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ed james

Ed James

Hey,

I’m Ed and welcome to my website. There’s some news on what’s out, pages for each of my series (which I’ll update soon), and many ways to contact me and to find my books.

Hope you like it and let me know what you think.

Cheers,
Ed 

Latest News

0

DYED IN THE WOOL plot (Writing Tips 005)

I think I’m done with the plot in the mind map file –

Image

it’s been very useful.  I started with a few ideas and I’ve pulled it into a pretty good story, with at least three plots going on concurrently, and a wealth of subplots.  I know you can’t read it, but it has two days of pre-story activity at the top left, then starts filling in the investigation down the left hand side, before continuing top right.  The level two nodes are days, level three are Chapters (or off-story key activities, e.g. Post Mortems that Bain goes to that Cullen doesn’t).

Next steps are to bung it into Scrivener and flesh some of the parallel plots out.  With reference to the writing tips I published yesterday, this is the biggest selling point to me in Scrivener – you can add custom “columns” (or metadata as they’re referred to in my trade) to the file and set up the parallel bits of plot going on.  One of the biggest challenges with a police procedural, other than knowing police procedures, is tracking the multiple plot threads going on.  I’ve got something like 12 police officers to track during the investigation – Cullen is my window into the world, but I need to know what Bain, Caldwell and the other officers are doing.  I could (and have done) just make it up, but I found quite quickly that I either had too little going on with the other characters or that I lost track of it.  This way it’s pre-planned and any reference to it in the text is backed up by plan.  This might sound alarming, but it’s actually fairly easy and it helps layer up the onion of the plot.  (Note that I make up for it by having pretty sketchy character notes, so I’m not like totally OCD with this shit, though…)

Check out this discussion for some info on how JK Rowling used this concept and how it could be applied in Scrivener.  (Note that I cannot stand her books, but by Christ I would like 1% of her money…)

Feels pretty good to have pressed on with another novel – should be writing soon!

— Ed

4

Writing Tips 004 – get good at plotting

Quite a basic one this, but whether you’re of the “let the magic happen” brigade or, like me, prefer to plan it all out before you start writing, then one thing you need to get good at is plotting.
There are loads of rules, written and unwritten, that you need to acquaint yourself with – Chekov’s Rifle is probably the best (no, not that Chekov, the Russian playwright) that I can think of.  Follow that and you’ll avoid the hell of Deus Ex Machina endings.  I like to have my plots guessable but that doesn’t mean you actually can – there should be sufficient conflict and confusion to muddy the waters but there should also be a clear path through the story.
The main reason why you want to get good at plotting is that it is a bloody nightmare moving around 90,000 words of a novel, slicing and dicing and relinking everything (even though tools like Scrivener make it easier, they could never make it easy…).  You either need to plot it out and shift a few hundred words around, or get so good at it that your instinct gives you a framework that has a good plot.  I have had to edit long novels a few times now and I’ve made so many mistakes that I can mostly stop them from happening now (not to say that I won’t…)
In all seriousness, wikipedia has a lot of really good articles on writing and structure – follow the Chekov’s rifle link above and learn…
— Ed
 
Buy GHOST IN THE MACHINE (Scott Cullen book one)-
UK Kindle – http://amzn.to/Ih2ros
US Kindle – http://amzn.to/IzknfQ
 
Buy DEVIL IN THE DETAIL (Scott Cullen book two) –
UK Kindle – http://bit.ly/EJDevl
US Kindle – http://amzn.to/EJDevU

0

Plug – Gus Ross "TO WHOM THE DARKNESS COMES"

Just a quick plug for a book written by a friend of mine – Gus Ross, TO WHOM THE DARKNESS COMES.  Fans of Stephen King and Dean Koontz will lap it up –
http://www.amazon.co.uk/To-Whom-Darkness-Comes-ebook/dp/B0095SZAV2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1352038867&sr=1-1
Cheers,
Ed
 
Buy GHOST IN THE MACHINE (Scott Cullen book one)-
UK Kindle – http://amzn.to/Ih2ros
US Kindle – http://amzn.to/IzknfQ
 
Buy DEVIL IN THE DETAIL (Scott Cullen book two) –
UK Kindle – http://bit.ly/EJDevl
US Kindle – http://amzn.to/EJDevU
 

4

Housekeeping

Trying to get over this disgusting cold I’ve acquired.  Today I’ve researched how best to use Scrivener (pro writing tool – http://www.literatureandlatte.com/) across a series, such as my Scott Cullen one.  It’s a great product, allowing you to outline and structure your work in a way that a linear tool like Word just can’t (imagine the document map in Word is a looking glass into Wonderland, and Wonderland is full of outlining tools and so on and you’re there).  The downside is that it’s possibly too flexible.
I used to use MS Office to write – Word, obviously, but also using Excel to plug the outlining gaps.  Most of the reason I used Excel for is that I’m a trained spreadsheet monkey at work and, even though I’m a Programme Manager now, I do my staff’s collective heads in by insisting on using Excel to catalogue things, rather than Word tables (which are just shite).  It’s a very flexible programme – possibly too flexible.  Oh.
My main bugbear since moving to the Mac a few weeks ago has been the shoddiness of the spreadsheets in OSX.  I’m not prepared to pay £80-130 for MS Office when most of my work will be done in Scrivener and I doubt I’ll actually use Word (outputting to Kindle files from Scrivener is bloody good, much less frustrating than the tear-soaked nights in April trying to format my manuscript).  I’ve tried Apple’s Numbers (part of iWork) but it’s feature-poor (no pivot tables – eh?).  I’ve tried the Open source ones – OpenOffice and its forks LibreOffice and NeoOffice – which are just clunky and unusable.
So, my solution is to try and get everything inside Scrivener as much as possible.  And it turns out that best practice is having all your books in a series in one project.  It doesn’t seem to kill performance, either.  So far, I’ve got GHOST, WHISKY and the rough outline for ALL IN A NAME in there together.  I’ll have to put DEVIL in, too.  It will hopefully help significantly when I’m writing DYED IN THE WOOL – questions such as “does McNeill have a brother or was it her friend’s brother’s floor they stayed on?” can be answered a lot more easily (it was her mate’s brother).  I need to consolidate the notes from the various spreadsheets and tag the files, etc, but it will really help for future projects.  It would have really helped for WHISKY and DEVIL.
Note – I have no affiliations with Literature and Latte, I’m just falling in love with their product.
So, I’ve got WHISKY off to the alpha readers now, time to focus a lot of attention on DYED IN THE WOOL (does that need a new title?), housekeeping and bothering to do the DEVIL IN THE DETAIL paperback.
— Ed

0

DEVIL – 25 stars…

Just had the fifth FIVE STAR review for DEVIL IN THE DETAIL just now.
It’s very nerve-wracking having a new book out there and not knowing if I’ve made a glaring blunder or if it is not as good as book one, etc. Thanks to everyone who has read it and fed back!
— Ed

1

500th GHOST

I know I’ve been all about DEVIL IN THE DETAIL recently – it only seems that way, other than doing the print version, it’s all yours as I’m focused on the two novellas and DYED IN THE WOOL – but at some point last week I broke the 500 sales barrier.
It’s absolutely staggering – bear in mind I’ve given it away 3,500 times – but 500 people have bought my book. Wow.
Now go and buy DEVIL IN THE DETAIL – that one ain’t never going for free!
— Ed

0

Rankin on writing

Excellent article in the Guardian today on how he writes by Ian Rankin –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/19/ian-rankin-how-to-write-book
Very interesting. Curiously, I am the opposite – I get easily distracted at home and seem to be more focused on the train.
Rankin is pretty much the number one reason that I’m writing. I can still remember reading BLACK AND BLUE in 1998 and being blown away – I still think it’s his best novel and is the bar which the rest of us set ourselves against.
I’m just about finished THE IMPOSSIBLE DEAD, his second Malcolm Fox novel – it’s very strong and slow and measured. It’s a refreshing change from the wham, bam, thank you ma’am of most detective fiction but features a lot of the tropes of Rankin’s earlier work. For those who haven’t heard, his next novel, STANDING IN ANOTHER MAN’S GRAVE will feature Fox meeting a certain John Rebus (there’s a nice allusion to the old bugger from a SOCO in THE IMPOSSIBLE DEAD).
There’s a whole section devoted to it today.
–Ed

2

My how you've grown

The last two projects I’ve worked on – DEVIL IN THE DETAIL and WHISKY IN THE JAR – both started out as much shorter pieces.
DEVIL was a novella I wrote in 2010 set to bridge to gap between GHOST and the then second novel, BEAST IN THE SHADOW (now subsumed into DYED IN THE WOOL). I made the decision to expand it into a full novel, going from the 21,000 words to the eventual published 103,000, but with many more characters, subplots and – yes – detail.
I submitted WHISKY as a 3,000 word short story for the Bloody Scotland competition – I didn’t win and can see why. I had crunched a full case into their limit and it was a bit compressed. I’ve just finished the second draft as a novella and it’s sitting at 23,000 words. I expect the dodgy start to be rewritten and push that closer to 30,000.
But there you go, I’m ploughing on and I expect it to come out sometime in November – let me just say the 19th as that’s when I have a few other things planned.
I’m writing it at the same time as plotting out DYED IN THE WOOL, and I think I should be able to finish ALL IN A NAME in roughly the same exercise. It’s another novella but it might get deprioritised to early next year.
Anyway, DEVIL is out, WHISKY isn’t far off, GHOST is selling well and things are good.
— Ed

2

DEVIL IN THE DETAIL still 1.99

DEVIL IN THE DETAIL, Scott Cullen book two, is STILL 1.99 (GBP)! It will rise to 2.99 at the weekend so you want to get in there now!
The initial price is a thank you to all those who bought and loved GHOST IN THE MACHINE.
Check out the following links:
Amazon UK – http://bit.ly/EJDevl
Amazon US – http://amzn.to/EJDevU
Thanks to everyone who has bought it – I am blown away by the sales so far. Let me know what you think of it!
(In other news, WHISKY IN THE JAR [Scott Cullen book 2.1] is nearing completion of the penultimate draft – on track for publishing some time in November. Book 3 proper, DYED IN THE WOOL, is currently in outline and I’m down to level 2 on the plan for 40% of it. It’s going to take a few more weeks before I’m ready to start writing it but I have ALL IN A NAME, book 2.2, to actually write. Seems like I can do two things at the same time…)
Thanks again for all your support!
— Ed

0

Six months of GHOST IN THE MACHINE

Today marks six months since GHOST IN THE MACHINE was published. Makes me feel quite light-headed how it has gone.
In that six months, I’ve had 50 reviews on Amazon UK and it is all positive – 32 five star, 17 four star and a single three star.
I’ve sold 450 copies and I did a promo weekend where I gave away just over 3,000 books – my sales have been better since I did it, averaging over 4 per day, rather than two-ish.
I’ve got 4,446 followers on twitter, 61 people follow this blog and I’ve had over 3,000 hits here.
The biggest thing for me is getting DEVIL IN THE DETAIL out in time for the six month anniversary (and I managed to beat it by five days) – I will see how I go but I might try to get DYED IN THE WOOL (book three proper) out for the year anniversary. Most importantly, there are over 190,000 words out there that I’ve written and people can buy and read.
Thanks again to everyone who has supported me – it is mentally tough being a writer and you help me through it. I do love writing and it gets me up in the morning but having you guys enjoy my scribbles makes it worthwhile.
Cheers!
— Ed

4

Computer decision

So I finished DEVIL IN THE DETAIL today and my reward was a new computer. I popped into John Lewis after work and bought myself a MacBook Air, 13″ and 128gb model. Got it out on the train and it is perfect for writing on the train – the screen is lovely and high resolution. I just know I’m gonna get some good writings done on it!
Now, off to fiddle with it and maybe get tucked into WHISKY IN THE JAR draft 3…
Oh, currently 1,726 in the overall UK Kindle charts thanks to day one sales on DEVIL!
— Ed

4

DEVIL IN THE DETAIL published

That’s it, it’s done – DEVIL IN THE DETAIL, Scott Cullen book two, is OUT NOW!
It is 1.99 (GBP) for week one only then will rise to 2.99, as a thank you to all those who bought and loved GHOST IN THE MACHINE.
Check the following links:
Amazon UK – http://bit.ly/EJDevl
Amazon US – http://amzn.to/EJDevU
(International links on the Books tab)
I’m off to collapse somewhere and buy a new computer.
— Ed

6

Computer Conundrum

So I’m at 30% on the proof edit of DEVIL IN THE DETAIL and I’m battering through. My proof reader (thanks Pat!) is over 50% and I’ve committed most of her edits but I’m also going through myself to make sure I’ve not made any blunders like last time – biggest tip I can give just now is to do a proof edit…
Anyway, I’m doing this edit and it’s going well so what happens? Aye, my netbook decides to develop a habit of freezing and not even going to the blue screen of death. It did it ten times yesterday as well as needing the bios backed up on Monday. And my deadline of next Sunday looms. Fortunately, it’s behaved itself today but it is most definitely on its way out.
So – me gets noo komputah!!!!1!1!
The use case for me and this new machine is that I want to use it on the train for writing and editing my books, but I also want to get away from paper and pen for planning and use mind mapping and, as confused long term readers will attest, I’m using scrivener for my projects post-DEVIL.
So, this has lead me to the following – I want an ultrabook, as it’s small and portable, and boots in five or so seconds. I want a high-ish resolution screen. I want an SSD as I will carry this beast everywhere and don’t want a hard drive dying. It doesn’t have to be my main machine in the house (I’ve got a Windows laptop for admin stuff and it’s got Office on it). Scrivener Mac version is 1.2 ahead of the Windows and has loads of features I want.
So? That leads me to a MacBook Air. I’m tempted as hell by the 128gb 13″ model.
Tell me if I’m making a mistake…
— Ed

3

Writing Tips 003 – Let yourself go loopy

The latest tip is to let yourself go mad.  Writing a book is seriously mind-bending.  I think I’ve probably aged myself about five years in the last one by focusing on writing so much (hopefully I can reset the clock by chilling out over the next few…).
I spent five years going down the write -> submit to agent -> get a teaser -> get a rejection route – I did have three agents express interest in GHOST, mind, which is pretty good going.  On one hand, it helped me get better as a writer (my first book was shite, my second was flawed) but it’s a really stressful and dispiriting process.  When I got my rejection from the agency I was banking on, I made myself determined to tear GHOST apart and restructure it based on their criticism.  I spent a few weeks replotting it and got it to a decent state, then I gave up when work became really busy in late 2010.
Last summer, I decided to go solo and publish with Amazon direct.  I picked GHOST up again and got it pretty far down the line.  But the following blog post shows where my head got to a year ago –
http://edjamesauthor.com/2011/09/04/polishing-a-turd/
Ironically, I quickly got fed up of DEVIL and had pretty much given up on writing.  I got encouraged by a mate – he’s a policeman – saying that my book was really fresh and told a different sort of story to the usual.  I picked GHOST up and changed the ending, fixed the problem with the baddie and so on.
If I hadn’t let myself have those loopy moments, I wouldn’t be as strong as I am now.  Losing your mojo is hard but you’ve got to find it again and there’s no point in pushing it when you can’t push it.  (I realise this may sound contradictory to WT002 but that’s about getting through the writing cycle much quicker).
Sometimes the turd needs polishing and you can always throw away the shitty hankie…
— Ed
Buy GHOST IN THE MACHINE –
UK Kindle – http://amzn.to/Ih2ros
US Kindle – http://amzn.to/IzknfQ
 

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