When I started out writing Hack the Yak, I didn’t think about genre, length or plot. Just an interesting story. The characters pretty much wrote the plot as they developed. I ended up with 127,000 words, a main plot, two subplots, and a trip through the country where the blues music I love came from. Then came reality. Editors and published writers pointed out that a beginning writer has to hit the expectation of the market, which is 80 to 90 thousand words for mystery/suspense … 100,000 at very most. So the seventh rewrite took it to 88,000 words. I’ll save the subplots for other novels. The blues highway is gone, too, but it gave me a published short story and inspired two that are out to magazines. All in all, it’s been a wonderful learning experience. I hope the next novel, Skins and Bone, will require a little less rewrite.
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Author: John Rogers
I have thought of myself as a writer for most of my adult life. In 2011, I became a fiction writer full time. I studied creative writing as an English major in college. Then came family and career. I worked in finance and biotech and did a wonderful stint in Vienna. Now, I have the opportunity to use those experiences as the substrate for my stories. My first novel takes on the world of Big Data and the very timely issue of cyber war. The second uses the manipulation of financial derivatives as impetus for attempted murder during a trip from Vienna to Budapest on the Danube.
I have taken writing instruction at the Cape Cod Writers Conference and from The Loft in Minneapolis. I am finding writers’ groups to be very helpful as concept editors, as well as practical advice from the published authors. I am in three such groups. I have taken writing instruction at the Cape Cod Writers Conference and from The Loft in Minneapolis.
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When I started out writing Hack the Yak, I didn’t think about genre, length or plot. Just an interesting story. The characters pretty much wrote the plot as they developed. I ended up with 127,000 words, a main plot, two subplots, and a trip through the country where the blues music I love came from. Then came reality. Editors and published writers pointed out that a beginning writer has to hit the expectation of the market, which is 80 to 90 thousand words for mystery/suspense … 100,000 at very most. So the seventh rewrite took it to 88,000 words. I’ll save the subplots for other novels. The blues highway is gone, too, but it gave me a published short story and inspired two that are out to magazines. All in all, it’s been a wonderful learning experience. I hope the next novel, Skins and Bone, will require a little less rewrite.