back and worked on
(34:05):
that some more.
So I would say you know, don'tshortchange that editing process
when you're getting near theend.
Even though you've done a lotof work and you've worked with
the good editor to get to whereyou're at, there are still
things that you may have missed.
You know that a brand newreader is going to see that.
You just can't see when you'vebeen in it for so long yourself.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
And at that point I mean we were over a year and a
half into it, you a lot longer,but you know I tell writers all
the time, even if, like in thiscase, I was Cheryl's
developmental editor and bookcoach, and there's things that
I'm not going to see clearlyafter a year and a half, of
course.
So it's always a good idea toswitch up your editors if you
want, or at least go through theline editing and the copy
(34:49):
editing after your developmentaledit and beta readers just to
get eyes on your story that youdon't have throughout the
process.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah, definitely, definitely.
And then the final choice, forhow am I going to publish it?
I had always been aiming ittowards the traditional route.
So I had done some queryingwhen I had the first draft done
and it was not very successful.
But you know, I was new atquerying and I had this brand
(35:18):
new, somewhat unpolishedmanuscript but at least I got to
know a bit with that process,got to know a bit about that
process, but at least I got toknow a bit about that process.
And then, when it got to thepoint where we actually had the
additional editing done and wehave a pretty polished
manuscript, I decided for reallytwo reasons to pursue the
(35:41):
self-publishing.
And one has to do with thetimeline, because I'm 72, 72 so
I'm not remember I was drainingdogs for competition and they
can survive.
So you know, not spring chickenhere.
And when I, you know I wastaking a lot of, you know,
webinars and stuff on.
You know the nuts and bolts ofthe publishing process and and
(36:05):
pretty much the standard advicewas to expect that once a
publisher now not the agent,mind you, but once a publisher
has bought your manuscript, it'sgoing to be 18 to 24 months
before you see that actually inprint, right?
And the thing is is that clockdoesn't start ticking until you
(36:28):
actually have the publisher.
Before that you need to get anagent to be willing to take you
on.
And I'd actually gotten to thepoint where I had two agents who
had requested the fullmanuscript, which was a lot of
progress from where I hadstarted.
But the thing is they stillwould have to sell out to a
publisher and every step alongthe way they're going to ask for
(36:50):
changes.
That that's going to bestandard.
And so I looked at even if wehad the publisher buying it.
Now we're looking at 18 to 24months and I thought that for me
, I thought that is just toolong for me, and so I wanted to
take control of the timeline.
And then the other element wasthat at each step the agent and
(37:17):
their editors will look over themanuscript and the publisher's
editors will look over themanuscript and, reasonably,
would ask for some changes.
That's pretty normal.
And I thought about it and Ithought I've got some pretty
strong themes in this story,enough that I actually had an
official sensitivity reader gothrough it to make sure I didn't
(37:37):
cross boundaries too much, andI decided it's not that the
manuscript had not been edited.
It's been edited, you know,inside and outside, and I just
did not want to make any morechanges to it, especially
something that might affect thetheme, and so those and when you
(37:58):
say strong themes, you meanthat in two different ways,
right?
Speaker 2 (38:01):
So you mean there are some things that you feel very
passionate about, like notjudging others and being open to
things that are different thanyou or your experiences, and
then also, we know there arelife and death stakes and
children that are not likeviolently at risk or anything,
but there's a what do we call itlike a disease that's affecting
yeah, there's.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
There's a disease, and actually I believe that
there are two children.
They don't die the page, butthey do die in the process of
the story and that's, you know,it's not for every reader, but
for me it was an expression ofthe stakes and also gave me the
opportunity to show one of mythemes, which is the compassion
(38:44):
that the main character has andthe empathy that he has for
those that are different fromhim.
That, even though there is thisantagonism between the alien
race and the human race and thatwas an important theme to me
and having very seriousconsequences was the way that I
expressed that and and I Iwanted that to stay in the story
(39:08):
.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
So yeah, so that makes sense.
With the timeline and just withthe edits you've done and how
you got it to a place where youwere really proud of it, you
were like, I think I'm good tojust self-publish.
Yep, yeah, so that makes sense.
And this month, well, whilewe're recording it, your book is
up on the internet.
It's ready to purchase or readyto pre-order, and then when
(39:29):
this episode airs, it will havebeen out for just a few weeks.
So I mean, that's prettyamazing.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
It is amazing for me to think of.
It's still kind of hard tobelieve, and it's funny because
it's like there was so, so muchtime put into working the draft
from its roughest form to thefinal form and yet, you know,
all of a sudden it seems likeeverything's just happening so
fast now.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
And you're still in production mode, so I'm sure
part of it doesn't even feelreal and it probably won't until
things slow down a little.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Yeah, yeah, and for anybody that's working in that
phase, what I have found is thatit can look overwhelming if you
look at all the things that youneed to do.
And so I have learned to saytoday I'm going to do X, y and Z
and I can put on blinders andnot even worry about the've been
focusing on signing up to gettrade reviews, and so it's like
(40:28):
I'm not worrying about the otherthings because there's nothing
I need to do about those thingsin the next few days.
So putting on those blindersreally helps, because otherwise
you can just kind of starthyperventilating and definitely
it looks overwhelming otherwise,and it helps that you're so
organized.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
You gathered all the data and you know the deadlines
of when you need things, and soyou're working off a very easy
to execute checklist at thispoint, which is great.
That does help, yeah, yeah.
But well, I want to ask you,cheryl, if you think about the
version of you back in 2022, oreven before that, when you had
joined your other writing group,because you wanted to take this
(41:04):
more seriously.
Now that you've gone throughthis and you know what what are
like, what would you tellyourself to do differently, or
what are you looking forward todoing with your next book?
Speaker 1 (41:15):
well, and I am actually.
I have 200 pages of the sequelto this written and I thought
surely you've already violatedone of the things you said.
So so, before I do, I hadactually had that written when
we were first starting when, Ifirst started working on book
one, but what I'm doing ismaking sure that I've got a
(41:37):
solid outline for the storybefore I go any farther.
A lot of what I already havewritten is going to be usable,
but it needs to fit into a good,solid structure, and so I've
actually, this last week I'vestarted putting that structure
for book two together, and boyis that fun stuff finished up
(42:07):
for book one, so that I can justreally concentrate here on book
two, because I am so anxious toput into play what we just
talked about.
You know, make sure that I'vegot you know the, you know the,
the, the overall structure atthe act level and then the scene
level laid out, and I can seemost of it in my head already
and can hardly.
We're almost to the weatherwhere I can be outside in the
(42:28):
backyard with the dogs.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Yeah for more brainstorming.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Yes, working through details, but I'm actually so
excited about book two I canjust taste it, and so, if
anything, what all of thisexperience has done is just made
me more eager to do it allagain with the next book and and
apply the things that I thatI've learned that that need to
(42:52):
be done.
So the antagonist willdefinitely have a lot more
development and and I will bethinking from the antagonist
point of view about things Ithink I've got a good handle on
interiority now and then it'sjust so much fun doing that.
Write it colloquially first andthen go through and smooth it
afterwards.
It's like that is just so muchfun so I actually, when I first
(43:15):
decided I wanted it to be, youknow, more serious published
novel, I was a bit oftrepidation looking towards that
, but it's like I wanted to doit.
Now it's like it's all lookinglike fun and so I just, I just
can't wait to, you know, betotally embroiled in the next
story.
And this whole story sequenceis going to be a trilogy.
(43:38):
So I've got notes for bookthree already, and when I get
notes I just just write themdown, keep track of them.
So yeah, so that they will cometogether into a structure when
we're ready for that.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Yeah, and I bet too in hindsight, there's things
like you probably heard adviceon the Internet like don't write
and edit at the same time, andyou probably said, ok, I get
that, but whether I put it intopractice is another story.
I bet there's things you lookback on that you're like I just
wish I would have listened tothat advice.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
Yeah, and that's true .
And then, on the other hand, Ithink for each of us there's
probably a point in time whenwe're ready to hear a particular
piece of advice and for me ithappened over these past couple
of years but it's like once Ifinally started doing it, it's
like, oh man, this is not onlyis this easier, but it's fun.
(44:25):
And it's like, okay, this isdefinitely the way to do it.
And yeah, I probably shouldhave done it earlier, but it's
like I wasn't ready to receivethat advice earlier, or
something.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, well, I hope that, whoever is, I feel like
there are people listening thatare going to say I feel like I'm
Cheryl two years ago andthey're going to just take this
as inspiration to maybe justlessen the editing a little as
they write or to try outlining,if they haven't before.
And on that note, cheryl, Iwanted to ask you because I know
that you're a data person, asystems person, you like to be
(44:56):
organized and you're veryanalytical and stuff like that.
But what would you say topeople who are hearing all of
this and they're like, well, ifI do an outline, I feel like I'm
not going to be creative?
Did you feel that at all?
Speaker 1 (45:07):
not the way that we did it.
It's, you know, I you know,before we started, uh, using the
, the outline structure that yougave us in story lab and in
notes to novel, I thought, oh,it could be, it could be that
that's gonna is, you know, gonnamake me stuck with this
particular.
Once it's written down as anoutline, it's like I'm stuck
with it and I can't change it,and all the creativity thought
(45:29):
of it.
But the thing is, is that?
No, the outline actually livesand breathes with you as you're
going, especially when we werereworking the climax and we we
broke it into four scenes andthen we mish-moshed them
together and so the outline keptchanging.
And that was another reason tokeep the outline at a high level
, because otherwise, if you'rechanging all those details over
(45:51):
and over again, that's prettytedious.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
And.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
I think that's one of the things that might keep a
person from wanting to do anoutline.
But by keeping the outline tothe high level of just the five
elements that needed to be inthere, then it became a matter
of ordering them and just makingsure that we didn't leave
anything out, that each sceneled into the next scene with its
five elements, and by doingthat so the outline was actually
(46:17):
, in a way, it was being draftedjust like the actual writing
was being drafted.
Only it was by keeping it atthat outline level.
It could be done quickly.
You know when it was, oh man,we need this to happen before
that happens, or this isn'tgoing to flow together.
Well, it was easy to changethat in the outline because we
(46:39):
didn't have to go back andrewrite all those paragraphs and
all that dialogue and all thataction.
So in that respect, the outlinereally is just a very useful
tool and, yeah, I won't leavehome without it again.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Yeah, I think that's important.
What you said, too, is you'realmost treating it like a draft.
You're writing like a zerodraft through your outline and
you're not going to in the weeds.
And then once you're confidentenough in that it doesn't have
to be perfect, but once you'reconfident enough then you have
so much room still to write ascene and there's so much
creativity that can go into thatas well.
And then if things change, ofcourse, like you said, we update
(47:17):
the outline and we're good togo.
So, yeah, I think that's goingto be helpful for other people
who are.
They might hear you and think,oh, it's easy for you because of
your background and you're soanalytical.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
But I do think that this kind of process can help
plotters and pantsers andeveryone in between.
And one other thing on the youknow being a detailed oriented
person, in some respects thathelps, you know, because I like
to organize things right, but inother respects that made it
harder to let go of putting inall that detail.
And so, whatever your approachis, some of your natural
(47:52):
approach is going to help whatyou're doing, and some of it are
things that you're going tohave to work with, and it
doesn't matter which approach itis, because you need each
element of those approaches.
You need to be able to see thebig picture and then you need to
be able to see the detail, andso one's going to be easier for
you than the other, but they canboth be very doable if you just
(48:14):
put the blinders on and you sayI'm doing this, I'm doing this.
Now, here's my blinders on, I'mjust going to do this.
And now?
Okay, now I'm going to do that.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
I think that's a good point too.
I think we talk a lot about inthe on the internet, about how
plotters need to outline to savethemselves trouble, and it's
almost like we spotlight thethings that the bad things that
happen when you're a I'm sorry,a pantser, and then we don't
talk enough about the bad thingsthat could happen if you're a
plotter, because, like you said,a lot of plotters will hold on
to things too tightly and gettoo in the weeds.
So I, of course, I think it'sall about balance.
(48:49):
It's my Libra nature to thinkabout balance.
But anyway, cheryl, this was sofun to reminisce and go down
memory lane.
I know it's been years at thispoint, but anything else like
that you want to, I mean, telleither your past self or
aspiring writers who want to getto where you are now.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
Just to keep writing and not let yourself, if you
feel like you're getting stuck,just go and do something,
anything, even if it's justrewrite over word for word
something with physical exercisethat if you just start doing
something then it kind of lockseverything or unlocks everything
so that you can go forward withthings.
So, just keep writing.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Yeah, I love that.
And, Cheryl, where can peoplefind you around the Internet?
Speaker 1 (49:40):
I have a website at wwwcheryl-arcocom and that's
always a good place to start.
It has a way to contact me andtell us a little bit about the
book and have some cool pictureson it, and it's a good place to
start.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
Thank you so much, cheryl, and I'm excited to see
how everything goes with thisbook.
Oh, great, Thank you.
So that's it for today'sepisode.
As always, thank you so muchfor tuning in and for showing
your support.
If you want to check out any ofthe links I mentioned in this
episode, you can find them inthe show notes listed in the
description of each episodeinside your podcast player or at
(50:22):
savannahgilbocom forward slashpodcast.
If you're an Apple user, I'dreally appreciate it if you took
a few seconds to leave a ratingand a review.
Your ratings and reviews tellApple that this is a podcast
that's worth listening to and,in turn, your reviews will help
this podcast get in front ofmore fiction writers just like
you.
And while you're there, goahead and hit that follow button
(50:42):
, because there's going to beanother brand new episode next
week, full of actionable tips,tools and strategies to help you
become a better writer.
So I'll see you next week anduntil then, happy writing.
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