Almost there ... (stay on target)

Submitted by Stuart on Fri, 03/26/2010 - 9:51am

Yeah, I went there. I used Star Wars lines as a blog title. :)

I'm still hammering out revisions and am down to the last four chapters. Two of them just need the usual read through to cut out words, but the other two need more work. One is the climax for one of the main POV's which I needed to alter a bit, and the other is a brand new chapter, because the afore mentioned chapter didn't give that character enough resolution. My outline for this one is short. Here's to hoping the chapter turns out short...

With the new material added (I think 3 new chapters have been added during the rewrite), the revised "first draft" total is 203,000. With my cuts during revision, my current manuscript total is 189,000. It's a process of two steps forward (cutting over 20k words) and one step back (adding about 8k new words). This book just doesn't want to be shorter. Once I finish revising these last 4 chapters, I'm going to read back through it with a red marker. Again. I'd love to get down to 165,000. That's only another 24k words. I can do that, right?

In other news, my query got critiqued by Jodi Meadows last weekend (second one). She called it strong, and had some suggestions to make it stronger. She served as a first reader of queries for a literary agent for a few years, so I'm feeling better about starting my own agent query process soon.


Recent News

July, 22 2010

Echoes of Truth is revised and polished. I'm ready to start querying agents, the next step in seeing this novel published. In the meantime, work on the Condotierre is underway. I'm as excited to start this new book as I am to have finished my last.

September, 2 2008

SAEtter.com version 2.0, the Professional Edition is now live! Feel free to explore the new site and features.
About the Author

While reading The Fellowship of the Ring at the age of twelve, Stuart A. Etter was told by his teacher that he should be reading shorter books. Undaunted, he finished the trilogy and promptly moved on to other novels ranging from fantasy/sci-fi to historical fiction to horror to thrillers.

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Prologue: The Prisoner

Damion rubbed the dull ache of age from his hands. Countless years wielding a sword had strengthened his tendons and muscles, but time had worn them down, replacing power with chronic pain. Closing his eyes, Damion dreamed of his youth. Battle and victory marked most of his memories, but darker images tainted his successes, reminding him of his one great...

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