Linda Christian and daughters read.
RAISING THE DEAD was my first attempt at a novel. I finished it about two years ago and made a half-hearted stab at getting an agent. I stopped sending it out fairly quickly since I began to sense trouble with it myself. I didn't want to establish myself as a "not ready for prime time player."
Clair Dickson kindly read it and gave me some good feedback on what she felt needed changing. But I still was dissatisfied with it. I decided to let it rest.
A few weeks ago, I decdied that I owed myself one last revision before giving up on it, so I sent it to Elaine Ash who had made some good suggestions on a second story I wrote for BEAT TO A PULP. A consultation with someone unfamiliar with the work before now might point out areas to address. Was it worth saving at all?
Elaine had some interesting ideas immediately. I thought it might be fun to share her insights.
Problem #1-I knew I was writing a dark character with my protagonist, Violet Hart. What Elaine pointed out was that her "darkness" per se was not really the problem. It was that she was too world-weary and knowing for someone in her early thirties--especially as the chapter begins. I was starting out from a place that gave her nowhere to go.
I was writing about a thirty-year old woman with a sixty-year old's take on the world.
We looked at Chapter 2, where this is specifically expressed for the first time. As I wrote it, Violet is informed immediately at the chapter's start that her current project is a bust. She goes from Square A to Square A over the course of 15 pages! This is frustrating for the reader. Where's the suspense it it? The chapter would be much more dynamic if she didn't know this right away--that her failure is something she finds out as the chapter progresses. She undergoes a roller coaster of emotion rather that stasis.
Problem 1 diagnosed. Reworking this chapter was actually easier than I thought. Violet ends up in the same place in terms of the entire novel--she just doesn't start there. Most of the incidents remain, it's just her reaction to events that is altered.
In a short story, a character has little chance (room) for change. Things are different in a novel. That's my biggest problem as I see it. Giving my characters the space and time they need to be fully fleshed out people.
Next week: Problem 2. POV problems as diagnosed by Elaine.
For those of us struggling with a novel, what kind of mistakes do you make?
11 comments:
Patti,
I often love my characters, so I never want to change them!!
Terrie
I haven't touched or re read my first attempt in a couple of years, aside from taking out the supernatural side chapters featuring the ghost of one of the victims from the main body of the manuscript. The thing is called Tender Scars and is about a school shooting. The few people I told about it tended to get freaked out by the subject matter so I've put it away and am trying to focus on the current two pulpy projects that I have been typing away at for the last couple of months.
as to your issue of world weary 30 year olds, I don't think that being World Weary has as much to do with age as it has to do with experience. Some in their mid-20 who has had a lot of let downs and traumas in their life is likely to be world weary, where as someone in the 60s who has had most everything fall into place as they expected is likely to be as filled with hope and promise as an 18 years let loose for the first time.
My first two books, Fast Lane and Bad Thoughts, I started the books too late into the story where I was showing both characters in the midst of their crises instead of letting the reader get to know them first (with Fast Lane, readers gave me this feedback, with Bad Thoughts, an editor at Warner Books). With both of them I ended up writing about 50 pages to start the books earlier, and it did help both books. With Small Crimes, I originally wrote it to be completely unapologetic in-your-face noir. My early readers were all writers who loved noir, and the feedback I was getting was skewed because of that. When I took Small Crimes to a workshop where the readers had more general taste, I realized I had to soften up the book, at least initially, and it did improve it.
You're always going to get a lot of feedback, some of it good some of it not good. It's important to weigh all of it, but to feel in your gut whether the feedback makes sense or not. One editor sent me back a detailed 5-page email on all the problems he had with Small Crimes. His points/issues all felt wrong to me, and if I took his advice/suggestions I would have destroyed the book.
Sounds like she gave you some good input. I think writers of all ages make that mistake of starting out with a character who has nowhere to go. If the character is that worldweary then you're definitely not talking about more than one book, and maybe not even that one.
Yes, that was definitely the problem a year ago, Now I am more willing to view her a bit differently.
That's a good point, Eric, but in her case, she was too dark in her outlook to spend 250 pages with. The situations needed to create the darkness over the course of the book-that's right.
It is hard to know what direction to go with but I was getting pretty much the same feedback from multiple sources-that they didn't like her and not for any interesting reason.
Hi Patti, as you know, I was very excited about your manuscript, and I could tell you were deflated over some of the comments it had gotten. My biggest challenge going in was to convince you that the novel had/has a lot of merit, and to rekindle your enthusiasm about it.
As you say in this blog, we did not discuss changing Violet. We fine tuned her experience according to a typical 30-year-old living life, experimenting, making mistakes etc. The novel will be richer as the reader gets to experience Violet's adventures along with her, instead of being tipped off in advance by the writer (you.)
The editor has a two-fold challenge. The first is to convey where the manuscript needs work. The second is to make sure the writer fully understands why and how. I can tell you've really grasped what I've tried to get across, and so my job is done (for now. As long as a writer fully understands, then it is their choice to effect the changes or not.
I look forward to our next phone call!
Sincerely,
Elaine Ash
Well, you can't go wrong with Elaine, can you? She's good!
Her next idea blew me away.
Patti, there's a nice review of BURY ME DEEP in the latest issue of MYSTERY SCENE, pages 64-65.
I have been told that i don't target my audience properly. That I bounce between writing for college professors and people who read at a ninth grade level. My sentences are too long and some of the verbiage needs a dictionary.
That's primarily why I stick to poetry these days, it's hard to self edit, very hard.
At least with the poetry I have found a way to step back and look through the eyes of the audience I read to occasionally which helps.
I have 8 novel length pieces but I am loathe to look at them now.
I started with poetry and the thing I liked best about it was you could spend a lot of time on getting the right word. I still carry that desire into fiction and it bogs me down. My poems were far too narrative to be poetry though.
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