The LadyKillers

Is it the book or the writer that's bogged?

There have been some great suggestions here for propping up a sagging book. I can't top them, so I'm taking the opposite tack. What if it isn't the book that's bogged down? What if it's a natural transition that authors are in denial about?

Once, when my daughter was at college, I was telling her that the new book just wouldn't come together. I had the first hundred pages and just couldn't get it together to move ahead. I moaned about being washed up and unable to ever write again. She gave me no sympathy.

"You do this every time, Mom," she told me. "You've just finished the exposition and don't want to get into the narrative."

"What?" I said. "Where did you learn words like that?"

"English Lit."

I immediately revised my opinion on the value of higher education. If my kid was picking up literary terms, there was little hope for her.

But, darn it, she was right. This happens in every book. I say don't rewrite, plow through. Transitions are hard. The other members of this blog have come up with some good mind tricks for bridging the gaps. Look at your characters closely. What is their purpose? Is your protagonist along for the ride or does she have a goal that she's working toward, even if it's not the one she'll end up with? If all else fails let the car (or carriage) break down and see what happens. Just keep writing. In my experience that's the only way to get out of the bog.

First Books... and Turkey

So, technically, today's post is supposed to be all about first books. And while it will be that, I would like to add a little dash of thanksgiving, because now, years later, I can be truly thankful for the horrendous series of events that brought about my first book. But first, a little background...

I was in the second grade when I put aside childish dreams of being a spy/cartoonist/veterinarian to follow the calling that pulled my ear each night: writing. I had things to say, things the world needed to hear. Granted, the first one was about penguins afloat on an iceberg and the second a book about time-traveling orphans and an easy-going beach-comber. Hey, I said I had things to say that the world needed to hear; I didn't say they were things anyone wanted to hear.

Anyway, the dream continued on through grade school, through a middle-school stint where everything I wrote featured some kind of coming-of-age segment (braces, menstruation), through a melancholy high school Sylvia Plath phase, through a collegiate change-the-world phase and off into the real world. Post graduation, I figured I would take an indiscriminate day job while pushing out the Great American Novel at night. How hard could it be?

Ten years later, I knew. It was hard. Really freakin' hard. So, being unattached and with the minimum of responsibilities, I quit my job. It's now or never, I told myself.

And then I broke up with the man I planned to marry.

And then my house burned down.

And then I found myself over thirty and back in my salmon-pink childhood bedroom, cuddling my ratty old teddy bear underneath a poster of The New Kids on The Block, their smiling mugs still glossy with Bonnie Bell Lip Smackers.

I was miserable at that time in my life. I was lonely; my sole possessions were a sequined halter top, a left shoe, and the clothes I wore on the day of the fire. I lost everything. But it took losing everything - everything - to be reminded of my purpose in life. I was going to write. I was supposed to write. And for that tiny realization, that small certainty, I wast thankful.

I was also a slow learner and ridiculously hard headed (hence the need to have my entire house burned down), but that's beside the point. Now, four years later, my life is nearly unrecognizable from the salmon-colored one. I write. I go on book tours. I have my own home and a wardrobe that includes far more than that sequined tank top, but above all, every single day, I'm thankful.

My first novel, Rebound Guy, came out of that miserable experience. I snagged my agent with it, and although it never sold (though it is currently available as an ebook on Amazon), it was the novel that got me on my feet again, pointed me in the right direction. I was never a woman who thanked the universe for small favors. But now, so many years later, I don't wait for the day the turkey pops out of the oven, the day the top button pops off my pants: I make it a point to be thankful for every day, for every person and every experience that brought me to my current state. Because good or bad, I know with my whole self that I am exactly where I'm meant to be.

With that, I wish a happy Thanksgiving to you all and I hope that you all take a moment today to think about what it is you are truly thankful for.

 

What's in a Name?

I once read a study showing that teachers had lower expectations and called less on kids with "funny" names. Oscar, Agnes, Abner and Moonbeam started out with a nominative handicap. Tom, Mary, Jennifer and Bill got more of a teacher's attention. Unfair? Of course, and most teachers were totally unaware that they were doing this. But if this happens in the classroom, it's a good bet that it carries through in the rest of life. Many people overcome this with the force to their personalities or talent. Look at our current president. But, do you really want your characters to have to fight for attention before the reader gets to know them?

I took a chance naming my male protagonist Edgar. It's a family name and I like it, but I know that "Duncan" for instance, has a stronger sound. Catherine is a good, solid name that has been popular for centuries. I don't know if the first mystery would have sold if I had named her "Pagana" or "Hodierna", both popular medieval names for women. And I would have been ousted from the Medieval Academy if I had called her "Chelsea" or "Jennifer".

As Priscilla mentioned, writing historical novels adds another challenge to naming. The author not only has to use names that fit the period, she also has to deal with the names of real people who might wander in and out of the book. In my case, the European nobility were stuck in a rut of Matildas and Williams. One thing I and other writers, like Sharon Kay Penman do, is to use various forms of the names: Maud and Mahaut for Matilda, Guillaume and Wilhelmus for William. This only works when the person is not terribly well known. William the Conqueror was probably never called William by his friends. But that's how we know him and "Guillelmus the Conqueror" just doesn't have the same ring.

But, if you are fond of a strange name, you could make it a part of the character. Say, opening with: "Being named Aethelflaed had cursed her life." and carrying on from there. I'm not sure I'm that brave, but you might have a best seller.

And, Happy Thanksgiving to all in the US and Happy next Thursday to everyone else.

"Final?"

-from Susan the procrastinator

The Final Draft

I stand in awe of Penny Warner, Camille Minichino, and my fellow LadyKillers who march through their manuscripts in what seems to me double time, meet tough deadlines, get their plots and characters right, and build loyal audiences who can count on them to produce another terrific book in nine months, like a brand new bouncing baby.

How do they do it? I’m the wrong person to ask. If I had an ounce less discipline than the six ounces I have, I’d never be ready to pronounce a manuscript finished. I have a tendency to circle back to the beginning to nip and tuck a plot issue, sharpen or better conceal an early clue, or make some other vitally important (to me at least) change again and again. It drives me crazy. My agent is a patient woman, but I fear I test her elegant manners and strong support.

I want to be done, but I don’t want to send something that isn’t my best. And that’s a moving target, one that can never be met, really. It is also a way to avoid tackling that one troublesome scene somewhere after the middle of the manuscript, the part that really isn’t anywhere near my best, the one that at this minute I’m fighting with. So I go back to chapter one and tinker with it, or to chapter four…and so avoid chapter fifteen, which is, simply put, a mess.

That’s where I’m headed today, honestly. No more fooling around with the beginning or the name of a minor character or the uneven lengths of chapters. I tell myself, no one cares about those. They will care about the characters bumping into walls in chapter fifteen, and so I’m summoning my small reserves of self-discipline and wading in to fight the good fight.

Getting to the final draft? I am the wrong person to ask. Stay tuned this week for the real experts!

 

A Writer's Biggest Challenge

By Margaret Lucke

 "Our theme on The LadyKillers this week is challenges," I announce as I walk into my office. "What would you two say are the biggest challenges when it comes to writing fiction?"

 "That's easy," says my Muse. She is lounging in the easy chair in the corner of the room, sipping from a cup of Earl Grey. "The biggest challenge is keeping her out of the way so I can let the ideas flow freely."

 "Ha!" snorts my Editor, who is sitting cross-legged on the desktop, a grammar book on her lap. "The biggest challenge is to keep her under control."

 "Control!" My Muse jumps up, and tea sloshes out of her mug. "Writing a story is a creative process. It's all about inspiration. It's not something you can control."

I run to get paper towels so I can control the rivulet of tea that's flowing across the floor.

 "Writing is only ten percent inspiration," the Editor is saying when I return. "It's ninety percent perspiration. You do the easy part."

Getting down on my hands and knees, I mop up the spill.

 "Easy! You think coming up with ideas is easy? It's grueling work." The Muse clasps a hand to her brow and nearly kicks me as she flops back into the chair cushions.

The Editor rolls her eyes. "Oh, please. You don't know the difference between working hard and hardly working. The story doesn't happen until I take your silly ideas and apply craft and discipline. I should get ninety percent of the credit, but does anyone give it to me? Of course not."

 "That's because you don't deserve it," the Muse says. "I give lots more than ten percent. Every character, every twist of the plot, is a new and brilliant idea. My ideas are the heart of the story, its essence, its lifeblood. Without me, you'd have nothing to work with."

The Editor blows a Bronx cheer. "Without me, your ideas would run around wildly all over the place. There'd be no coherence, no order, no story at all."

 "Nonsense," the Muse retorts. "All you do is pester me about little stuff. ‘That word is spelled wrong. Put a comma here.' Commas, shmommas. Who cares?"

 "Who cares!" The Editor throws the grammar book to the floor. "Everyone should care. A misplaced comma can change the whole meaning of the sentence. Remember that time when -- "

The Muse sticks her fingers in her ears. "La, la, la, la, la … "

I toss the soggy paper towel into the trash. "Come on, you two, you know we're all a team. You each have an important job to do."

They're too busy arguing to pay attention to me.

 "You're lazy," shouts the Editor.

 "You're rigid," yells the Muse.

 "Airhead!"

 "Stick in the mud!"

I raise my hands in surrender. "Enough! I'm getting out of here. I'll see you two later, when you've settled down."

 "Wait a minute," the Muse says. "You can't leave."

The Editor chimes in, "Yeah, what about our schedule? We're supposed to be getting some writing done."

As I walk out of the office, the Muse says, "There she goes again. Know what the biggest writing challenge really is?"

 "Yeah," says the Editor gloomily. "It's getting the author to sit down and do it."

 

And in this corner... the Universe!

Ann Parker here, Thursday's child every other week on the LadyKillers. I have to say, I love the posts this week so far, from Mary Anna's "put it in perspective," to Priscilla's "challenges in writing," to Camille's "pass" on climbing every mountain and fording every stream! As for me, I'm going to mash them all together, with a strong nod toward "put it in perspective."

When I'm working on a big writing project, there's usually a point (or several) where I freeze, and a little inner voice (which, I believe, is from my seven-year-old self) says with panic, "I can't do it!" When I hear that little voice, I know it's time to take a deep breath and forge on. How?

Put it in perspective (thank you, Mary Anna!). There's a great book, Powers of Ten (it was also a film), that visually describes orders of magnitude wonderfully. (You can step through the visuals of scale here.) This sort of "perspective" calms me. I mean, really, who can stress about a deadline when checking out the image of 10 to the 12th? Put another way, "Will any of this really matter ten, twenty, thirty, one-hundred years from now?" Don't make me laugh! Realizing that space and time will continue, no matter what happens on the scale of my life, is very comforting. And (importantly) it allows me to move forward.

... And I was worried about what??

When I move forward, the size of the challenge shrinks in my fevered brain from overwhelming to low-stakes (thank you, Camille!). No one will die if I flub up, the world goes on, and so will I (in my small-scale, mortal way). Thus relieved of inner panic, the wheels of my imagination stutter back into motion, fingers are back on the keyboard, and I type. (So what if it isn't the most beautiful prose ever written? Not important. Great relief.)

...Flying fingers, released from panic.

When those wheels start turning and the fingers start typing, things start to happen. I start having fun again. If I'm working on one of my mysteries, nifty clues spring to mind and I start pondering what I can do to "surprise" the reader, to bring something new to the table (thank you, Priscilla!).

...Imagination is a lovely thing, when unleashed!

And finally, when faced with challenges that seem overwhelming, I turn to others for inspiration and reminders on how to proceed. Thank you, LadyKillers!