Roz Maclaren

Teen Fiction with a Dark Twist

Archives for April 2024

What’s involved in writing a book: yet more editing

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It’s all hands on deck, as we get closer to publication day!

What stage are we at?

Venom and Blaze has just been through the second editor. (Yes, even after being through the first editor about twenty million times, there’s still more to fix.) My second editor caught a few things that didn’t make sense and formatted the book to their house style.

What happens next?

After this, it’ll go to the formatters where I’ll get sent a print .pdf for review. I get two chances to spot any other minor things to change (the time for developmental editing has passed.)

Once that’s done, I’ll start working with a designer to come up with a cover that encapsulates my vision for Venom and Blaze.

In other news, the first draft of Fable and Legend is with the publisher and she is currently reading it. I think Fable and Legend is one of the most mature books I’ve written in the series (I don’t mean mature in the sense of content, but in the sense of being written with maturity.)

Is anything else happening?

I’m glad you asked. Yes. I’m currently working on plotting the fourth book in the series, which has a working title of Flame and Phoenix. Whether it ever sees the light of day is another matter. And I’m also editing a YA novel I wrote over lockdown that I recently revisited and found to not be entirely dross. Again, whether that ever sees the light of day, I am unsure. It’s totally separate from the Mirrordom universe.

Oops – I did it again

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The blog has been extra quiet lately. This is because I’ve been working on another story set in Mirrordom (once which is likely going to muck up the trilogy concept because it’ll make four in total. And I’m not even going to mention at this stage that I have plans for a fifth.)

I’ve been working on this one over the winter, simply because I felt the character of Quiver’s mother deserved her own story. And because I ended up writing a throwaway remark in Venom and Blaze that I later realised was quite a cool concept I wanted to explore further.

I can’t say too much at this time – and, of course, there’s no guarantee this book will ever see the light of day. Frankly, if I were my publisher, I’d tell me to go and have a good long think about my actions because I seem to have no concept of the words “chronological order.” Other seasoned authors seem to manage to write their books in the order things happen, rather than my haphazard Oh-I-Think-This-Character-Needs-Their-Own-Story-So-I’ll-Go-Back-And-Write-It-And-Give-No-Heed-To-The-Fact-It-Mucks-Up-The-Planned-Order sort of way. Because this book would come directly after the events of Venom and Blaze so it would become the second in the series, bumping City and Shadow down (again) to third in the series.

I know we’re not supposed to have favourites but this one might just be my new favourite. In a way, it’s quite fitting that Quiver’s mother gets her own story because the very first Mirrordom book I wrote began with her. Although she’s largely overshadowed by other characters, it’s her actions that end up setting a chain of events in motion. Writing about her in her own right gave me a chance to explore her complexities and develop her character.

So what can I say about this book?

Well, we have some new settings. Most of the action of the other books takes place around the castle and the caves. This book features the Glittering City, a farmhouse on the edge of the woods and a lot of taverns – all brand-new locations.

We also have some brand new characters, like Cobalt, Legend and Ballad. Every one of them has their own secrets and Fable finds herself caught up in their stories. We also get to see the return of another familiar character, but I can’t say too much about that.

Part of the reason for writing this blog has always been to document the whole process of writing books and aiming to get them published. At the very least, it’ll be something for me to look back on later and perhaps learn from. So here’s another stitch in the tapestry of working on Mirrordom: throwing yet another novel into the mix. I daresay everyone will be quite used to that by now.