Tag: Guardian of the Opera

Writing Wednesday: Tab and Center and DropCap and…

On By cherylmahoneyIn Writing2 Comments

My writing projects lately have me deep in the midst of all three installments of my Guardian of the Opera trilogy.  I’m doing finalish revisions of Book III, I’m reading Book II out loud for absolutely-final revisions, and I’m formatting Book I for publication.

Book I is, of course, the farthest one along.  This is a slightly mixed stage of the process.  On the one hand, it’s exciting to be this close to the final product.  On the other hand, the actual work can be very tedious!  There’s some initial creativity that’s fun in deciding how to lay out the book–where to place the page numbers, how to format the beginning of each chapter.  But there’s also a lot of going through and repeating the same formatting steps again and again!  Mainly it’s the formatting at the beginning of each chapter: adding a section break, formatting the chapter header, putting the space above “Chapter X,” removing the tab in the first paragraph, adding a drop cap…in this case, all those steps, 36 times!

But I do like seeing how it looks.  And I’m very much looking forward to ordering proof copies.  That’s when all of this pays off!

For now, here’s a sneak peek at what that work at the beginning of each chapter ends up looking like…

Writing Wednesday: Revisions, Revisions

On By cherylmahoneyIn Writing2 Comments

Two weeks into 2020, but this is my first writing update of the year!  Be assured, I’ve still been writing away–just blogging more about reading lately.  I’m deep into final (?) revisions for Guardian III, going through beta-reader feedback.  So far it’s mostly been small edits, and no one has spotted a plot hole that derails the entire story–so far, so good!

I’m also working on some of the prep and marketing for Guardian I, which will be out in June.  Expect some revamps to the writing information on my blog, because that’s coming up on my list of to-do’s.

It all goes to show…the work is not anywhere near done when the first draft is finished 🙂  On that note, I also finished up the non-fiction revision tips book I was working on back at the beginning of January…but I expect to go back and revise come February!

For now, here’s a bit from Chapter One of Guardian III which I rather enjoy…

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I used to be in control—not of the world around me, never of that.  But of myself.  Maybe I was only a supporting character, maybe I didn’t get to be the lead of the narrative, of the great events happening at the Opera, but I knew how to live within my role.

A supporting character could be left behind, solitary and disregarded when her obviously more heroine-material best friend eloped in the night.  It had hurt when Christine left with Raoul de Chagny, when she had barely bothered to write me a farewell note, when she hadn’t sent any word in over a year.  But sometimes it felt like only what I should have expected.

And at least supporting characters shouldn’t have their hearts broken, or do anything important enough to cause anyone’s death.

As a supporting character I could become friends with the mysterious man who haunted the Opera, and I should have stopped at that.

I shouldn’t have fallen in love with a man who was clearly a title character if there ever was one.

 

Writing Wednesday: Down Once More?

On By cherylmahoneyIn Writing1 Comment

I’m having a bouncing-around kind of period for my writing right now.  Until I dive into NaNoWriMo, I’m working more casually on a number of smaller projects.  One of these is my short stories for a planned anthology, in which characters magically enter books.  I wrote about my plans to send a character into Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera before.  I wrote roughly the first ten pages some months ago, moved on to other projects, and now have circled back to write a bit more.  Because obviously the weeks before NaNoWriMo should be spent writing!

Michelle has been at the Opera overnight, and in the morning is ready to hunt for the Phantom.  She just isn’t sure exactly how to go about that.

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I thought about trying to find a way below the Opera—if I descended enough stairs, would I find the underground passages the Phantom had led Christine through?  Could I eventually find my way to the Phantom’s rooms?

Somehow I doubted it.  After all, it couldn’t be that easy, or the Opera Company would have found the Phantom long ago.  Unless that was authorial suspension of disbelief.  Maybe Leroux’s story just wasn’t that plausible.

Yeah.  It was weird being in a book.

Writing Wednesday: Cover Design

On By cherylmahoneyIn Writing1 Comment

Despite finishing up this round of revisions for Guardian III, I’ve still been deep into the trilogy so far this week.  I’ve made some minor edits to Guardian I and II, but also got rather distracted from more pressing matters by a sudden desire to play with cover art.  I’m working on coordinating covers for the three books–and happily, some time ago I found available stock photos of a ballet dancer who looked like Meg to me.  Photo shoots with multiple images of the same model are the best when dealing with covers for a series.

Cover reveals are a long way off,  but here’s a glimpse…a closer view than the one that’s been lurking in my blog header for quite a while now!  I like her expression a lot–though I had to do some Photoshop magic to hide a tattoo on the model’s arm.  Not very 1881, that detail!

Writing Wednesday: Closing Things Out

On By cherylmahoneyIn Writing1 Comment

I’ve been working my way through Guardian III for what feels like forever, but I’m so, so close to the end of my current pass-through (so I can start the next, hopefully much faster one!)  I’ve been expanding my final chapter, which was originally written on the last day of NaNoWriMo 2016; there was a definite element of, “just throw something down and finish.”  So there was some work to do!

In the biggest change, I added an extra scene that I should have realized I needed years ago.  But it’s there now, so beta-readers won’t yell at me 🙂 that a crucial moment is missing.

For people who like to read the end of a book first, here’s just a glimpse of that newly added, nearly at the end scene.

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He stood on the stage of the Opera Garnier, the largest stage in Europe, and looked out over the rows and rows of empty seats.  They were barely visible in the shadows, with only a few safety lights burning.  It was still dark outside, though no light ever penetrated here anyway, and it was quiet in the Opera.  His mind filled in what his eyes couldn’t see in the dim light—the glowing red velvet of the seats, the gleaming gold of the decorations, the glittering, newly-hung chandelier hanging above, the sun in the sky of the Opera.