Earlier this morning I went through my editing task for the final two chapters of Prequel, and I thought, ah ha, that’s actually sorted. But I hadn’t reckoned on the Synopsis.
A Synopsis really doesn’t figure in an eBook, I know. But I’ve found it helpful when looking at the project as a whole, to understand where things have got to, what I was meaning to say, how I managed to say it. Compare and contrast, in other words, between the Synopsis and the actual novel words. Well.
I looked at that Synopsis, and I suddenly twigged, wait a moment, you really haven’t addressed that particular point in the actual ‘showing’ of the action. ‘Telling’ the reader doesn’t cut it; we need to be shown. Try as I might to read between the lines, I couldn’t realise any showing of this particular ramification. So I’d just assigned myself another 1000 words to make sense of that bit. Hurrah!
In fact, I was aiming towards 80k words for this Prequel, a climb-down from the 114k words of the seventh draft of the main novel. In the end, I made it to 79.5k words, all told, and I think that missing bit is helpful.
With that scene in place, now, I feel that much more assured that my eBook Prequel is reasonably done and dusted. But I’ve had another little worry-thought. Why so hasty? Do you really want to rush this Prequel into the public domain, without offering a variety of readers an opportunity to inject some useful critical analysis and assessment? My two beta-readers have given it the thumbs-up. That was so cool, as I enjoyed the anticipation while they read through the draft.
Now that I’ve gone through it all again, correcting as I go, reconciling discrepancies, fixing grammatical and syntax errors, knocking out the typos, I’m ready for some more readers, sure. But at the same time, I’m itching to launch the book too, to try the waters, see how it all flies in the marketplace.
Discretion is an important part of valour, I’m told, so what I actually think I’ll do is launch the Fragments on BookFunnel, and promote that launch through the social media and contacts list I have at my disposal. Maybe another few beta-readers, intrigued by Fragments, might be inveigled to have a serious perusal of Prequel, and thereby protect me from any egregious errors I might have missed.
Biome NE47 