For those of you who’ve been reading my blog and my series called Write Better Fiction, you know I’ve been seriously engaged in creating an automated method to guide me through the rewriting step of the writing process.
I’ve co-founded Feedback Innovations Inc. along with Mathew Stanley and Michael Conn, and together we’re building an app called Feedback-Rewrite Better Fiction.
Feedback helps fiction writers turn a first draft into a great story by providing a new, automated approach to rewriting fiction.
With Feedback, writers can quickly evaluate their own work and complete a comprehensive, structural rewrite.
IN THE BEGINNING
Creating Feedback began when I (Kristina) finished the first draft of my first novel. By then I’d read over 50 how-to-write and how-to-self-edit books. I’d taken writing courses and workshops, and had 100s of writing and rewriting tips swirling about in my head.
I knew I had to begin the rewriting process and improve the quality of my draft before sharing my work but I didn’t know how to go about it..
HOW TO REWRITE?
How was I supposed to remember the torrent of advice and apply it to each scene? A spreadsheet, that’s how!
I created a spreadsheet with a chapter-by-chapter, scene-by-scene structure. Then I listed the different writing advice I needed to consider for EVERY scene. I ended up with over 75 “key elements of fiction”. I used the reports from the spreadsheet to visualize my novel.
VALIDATION
After the hard work of self-evaluating and rewriting my drafts, the high quality of my fiction was validated when my first two novels were shortlisted for prestigious crime writing awards and I landed my publisher (Imajin Books).
My first editor said: “If every manuscript was this good, my job would be so easy!”
The next exciting moment came when DESCENT, my first novel, hit #1 on Amazon’s hot new releases. I’ve since sold the German rights to Luzifer-Verlag for publication in Germany. Imajin Books also published BLAZE and AVALANCHE.
THE SEARCH
Along came Michael with MAXWELL HUXLEY’S DEMON and THE RIGHT TURN, and we ran the same spreadsheet on his novels. By this time we’d covered the mystery, horror, and young adult genres.
Surely we weren’t the first authors to struggle with rewriting our first drafts, so we searched for an app to address our problem but found nothing. We did discover that many writers struggled with rewriting drafts and ended up using tools such as spreadsheets, whiteboards, or yellow stickies.
THE IDEA
That’s when it hit us. We thought other writers could benefit from our immediate approach to evaluating and rewriting first drafts.
The excitement was too much for Mathew to sit by and watch, so he decided to get involved. He knows technology and how to run a business.
THE PROTOTYPE
Michael, Mathew, and I worked on the concept and developed the prototype for Feedback.
Now, we’d love to hear from you, understand your rewriting issues, and incorporate your ideas into Feedback.
Our goal is to launch Feedback in the spring of 2017. In order to create an app that is truly useful to writers, we’d like your input on building Feedback. By signing up to our newsletter, we’ll send you updates on the development progress and ask you the occasional question to help define the product. As a bonus, we’ll send you rewriting tips available only to our subscribers.
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Your support means a lot to us, so thank you!
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