Read, write, read, write

I'm currently editing my novel Starfire - yet again.  The story is the first in a planned series, and was inspired by Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's war series and C J Cherryh's The Pride of Chanur.

I've always loved the idea of writing about a starship captain travelling the universe.  But unlike Kylara Vatta, I wanted my trading captain to stay as a civilian trader. That makes her closer to the Hani captain Pyanfar Chanur in The Pride of Chanur,  but Carolyn Cherryh's tale is a masterful exploration of interstellar and inter-species politics and diplomacy, and I certainly don't have a talent for that.

So Starfire steers a middle course between both of those worlds.  My captain Ria Bihar remains a civilian trader, but she gets accidentally tangled up with pirates, and Human and Ha'linn military.

When I started rewriting Starfire I had coincidentally just decided to re-read the Chanur books.  There are four in all, and I found myself binge-reading straight through them.  In the past I've stayed away from reading anything close in subject or plot to my own current work in progress.  And I know that a lot of writers won't read anything while they're working on the first draft of a novel.

I can see the logic of that when I'm in an original creation phase.  It helps us to steer clear of accidentally copying or plagiarising another writer's work.  But the story of Ria and her ship Starfire was captured on paper several years ago now.  So I decided to continue reading while I was re-writing.  

I usually do my work in cafes, so my routine has become work on the re-write for an hour or so, then break and read a chunk of the Chanur books.  Then I'll go back and finish my chapter re-write.  And doing it this way I've realised that I'm reading deeper, reading like a writer, analysing the detail in each section of the book, working out what I think is effective and what is less effective.  I've found that reading these books while I write has challeged me to up my game.

When I read a tense scene of The Pride being attacked, I realised that I needed more detail in my attack scene.  I needed Ria's emotions and pounding heart, her panicked thoughts about getting killed, bringing to the fore, and that I often underplay emotions.

This experiment in read, write, read, write has brought many benefits, and I'm going to continue the process throughout my rewrite.