Our latest Books & Martinis Indie Author Pop-Up takes us on a journey of healing in a world of sci-fi and fantasy. Listen to learn more about Silver Strings, written by author Phoebe Brinkley.
About Silver Strings:
Popi has a gift to be able to see “strings”. It's the ability to see the effects of
trauma & abuse trailing behind people in cursive sparkly strings that read like:
"I'm not enough." She uses her gift to help others in a dystopian world with
Tecknowledgies, or really cool “I wish they were invented” sci-fi things like:
dishes that leave the table & get washed in the wall on the way to the cabinets,
or a garden that can hold all the species in the world without destroying each
other with diseases.
Popi gets to a town with more strings than anywhere she's ever seen & she sets
out to figure out why. She meets a cute guy along the way who has access to the
palace, and can keep up with her wit and intelligence.
As mentioned in the episode, Phoebe's writing process:
1. Pre-write: I create a “character sheet” with details of each character & their
planned development. Example: he starts oblivious & becomes less naive.
I also create a “world building sheet” which can include a magic system &
rules or language. This is the fun research stage. Those sheets help me
keep details consistent thru the book & remind me where each character
needs to go.
Then I do a rough outline of 5-6 points, then do a 2nd draft outline where I
add in 5-6 sub-points of how we get from one larger point to another.
Once I have these tools in hand (sheets & outline), I set a time for writing
that I stick to no matter how bored I get, I let my boredom do its thing to
make my brain start entertaining me and sure enough it will. So much of
the humor in my book is me making myself laugh.
2. I draft and refer to my outline as I go. I’m open to changing it if the story
takes its own course.
If I get stuck, I sometimes have to remove a scene and try again from
further back (I’ll save this scene just in case & a lot of times it ends up back
in my work at a better spot).
I try to type as fast as I think so I don’t lose my idea. So I’ll abbreviate
words like “she said” into ss, while I’m drafting & go back in and fix them
later.
Also, I will type what this next scene or idea will be in a quick sentence in
my draft: aka “tell” it to myself (or even copy & paste from my outline); and
then take that scene summary and flesh it out into “showing” the reader
through dialogue, scenery, & situational humor what happens.
In order not to lose ideas or pace, I’ll keep an open word doc of ideas I
need to research further, that I realize as I’m drafting, so I can put them
there for later & keep typing. I put placeholder words in parenthesis in my
draft where I need the research to go so I can search & find that spot easy
later & fill in the info I got from my research. This way I can just search for
parenthesis in the document when it’s time to fill in the info. Once a week, I
have a research coffee shop day & research that list then.
3. I revise my first draft & save it 6-8 times before I ever have another soul
read it. Between each draft I let it “simmer” or give it a week or two break
so my eyes will be fresh.
4. Last is beta readers, editing, formatting with my own drawings inside, book
cover, then printing a proof, last edits, and publishing.
Follow Phoebe on Instagram: @phoebebrinkleyauthor
*Purchase Silver Strings:
Paperback: https://www.lulu.com/shop/phoebe-brinkley/silver-strings/paperback/product-
n6vwrg.html?q=Silver+Strings&page=1&pageSize=4
EBOOK: https://www.lulu.com/shop/phoebe-brinkley/silver-strings/ebook/product-
1jzvnm7d.html?q=Silver+Strings&page=1&pageSize=4
