The Hunger Games – Chapter by Chapter Review

Part 1: Chapter One (UK edition pages 3 – 24, estimated 5515 words)

Background – This will normally be background to how we have got to this place in the book, but as this is the first chapter the background is a little different. Before I get into this for the first time, I thought I would explain a bit about these reviews and what will hopefully make them different to all the other reviews out there. As you will probably know if you read this blog, I am a wannabe author. I have written my first book at 92,000, edited it (10 edits so far), shown it to agents and I’m now working on fine tuning it based on their comments (which actually means a lot of cutting – around 20,000 words). I am pretty confident that it has the potential to be a published novel in the not too distant future. I am also currently 54,000 words into my second book and I have set myself the goal of having five rejection letters by the end of the year. The reason I say rejection letters, is that such a small % of people get picked up. An agent told me (and the rest of my seminar at the weekend) that she gets 25 prospective novels a week, so that makes 1300 books a year and of those she will actually publish just 4-7 of them. But I’m getting off topic. The way these reviews will work and be different, I feel that with the work I have done on my writing, I am in a good position to talk about character and plot development in reasonable detail. Hopefully you will learn something about The Hunger Games book and I will learn how to weave these things into my own writing better. So without further ado, let’s get started with chapter one.

Basic Plot – (This section will only be a couple of sentences long.) Katniss wakes up on reaping day. She goes into the wood hunting, where she meets up with Gale. They stop by the Hob and trade before going to the mayor’s house to trade there. They split the final remaining spoils (food) of their hunt and go home to prepare for the reaping. At one o’clock they go to District 12’s square for the Reaping, which is compulsory. At the Reaping, Effie Trinket pulls Prim’s name out to compete in the Hunger Games.

Plot Development –

The story starts with Katniss waking up, this is no a start you would often be advised to start with, if fact I’ve heard so many talks that have told you not to do this, so it is very brave for Collins to do this. And it does but you straight in the story and presents our first mystery. The first line end with the news that the other side of the bed is cold, this hints that this character usually sleeps next to someone but who? At this stage, you could well imagine it to be a boy, given the target audience of the book, but in fact it is the protagonist’s younger sister. The hook of the first paragraphs is a good one too – ‘This is the day of the reaping.’ This is great, it puts the focus on that single last word. It creates so many questions about what this is and what it means and why it is so important. It is great to have the last word of the paragraph as our new word, our questioning word – reaping.  If that is not a word that pulls you back in and keeps your mind fresh, I don’t know what would.

We then start to get to know our character and find her to be hard. Rather than have a save the cat moment (an action where the main character will do something heroic, something that will get you to root for them – see http://www.blakesnyder.com/ for more details), our author tries to drown the cat. This is daring in the very least, how can you feel for a character that would kill a poor defenceless animal. But it gives you a great visual of the world where cat are unnecessary burdens and no longer pets, as well as given you an insight into the character. This girl is hard, she will do what it takes to survive. The fact that she does not drown the cat and gives into her little sister, Prim’s demands and lets the cat lives, shows even better characteristics of our girl Katniss. She will give her sister what she wants even if she doesn’t think that it is a wise choice.

So far we have had three mentions of the reaping just by page 5 but you still do not know what it is, even if it is a good or bad thing. This creates great suspense and tension as the questions build in your mind. This is brilliant story telling. You keep your readers in the dark as long as possible without withholding information that will make you think that the character is keeping secrets for you, especially when the book is written in first person like this book is. You have to believe in the main character and trust to go on their journey, you can’t doing that if they are keeping secrets from you. This is done very skilfully as this intriguing phrase is mention in passing and we get a feel for it without getting an information dump. In fact we barely know anything about it at all, which leads to our questions. All we actually do know is that things are particularly prepared for the reaping (clothes, food) and that you get a line in. At this point, the reaping could well just be an event like Christmas.

The world and themes of the book are quickly being developed. This book is fast paced and by just page 6, we get our first mention of rebellion, a theme that will last through the three books. And that word alone gets you questioning: rebellion, think about the word, fight against someone or something, people tend not to do it for good reason and here the good reason is that people starve to death in this world. But the rebellion is not followed for very good reason. The people are scared of rebelling because they are scared for their lives and will instead let themselves starve. This quote is in reference to Katniss’s father’s ability to make bow and arrows and highlights perfectly the fear in which people live. ‘My father could have made good money selling them, but if the officials found out he would have been publicly executed for inciting a rebellion.’

Page 7, the world building continues and we get the first mention of Panem (the country) and the Capitol. This has been slowly done. We have got a good feel for the characters, Katniss in particular and the setting before we learn about our actual world. Yes we have had hints but here it is laid out. Collins has careful dropped clues in odd sentences instead of given you a big information dump, this means you have stayed with the character and the action, instead of being pulled in and out of it. Much easier said than done, trust me. And in case I haven’t said this yet, Collins is a genius. What we do learn also back up the hints we have had and supports what we have already learnt. This is a world where you can’t voice you opinion, you can speak up against the Capitol without risking your life. So people learn how to keep quiet and keep their heads down, including at this stage our main character. Something that will change. But at this stage she can’t make a difference and will not risk her neck without cause especially as she has a family to support.

Talking about dropping things in. It takes until page 8 to get our first mention of Katniss’s name and page 9 to get a mention of the Hunger Games. First getting the main characters name – that came late into the book, five pages without a character’s name is a lot. But I actually didn’t miss not knowing it, I actually didn’t realise I didn’t know it until this point. As for the mention of the Hunger Games, I didn’t really care that it took so long to mention. Some titles don’t get their mention until nearly the end of the book, so in this aspect it was very early and very intriguing. Like the mentions with the reaping, it is just dropped in their as a topic and dropped. Katniss and Gale quickly go back to their hunting activities and we get another kind of goodbye scene. It is a glorious day, now maybe it’s the tone of the book so far or my cynical nature coming into place but this struck me as too good to be true, plus you already know that the point of a first chapter is to throw the first chapter is to throw the protagonist’s life in the air, if it didn’t we would start three chapters in. So for me, this day is without question a goodbye, something sweet to hold onto (and I was kind of proved right with that .)

We now are starting to learn much more about the reaping. We know now that after the reaping people celebrate that their children have been spared. We don’t know what they have been spared from and apparently it is something that will last for weeks but we do know finally that the reaping is a bad this. Just as we are getting finally start to understand what the reaping is, we break away from the scene as we follow Katniss and Gale to the Mayor’s house. Interesting side not here, we get another note of just how poor this place is. The Mayor is the only one who can afford to buy strawberries. And even the Mayor daughter does not wear nice clothes. Okay yes, she is a great dress for the reaping, but her normal clothes are ‘drap’, she is obviously in special clothes today. We do learn more about the reaping. We now know that they go to the Capitol if they are called and Madge has five entries in making this happen. Begs the question five out of so many. Luckly this question is not left hanging for long. So at the age of 12 you qualify for the reaping and you get one entry. Each year you get an extra entry added until your last year in the reaping at 18 when you have seven entries. That sounds pretty fair. But wait we already know its no going to be fair, I mean it’s hardly the tone that has been set so far in this book. If you are poor you can opt to put your name in extra times in a exchange for a year’s supply of tesserae (a year’s supply of oil and rice for one person). You can qualify for as much tesserae as you like, so most people put their name in for their whole family, like both Katniss and Gale do. So at this year’s reaping Katniss has 20 entries and Gale 42 compared to Madge’s 5. Hardly fair, but then a nice happy fair book wouldn’t sell, well at least not to the same market and it would be a totally different book wouldn’t it?

So we are reaching the end of the chapter and things are starting to fall into place. We are having some of our early questions answered , but those answers are providing even more questions. Good writing again, genius even . So we have finally arrived at the reaping and people are silent. I don’t know about you but silence unnerves me, I mean how many times are things actually silence, there is always some type of noise in the background from somewhere. The description strikes me very much as a cattle market, is that what these children are seen as, how highly they are valued, yes probably but make of that what you will. They are herded (a careful word choice and one very much linked with cattle for sale) into roped areas marked by ages and families line the perimeter. People pass through the crowds offering bets. I’m not losing the feel of cattle market yet I’m afraid. How devalued are they children? Are they just clogs in a machine? It’s starting to sound like the whole of Panem is. Just how powerful is this place? What can’t they do? Anyway back to the cattle pen, the space is tight and claustrophobic, I’m guessing with the number of nervous teenagers in there that it really doesn’t smell too great in there either.

Aha, here’s the back story I have been waiting. Now I know just why this is taking place right at the end of the chapter, way to hold out on us Collins. The mayor reads the history of Panem. This is again cleverly done. The characters obviously know this, so wouldn’t talk to each other about it, but here we the audience are being told as it is part of a tradition for it to be read out. Clever indeed. So here’s the deal. Panem as a country rose from the ashes of north America that had destroyed itself. The mayor quickly covers hundreds of years of history of disasters, brutal warfare (great foreshadowing there), dark days and the rest the Capitol rose, defeated 12 districts and destroyed the other district. And that is why the Hunger Games is needed. It’s a punishment. So now the capitol enforces these games where one girl and one boy is picked from each district and taken away to fight for to the death. To make this worse they make people watch. Page 22: ‘Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there’s nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just like we did in District Thirteen.’ Now not only is this a new concept but its chilling and it’s got me reading. But what makes these games even more humiliating, the Capitol treats these games like a sporting event. Part of writing is not just giving you a character to root for but also ones to hate and trust me when I say I hate the Capitol.

So now to the last part of the chapter and one of the most important parts, the hook. The hook like I said at the start is the thing that will keep you turning the page. Stop you reading a chapter in a book shop and putting it back to pick something else. Its that mouth watering element to writing. With a hook for a first chapter it should introduce something new, something that changes the story. Now I was expecting Katniss’s name to be called. She is the main character, the book is called the Hunger Games, logic says that she has to go to them. Plus she has all those entries in the reaping. I was never expecting the last two words of this chapter, the name that was called out instead: Primrose Everdeen, Katniss little sister. I mean this is the character that Katniss has tried to protect from everything except the Hunger Games, but what can she do now? Her sister has to take part and if she tries to rebel against it, based on what we have read she will be executed. What a hook. What great final words. And what an impact to have them as the very last thing you read. It certainly had me turning the page. Sheer brilliance.

Characters in Chapter (* if this the first time they have been introduced) –  Katniss*, Prim*, Katniss’s mother*, cat named Buttercup*, Gale*, Effie Trinket*, Greasy Sae*, Madge – the Mayor’s daughter*, Mayor Undersee*, Haymitch Abernathy*

Character Development (this will mainly concern Katniss) –

KATNISS DEVELOPMENTS –

Family relationships – Mother: She appears not to have a good opinion of her money, she dismisses her as weak, although they are given a nice moment together where she helps Katniss gets dressed for the Reaping, making her look beautiful, wearing her mother’s dress and her mum pinning up her hair. This however has a very bittersweet feel to it, it almost feels like a goodbye scene, it’s too good a relationship in this scene compared to the comments about the rest of the relationship with her mother.  Father: Katniss appears to have a close relationship with her father, he was the one that taught her to hunt before he was killed in a mine explosion. This maybe a possible weakness, still five years later Katniss wakes up screaming for him to run. The fact that she has been so hurt by this and lost him, may just have made her more isolated so that she doesn’t get hurt again, lose someone that she loves in the same way. Prim: Katniss is very protective of her younger sister and goes as far as to call her the only person that she knows that she loves. There is in fact a very ironic and perfect use of this characteristic and relationship on page 18. ‘I protect Prim in every way I can, but I’m powerless against the reaping.’

Friends relationship – Gale: he appears to have a good relationship with Katniss. They treat each other as equals something neither of them appear to do with many other people and they trust each other a characteristic that appears to be even more sparing with this two characters. They are relaxed enough to joke with each and worry over each other’s fortunes in the Hunger Games. Madge: Madge takes time to wish Katniss luck, something that does not take place between Madge and Gale which was a much more antagonistic relationship. This indicates Katniss and Madge seem to have a reasonably close relationship.

Internal Characteristics – Intelligence: Even though Katniss knows that the electricity in the fence is always switched off, she still checks and takes time to listen for the hum that would signal that it is on. Resourceful : The fact that Katniss hunts and uses an hunting partner to bring home food for her family. Pride: Katniss refuses to ask for help or beg to help her family out. Determination: Katniss refuses to give up. Self-scarficing: Katniss takes tesserae for not just herself but also for her mother and Prim even though it ups her chances of taking part in the Hunger Games. Sense of Humour: Katniss appears to have a very dry and dark sense of humour. ‘District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety.’

GALE DEVELOPMENTS

Gale rants about the Capitol, this is very early and sets great foreshadowing on his character for the rest of the trilogy. In this chapter, he claims that tesserae is used to ensure misery and plant hatred amongst the people against each other and not against the Capitol, and to be fair he is most likely right but we will not see that until later in the series. Interestingly Katniss sees these rants against the Capitol as pointless, that ranting doesn’t change things or fill their stomachs – how things will change.

HAYMITCH DEVELOPMENTS

Haymitch arrives at an important event that will be televised drunk, causing great distress to bot the mayor and Effie. His behaviour has caused him to be a laughing stock despite that fact that as a winner of the Hunger Games he should have some kind of legendary status. He appears to be the image of washed up child star that is still dragged out and nothing like their former self and when he was actually famous.

EFFIE DEVELOPMENTS

Effie is clearly ambitious, even this chapter it clearly says that she wants to be bumped up to a better district.

Settings used – (1) House, appears to be very simple and basic, Katniss shares a bed with her sister, the kitchen is bare and there are mentions of rats. This obviously not a house where the people who live there have a lot of money, in fact it sounds like they are desperately poor. (2) District Twelve: the Seam, is full of cold miners and surrounded by a fence which is chain-linked and topped with barbed wire that in theory has been electrified to keep predators out but there is hardly any electricity and it is too expensive to keep it fully working. (3) The woods, somewhere that is illegal to go and is full of predatory animals. (4) District Twelve: the Hob, is an underground market which is not the healthiest of place both in the way is kept and what is served there, for example wild boar is a standard meal from one of the stalls. (5) District Twelve: the Mayor’s House – this is not described. (5) District Twelve: the square, is described as having a holiday feel to it and is a meeting place that is surrounded by shops.

I will post my first review for a chapter from The Hunger Games tomorrow – I just need to type it up and put it in order.

I will review York and my next steps after it at the weekend when I get a chance to sit down and write it. I want to do the weekend justice and that will take some time.

Okay, I know I love to write, if I didn’t then I wouldn’t spend so much of my time doing this let alone try to get a published book out there, because believe me I’ve read the horror stories and know too well you don’t become a writer for the fame. That doesn’t mean that I’m motivated all the time or that I don’t try to trick myself into believing that I’m writing when I’m not. Listening to writing podcasts, following people on twitter, doing research or reading my genre are all important but I’m not actually writing when I do those things. And sometimes they are just easier to do. Take last night, I’d been feeling grumpy all day, had loads of work to do and was tired by the time I actually got a chance to sit down and write at half nine in the evening. Half of me just wanted to give up for the night, not bother, but that small nagging voice in my head kept saying treat it like a job. In the end I managed 700 words before bed, which was not a lot, but it was better than none which at 9.25 I was tempted to have as my word count.  So how do I, and how did I motivate myself to do write last night.

First I keep in my mind, that I changed my career to do this. Yes, I have a day job, I tutor, but I don’t teach anymore. There was no way that I could teach and write at the same time, not if I wanted to sleep. So I keep reminding myself that this is my career and my day job is just that a job, it brings money in, and if I want to cut back on those hours I need to sell something. Not brain surgery to work that out but it’s still easier said than done. Next, I set myself a word target, I try to write a chapter a week, which means aiming to write a 1000 words a day Monday to Friday and gives myself the weekend to plot of the next in detail and work out any changes to the central plot etc. The only way I can keep myself accountable to this is by keeping a spreadsheet that tracks my progress. I also keep my ipad on me, so I can jot down notes of chapters, while I’m working etc, and add to them later that night. That can really help when I’m having a slow moving night because even just transfer those notes and putting them into sentences can sometimes spark ideas. Finally and this is the point you are going to groan at because its so obvious but it’s also true, I sit myself down and force myself to write, often promising myself rewards if I do x number of words.

So what rewards do I promise myself. I like promising myself games as a reward – but I have learnt many times that promising myself a game on football manager is not a good reward. That game is just too addictive for me and one game will soon turn into many more, and before I know it two or three hours are gone. So I’ve had to shelf football manager just for when I listen to Sheffield Wednesday play and then at least I can win a few games even if the actual team is playing badly. Instead I’m going with playing mah-jong titans, a game where you have to find matching pairs, only some of the pairs are blocked, so you have to work out the order to clear them in. It’s also addictive but doesn’t take as long to play one game and somehow I can give this one up much easier after a few games. Another thing I reward myself with is TV, I’ve tried to pretty much given up watching TV as it eats so much of your time, but there’s still shows I want to watch. Luckily with the internet and box sets etc I can reward myself with one episode of something after x amount of words without being sucked into watching a whole evening of shows.

So here’s what I do in short (and if this helps anyone I’m happy it did, if not it just reminds me) –

1. Write everyday
2. Set a target – if you don’t meet this it needs to be made up.
3. Keep something to jot down notes on because even just transfer can bring up some ideas as you turn them into sentences.
4. Reward yourself but don’t pick something too addictive that will waste hours of your time.

I guess the only other thing to say, is after I get back from York this weekend, there’s going to be a few changes to this blog. Actually it’s not really changes more additions. I want to put something up here each week, but if I just focus on my writing, research and letters to agents etc, there’s not always a lot to put without it getting boring and repetitive. So as well as the stuff I have been writing, I’m also going to do some book reviewing – chapter by chapter stuff so its more detailed but does not eat up too much time into my writing schedule. After all don’t they say a good writer is a good reader? I’m going to start next week with the first chapter of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I have picked this book for a number of reasons. First because I love it, so motivation should not be a problem. Second because it is layered with so many details that you only pick up on a second/third/fourth reading. And third because it’s one of the books that I have brought with my to Geneva and it is not stuck away in a box somewhere in my parents home in Sheffield.

Talk to you soon and take care.

Let me just say first this was my experience of the editing process, and I doubt many others will find it the same. But nevertheless here’s how it worked for me any why it took a mammoth ten drafts. I’m going to spilt this into four section because they where were the big edits took place. So without further ado here we go.

Draft One to Three – These will actually be most people’s draft one but it takes me the three to get things ordered. Draft one is just really a case of getting the ideas down, its really the skeleton for the rest. There so much more meet added to the bone after this. Draft two is where that starts to get added,  and each chapter grows quite a bit in time. And three is where it starts to make sense and I sort of the dyslexia signs – bad grammar and spelling particularly. Spell check is great, but if you can’t recognise the right word or more often than not your spell checker asks you what language you are trying to write in, it really doesn’t help that much. This is where the good old thesaurus come into play – much easier to use and much more dyslexia friendly.  These drafts really have an open outline. I have a good idea where the story is going. Key points for each chapter. However after I have finished a chapter these get re-evaluated. Some points get shifted forward, some backward and some deleted or replace. I’m not sure whether that makes me an outliner or not. I have got a strict outline but it is constantly getting changed. Anyway at the end of draft three I actually have the story that I am happy to work with. This is where before I have published on the internet, and I have to confess it was hard not getting the feedback at this stage and it took a lot to get going again. I know its shallow but I did miss the feedback a lot here.

Draft Four to Five – So instead of getting instant feedback, I took a break, tried to forget it, not that I could do that for too long. I did keep to the rule that you need to look at it from different eyes, like a book so I printed it off here. Reading it once before I marked a single word on it. After that took words out, deleted scenes, kill my babies as well as adding two or three more scenes. Draft four was transferring that back onto the computer and draft five was getting rid of the dyslexia in it. Then it was sent out to my first readers with a list of questions, and this was painful. Every two minutes I was desperate to email people and check how they were getting on. Luckily real life kept me sane as I’d just moved countries and started a new job. No time to dwell that much with all that on your plate. Also I ended up doing a lot of reading focusing around my genre and reading anything that was slightly recommended, finding some good book and others well, they weren’t my taste.

Drafts Six to Eight – Well the feedback came back and it was fairly positive. First two/thirds took too long and the last third was too quick and needed a battle scene. So through most of draft six, I was cutting the first two thirds including joining two chapters together and then spent the last third adding, including a full new chapter – a battle scene chapter. Draft six ended up having a similar feeling to draft one, although it was neater and more organised, it was back to being a skeleton of a novel.  Draft seven parts got fleshed out, parts got and really took a similar fashion to draft two. At the end of draft eight, mainly ‘spging’ (spelling, punctuation and grammar) the dyslexia out of it I was happy with it and willing to send it off again. My second readers were a mixture of some of the first readers (mainly the ones that had points out the biggest need for change) and some new readers. This time it went out for longer, giving people more time. I actually managed to keep more sane this time, despite still craving the feedback, I already had some and I knew I was on the right track but perhaps more importantly I had started writing book two and that was more than enough to keep my mind off the second readers (most of the time.)

Draft Nine to Ten – the feedback came back and it was good again. All that was really left to do with nine was a word cut as I was still aware that for its genre it was too long. If I thought I had murdered by babies before and took away the unnecessary I really did that here. The other with this draft was make sure that I added just little bits of foreshadowing. Draft ten, well that was just smarting it up. And well now it’s finished and it’s back to work on book two. The writing never stops eh?

p.s. sorry this post didn’t come up yesterday as promised but I’ve been having a pretty successful writing weekend of book 2 and didn’t want to break away from that until I had finished the chapter I was writing.

I have finished Firebound (provisional title). – Happy dance! 

It has been through 10 drafts and had an 18% cutt and has finally come in at 209 pages and 92046 words. And is now ready to send out, just in time for York. I plan to write a detailed post on how I worked through those drafts at the weekend (if I don’t do his you have my permission to kick me) which hopefully some people may find useful otherwise it will still be useful for me to motivate myself when I’m stuck on draft one with book 2. But for now since other things beckon, here is a quick look at my spreadsheet that tracked by progress.

Okay, maybe it shouldn’t be pitch perfect. I’ve been putting the start to my pitch for the York festival later this month and doing a lot of research on how to do a perfect pitch. The one thing is though there is never really a perfect pitch – something that is perfect for one person may not be perfect for another, but I can be pitch prepared, pitch perfected (for me) and pitch profitable – okay profitable is a stretch, but its linked to marketable and begins with a P. The research has basically turned up the same things – all stuff that you would expect really.

1. Set up, Hook and Resolution all need including.
2. Short and attention grabbing – at most 2/3 sentences, ideally the size of a tweet to hook your audience.
3. You can use a combination of books/film to give a clear idea of the story e.g. James Bond meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer mixed in with Nancy Drew (Now that would make an interesting book!)
4. Needs to describe the main character.
5. Needs to show the heart of the story.
6. Needs to have a compelling central idea.
7. Needs to explain the core conflict.
8. Needs to show the differentiating factor.
9. Needs to show the setting.
10. But shouldn’t just use lists.

That’s hell of a lot to put into a couple of sentences and that’s without even trying to condense 90,000+ words to less than a paragraph or two minutes of speaking. Luckily I managed to find a copy of the logline to the fantastic book – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hunger-Games-Suzanne-Collins/dp/1407109081/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299186296&sr=8-1) – side note if you haven’t read this trilogy you really should it’s amazing. Anyway here was the logline:

In a future North America, where the rules of Panem maintain and control though an annual television survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss’s skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister’s place.

How good is that is shows you:

1. The main character and her age.
2. The main conflict.
3. How its different – the whole kids fighting on tv thing – gladiator meets  big brother.
4. The setting.

So using that as a base, I worked on for ideas myself and emailed them out for some feedback and this is what I came up with:

1. In modern day Britain, the underground elemental world of the Guardians is facing a rebellion against their Elite system and both sides are pinning their hopes and expectation on sixteen-year-old Abigail Cooper, still grieving from her mother’s strange and untimely death and much more interested in her ‘normal’ life, regaining popularity and boys than her ability to control fire.
2. Headstrong sixteen-year-old Abigail Cooper will fight against anything she doesn’t like whether that be enemies at school or being forced into the elemental world of the Guardians, where she expected to learn how to control fire and become a proper Heir to the royal Elite, the monarchical like ruling system that includes her mother’s ‘murderer’.
3. The elemental world of the Guardians is in conflict as a rebel group tries to upset the system of monarchy and take over and both sides see their savour in sixteen-year-old Abigail Cooper who has little interest in the system or controlling fire and just wants to return to her normal life of boys, regaining popularity and sport.
4. Sixteen-year-old Abigail Cooper is a runner, both physically and mentally, she avoids thinking of her mother’s death, the elemental world that she has been dragged into and the fact that she is losing her popularity at school that is until injury stops her and she turns to a rebel organisation that will help her throw fire in the face of the Guardian Elite that she is an Heir to.

I’m waiting on feedback from people – so if you have any idea which you like, comments would be really appreciated. I’m really not sure with one I like the most – I did come up with my TV/Book/Film parallel though.

The Vampire Diaries (books) meets Avatar: The Last Airbender (TV Series) set against the backdrop of the French Revolution in modern day Britain.

Then of course there are all the things to do on the day:

1. Don’t talk about the process – no one needs to know how you got there, just that you did.
2. Don’t pounce on people.
3. Don’t verbal vomit – remember to breath and pause between words.

These two articles were the most helpful on finding all this and they go into much more detail including explain ‘The Hunger Games’ tagline in full.

http://www.writing-world.com/publish/pitch2.shtml

http://www.writing-world.com/publish/pitch.shtml

So what else have I been up to – well pitch procrastinating. I picked up a copy of ‘The Mockingbirds’ by Daisy Whintey (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mockingbirds-Daisy-Whitney/dp/0316090530/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299187481&sr=8-1) a while ago after hearing a review on a podcast and well it’s been sitting in the bottom of my bag waiting to be read. Well yesterday after the battery in my kindle died out, I pick it up, think I would just read a chapter or two while I waited for brothers 4 and 5 to finish school. Needless to say I got instantly hooked (I was finished in less than a day), which is strange really as it’s a date-rape story but it was really compelling. Each chapter kept you turning. All the characters were well rounded and interesting. The protagonist when through a strong character arc. It kept you questioning what was going to happen next while still feeling sympathy and drawn into the main character – who grew stronger with page. And most importantly it had just the right ending – not a happily ever after all the problems fixed but justice was done and the main character showed she could get through this – she offered real hope. Its definitely going on my recs to others list and my reread list, not that I have time to do that. But now I do need to stop procrastinating, even if it is on great books and get back to pitch preparation mode.

Talk again soon.

p.s. Anyone able to spare some cash giving to charity please, visit my brother’s website and support the Sheffield Children’s Hospital – http://givingwild.com/

I know, I know, I know, I have been very bad at updating this blog. I really have no excuse, so I’m not going to try and a give one, I’ll just update you on what has been going on. The last time I posted I was anxiously waiting for first reader comments. Well they came back and they were generally good, with the exception that the first third dragged a little and the last third needed more detail. So it went into edit, I cut a lot of the first third, combined two chapters (chapters 2-3), added a bit more action, you get to see characters control the elements a lot quicker. The middle third stayed roughly the same and then I added quite a lot to the last third, including upping the blood count, now the book does have the battle scene I avoided before. The action was just needed parallel the angst levels and the teenage girls levels. After all that was done I sent it out again.

As well as sending it out to second readers (again feedback mostly good – but it did need another word cut), I also sent it to The Writing Show Podcast’s Slush Pile (http://www.writingshow.com/podcasts/2011/01162011.html), this is a Podcast run by Paula B and looks at first chapters to look at their potential. It is a wonderful podcast and gave some invaluable advice, oh which I am very grateful for. Firebound’s (still my working title) feedback starts abot the twenty minute mark and overall I was very happy with it. The style and voice is right for the market and it is very well written with a character that you are rooting for from the start. That naturally made me very happy, as I think that my main character, Abigail can be somewhat of a brat especially when the story starts. The negatives that the cliff-hanger wasn’t big enough for a first chapter, which has now been changed, it was still too long (hence yet another word cut) and that the prologue wasn’t needed. Now I love the prologue so that was really hard to hear but she was right, it was just back story, it was passive and it didn’t introduce the main chapter, so painfully I cut the prologue.

With all the feedback in, I worked on giving it another cut and have a draft that I am happy with just in time for the writing festival that I am going to. (http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/festivals/index.shtml) And the rest of my time has been preparing for that, sorting out my back story and world details etc, working on synopsis and query letters again and starting book two. But I will go into all of that in lots more detail in the next few posts.

Right now it’s all up to date – I will talk to you soon. I swear. Feel free to beat me with a big stick if I don’t.

So the big feedback has come back from the first readers and the major edit has started with has explained why I’m only updating this weekend. I’ve been stuck with the writing out extra scenes, adding extra detail and making some cuts.

Overall, I’m fairly happy with the feedback that I’ve got. There were positives in all the feedback I got back and some of the people I sent it to are hardly the target market. The general feedback though was the idea was good, the plot moved nicely and the characters believable. The first third needs speeding up, the middle a few more details and the end needs slowing down. All this has lead to joining chapters 2 and 3 together, writing a new penultimate chapter in addition to the current chapters and adding to scenes in five other chapters.

I have currently written the extra scenes by hand, and edited the first two part both by hand and transcribed that to the computer. I’m hoping to get the third part done by the end of next Saturday – damn real world and jobs getting in the way.

I promise to talk more about it when the process has finished, but for now my red pen is calling.

Talk to you soon.

So, yesterday was the deadline day for my first readers. Something that was needed to be extended for a couple of people that are close to the end but didn’t quite make it. I should be getting a lot more of the feedback early next week.

The week itself has been highly nerve wracking, the closer the deadline got the more eager, jumpy and well just plain anxious I got. Even worse was opening the comments. Each email made you nervous. Part of you wanted to plough straight through it, lapping up the feedback, seeing what others thought of my world. The other part was nervous, worried, even a little scared. After so long of this being just my baby it was out there defenceless and open to criticism and if you kept the email closed then it stays my baby, just as it was. But of course the common sense wears down quickly and you need the feedback and run through it quickly.

There has been praise with each bit of feedback but quite a bit of constructive criticism as well and the trick with that is to be objective because that feedback I is needed more than the praise. A lot of that has been to do with bit that I saw so clearly in my head, that I didn’t think to write down more details to it. But of course the readers are not in my head, which is actually a good thing, my head can be a very scary place. So without going into detail it’s going to need at least a couple more drafts before the big SPG check, but that’s no biggy – it’s better to get these things right now and I don’t think any of the changes are major, it’s not like I need to throw the plot or characters in the air and start again. Everyone thinks that there’s something there with the story and characters.

As for how things move on. Well I’m waiting on a few more emails and then once they come I’m going to start a reread (which should be interesting as I’ve kept to the self discipline of having the file closed for three weeks – to see it with new eyes) and then start to edit again.

As always I’ll keep you informed on how my reread goes and talk to you soon.

I’m sorry there is really not much to post again – two reasons for this: a really exceptionally busy week (in normal work world) and not that much new has happened on the writing front. Luckily the second reason is something that will change by the next post as the first readers deadline is Saturday 11^th, which will hopefully prove to be a nice birthday present. And even if it means little sleep that will prompt the first reason to change – I will find the time.

The positive news is that I have a synopsis and a cover letter finished that I am happy with. A bit more research resolved my conflicts on how much to show in each and how to get it down to a page.

Keep tuned next Sunday for a long post as I devour my first readers comments and my nervous wait for them.

Talk to you all soon.