Why It’s Good Writing is Detail Oriented

(Update: The Adventure Kickstarter hit 100% funding this last weekend! It’s still open until October 30th if you wanted to support the project. Anything above and beyond the original goal will go to book donations to school libraries after the Rewards costs.)

A well crafted story carries the reader through, connecting dots in the story, without the reader even seeing the small sign posts that guide them along.

The effort to make such reading so smooth requires an attention to detail that has to be learned. Sure, you can start out with an aptitude for this, but if you’re writing a story of any length, ultimately you have to learn tricks that help you keep track of all your sign posts/details.

Now, I have to tip my hat to people who design books for a living. I thought writing stories was detail oriented…um, designing books is even more so.

Perhaps my view is skewed because I’ve dealt with everything from making sure there are no plot holes, which is technically a part of editing (trust me, when I found a disappearing torch in one of The Adventure stories, my brain about exploded), to margins of the book, cover format, line spacing, text size, page breaks, image formatting…This list is endless.

Here’s one example.

Both The Adventure proof and the journal proof showed up and had blurry covers. Yuck. It about breaks my heart to see such a cover.  You can see the issue best on the Journal’s spine here.

Turns out, this issue was because the images weren’t saved at 300 ppi (pixels per inch). Now, I’m no designer. My understanding of Photoshop consists of one high school class (and we won’t even think about how long ago that was) and my digging into it in the last several months to figure out The Adventure. I understand ppi now…I didn’t when I started.

Just goes to show, there’s a reason people go to school for such things…and there’s a reason it takes time, lots of time, to produce your own book.

The Adventure and the Adventurer’s Journal are now updated and the new proofs on the way. I’m fairly confident the blurry issue has been fixed. (The disappearing torch has been rectified as well, don’t worry.)

Needless to say, my attention to detail training in writing has definitely paid off as I dig into producing The Adventure. Thank heavens!

Blessings,

Jennifer

Check out The Adventure Kickstarter!