Awful Intent Update 11/7

ByJohn Brown

Today was awesome for writing. First, I got five hours in, and I was in flow the whole time. When you’re in flow, you’re in the scene, seeing it, smelling it, experiencing it. It’s awesome.

Second, during my review of the first draft, I came to the final battle scene and realized I’d made it much too convoluted. Way too convoluted. When I wrote it, I thought it was great, but coming to it fresh, it was just too much. So I drew a big red line through all those pages and made a note to rewrite it. Today I got to rewrite that section plus a bunch before and after it.

I have to say I love sheriff Hood, the female character who is teamed up with Frank. The woman is spectacular. And I love this fight scene. I don’t think I’ve ever seen or read a thriller fight scene like this one. Sorry, won’t tell you what it is (no spoilers), but I can tell you I can’t wait to get this out to readers. I’m as pleased with this as I was the snow mobile sequence in Bad Penny.

Have a great weekend.

Share

Similar Posts

  • Drovers Update: Draft 2 finished

    ByJohn Brown

    Huzzah!

    I just typed the final words of draft 2 of the first book of The Drovers. It now goes to my beta readers (I’m the alpha reader, the one who sees draft 1). And while they’re reading, I will begin draft 2 of the second book.

    This is the shortest novel I’ve ever written, clocking in at 61,000 words. My target was 50,000 words, the average size of a Louis L’Amour western. But this will do. Depending on the beta reader feedback, I may add or cut a few thousand words. But not much.

    I still don’t have a series name, dang it!

    The Queen’s Drovers?

    Share

  • Writing Update: Awful Intent

    ByJohn Brown

    Folks, I just finished the first draft of my working outline for AWFUL INTENT. I’m stoked. Lots of research and lots fun and sometimes maddening work to get to this point. Here’s the current version of the summary, which will change.

    Southeastern Utah. 30,000 square miles of red-rock desert and wilderness.  One of the least populated places in the United States. The perfect place to hide just about anything.

    Frank Shaw is just passing through. He was once an elite soldier, trained to see what others want to hide. Then he made some terrible mistakes and fell from grace. Except the old skills never went away: they were only heightened during his time behind bars. Which is why Frank notices the fearful woman in the McDonalds and the killer watching her. 

    Frank could move on. He’s got a life to put together and a sandwich to buy. But some things are more important than a Big Mac. Frank follows the man who follows the woman, and that one decision leads Frank to a ranch that isn’t a ranch and into a plot of awful proportions.

    When Frank and the strong female Sheriff from the small town a number of miles away discover the truth, they try to get back and call for help, but the rancher is on to them and sends a private army out to hunt them down in the wilderness. Frank and the Sheriff will need to use all their combined skills to survive. Because time is running out, and thousands of lives are at stake.

    My agent got back to me on BAD PENNY. I will be focusing on some tweaks over the next two or three weeks. Then we need to get that moving forward.

    Finally, I know some of you are wondering about the DARK GOD series. And why wouldn’t you be with my earlier post? Things haven’t been finalized. Soon, Grasshopper. Soon.

    Share

  • Tomorrow’s ILA keynote speech time and location update

    ByJohn Brown

    Just wanted to update anyone planning on attending my keynote at the Idaho Library Association conference in Soda Springs–I had the wrong location and time. The correct location and time are below. See you there.

    Keynote Speech
    Southeast & Eastern Idaho Library Association Conference

    DATE AND TIME
    Friday, April 30th, 10 AM

    LOCATION
    Tigert Middle School
    250 E 200 S
    Soda Springs, ID 83276-1412
    (208) 547-4922

    Share
  • |

    Lesson 8 finished

    ByJohn Brown

    If you write poopy-slow like me, you will finish 500-700 words of your draft in an hour. Let’s see what that means for various novel sizes.

    • 25,000 words: 50 hours
    • 50,000 words: 100 hours
    • 75,000 words: 150 hours
    • 100,000 words: 200 hours
    • 200,000 words: 400 hours

    And those requirements don’t count time you might need to spend re-imagining a piece or researching some gap in your knowledge or figuring out some knotty bit you couldn’t see was problematic when you first set out. A novel can be a big project and stretch over a few weeks, especially when you don’t have eight hours a day to write.

    In this lesson, you will learn that you need to treat the draft like what it is–a project–and use basic project management techniques to help you get the work done.

    Share

  • Awful Intent Update: Chapter 26

    ByJohn Brown

    I have now moved from the struggle into the resolution. It’s all down hill from here.  I expect the novel to be 70-80k words. The shortest novel I’ve written yet. But I always seem to add on most of my revisions. I hope to keep it shorter, but we’ll see.

    Now you may ask, hey, how does that compare with other thrillers? Well, here are the lengths of a few of James Patterson’s.

    Title Words
    Honeymoon 65,572
    4th of July 68,000
    Lifeguard 71,634
    Mary, Mary 72,426
    Judge and Jury 74,288
    Doublecross 70,753

    And here are some more by some other authors.

    Author Title Words
    Lee Child Gone Tomorrow 146,000
    Lee Child One Shot 124,000
    Lee Child Killing Floor 162,000
    Lee Child Persuader 164,000
    Michael Connelly The Brass Verdict 145,000
    Ridley Pearson Cut and Run 114,000
    Robert Crais The Watchman 82,000
    Robert Crais Taken 84,000
    Robert Crais The First Rule 76,000
    Robert Crais The Sentry 82,000
    Brad Thor Full Black 117,000
    Brad Thor Athena Project 102,000
    Dean Koontz The Good Guy 93,000
    Dean Koontz The Husband 94,000
    Share

2 Comments

Comments are closed.