Rearranging the furniture

I was saying to someone the other day that redrafting a book is a lot like rearranging your bedroom.

This came about because I walked into my room the other day and thought 'Wow, this just doesn't work'. Obviously there are things I need in my room, like the bed, the wardrobe, the chest of drawers. But there are maybe some things I could do without, and there are other things I could put in the room that would make it more interesting.

Sound familiar?

When I was looking at my first draft and trying to figure out what worked and what didn't, I knew there were things I needed to keep in. The bare bones that make my story, my story (the furniture that makes my bedroom, my bedroom). But there were also things in the story that were the literary equivalent of clothes strewn across my bedroom floor. And there was kind of a lack of personal style in places that made parts of the book a little bland. And then there were things that worked, but would have worked better in a different place.

Hopefully by the third draft I managed to rearrange all this and I've ended up with a room I'm pretty happy with. Now it's time to show it off.

 

Eek - nerves

Well I just finished going over the changes to my third draft, and rather than do the sensible thing - take a night to think about it, read it through again, let it settle - I just sent it out to four people who haven't read it up until now. That could work out to be a huge mistake. If they hate it...I don't know what happens. My confidence takes a knock? Honestly I have to be at the point now where I have faith in Chase and in my writing so that I can recognise the distinction between personal opinion and constructive criticism. Is there a little part of me that only sends my work out to people so that I can get some positive feedback...? Yes. It's probably bigger than a little part. I could do with having that part knocked out of me, but the idea of it is painful.

Note to self: must learn to embrace rejection.

(Embrace is maybe too strong a word.)

Sigh. I have given over my entire weekend to this novel, and now I feel completely burnt out. My brain is fried. My eyes are glazed. I've started laughing in a maniacal way that my husband seems to find frightening. I told the dog that Jesus was on the phone for her. Basically, the situation here is not good. Think of this blog as a cry for help. *Send chocolate*

*Alternatively, send Gosling*

On the up side, that's the third draft, done. The feedback I get from my new round of readers will determine whether or not there needs to be a fourth. I suspect there probably does. I hope there doesn't. I have limited time, remember? The countdown to 30 continues.

Meanwhile, what I really need to work on is my pitch. Anybody got any ideas? Helpful comments? Resources? Please, please help me. I can barely synopsise the story in basic conversation, let alone in, what, 250 words? I also need to get to work on making that list of potential agents.

Let's call that next weekend's job so I can give myself a week off to read books. By which, I mean, of course, research my genre.


 

Third draft's the charm?

I just finished reading through my third draft. Or actually, I suppose it's my second. It feels like third. Anyway, whatever. The good news is, I didn't hate it. There were times I was reading it and I was genuinely enjoying it. Other times it was only ok. On occasion it was horrible... But mostly, I'd like to say I think it's not bad.

The first time I did this - and by this I mean print, bind, read through and make notes on a draft - I changed an entire section of the novel and I definitely felt, this time around, that that was for the best. It improved the flow of the story and it intensified the drama. Reading this draft I found another scene I'm not entirely happy with. It puts two people together who need to be together and it allows for the discovery of something that needs to be discovered, but everything else about it is distinctly average. My notes for this chapter look something like this:

In case you can't read that, it says 'What's the point of this house? Why is it empty? What's the point of this chapter?'

If you were to ask me for one piece of editing advice, this would be mine: examine your work honestly. Don't get too attached to places or words. Be attached to your story. Get to the heart of it. Look at your motives.

I was talking to someone about Chase the other day. We were discussing why a particular character acts in the way he does, and she said 'But then your story doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't they just do x - that would be so much simpler.' Thankfully her husband chimed in to remind us that Tolkien could have had the Army of the Dead escort Sam and Frodo all the way to Mount Doom - or the eagles for that matter - but where's the fun in that? I don't believe that stories have to be logical or rational or reasoned, but when a reader calls for that you have to be able to insert logic, rationality or reason. No doubt the Army of the Dead would not have been able to be around the One Ring without being corrupted (further corrupted, I should say) by its powers. I don't know if Eagles are corruptible, but I imagine the nazgul could probably take them out. In my story, I have to know why the characters act the way they do. I need to be ready for that future Q&A session when someone cares enough about my characters to question them. I need to know the characters motives, and my motives, for every scene.

Under the eyes of no one

I think the idea of 'what do we do when we think no one is watching' is an interesting one. In Gone, the series I was talking about the other day, the absence of adults and any kind of authority means the kids must create their own judgement system. Some of them find power in the new situation, while our main character, Sam, spends a lot of his time worrying about the consequences of his actions - what will happen when the dome comes down? How will the outside world judge him for what he's done? But when a time comes when the outside world can see inside, he continues to act in the same way because all along he has only been trying to do what is right.

When I read Nothing to Envy, the book about life in North Korea, it became apparent that the government there is getting away with a lot because, for the most part - threats of nuclear war aside, no one is watching North Korea. Our eyes are elsewhere, the media is kept out. They have privacy and isolation. We do not intervene.

When I started writing Chase, I thought the idea of having Britain cut off from the rest of the world - I call it the Disassociation - would be interesting. Part of what keeps us in line is knowing that other people are watching and judging. If, right now, Britain introduced, say, the death penalty - let's say, death by stoning - the rest of Europe would be up in arms. There would be protests. There would be economic and social consequences. Support (financial and political) would be withdrawn, and we're very reliant on the support of other nations. But in the world of Chase, Britain has opted out of all of that international network of social, political and financial support. It no longer concerns itself with other countries' problems, and likewise the rest of the world has left it to its own devices. That leaves the government more or less free to do what it likes. So if it wants to put orphans in a work camp, it can. And if it wants to Black List an entire population of rebels and leave them starving at the edges of the country, it can. And if a democracy turns into a dictatorship, well who's going to know, or care? So that's the world in which Chase finds herself. Captured by Listers, a child of the Honours, with no idea how the rest of the world lives.

Gone

I haven't ever taken drugs. I'm too much of a scaredy-Kat, too much of a goody-goody, and too much of a control freak to get involved in any of that. And I'm past the point of caring whether or not that makes me a nerd. I've actually always thought it was a good thing I was never tempted because I have a completely addictive personality and zero will power. I started reading the 'Gone' series by Michael Grant the week before I went to the US. In the space of about five days, I read the first three books. Then it was time to go to the US for work. A 9 hour flight, I thought. I could probably read book 4 in that time. But then, I know myself. I would be thinking about book 5 the whole time I was meant to be working. I would make excuses to get away from the conference and associated activities just so I could go up to my hotel room and read the next book. Just one more chapter. Just one more. One more. Until I was done with that book and on to the next. So I left my Kindle at home (and incidentally watched some good films on the plane and used my free time to work on my third draft). I'd already downloaded the rest of the books, so they were waiting for me when I got home. I picked my Kindle up on Monday and had finished the final book four days later.
I think I've said before that I'm a greedy reader. I gobble books up. But even for me, this was extreme. I was staying up until ridiculous o'clock, despite the fact that I was on deadline and having to get up early to put in extra time at the office. But I couldn't put the books down. They were just so good. So, so good.
In case you're not familiar with the stories, they are set in a small town in California that the inhabitants nickname the FAYZ. One day, a dome goes up for no apparent reason and everyone over the age of 14 disappears. Suddenly some 380 kids are trapped in an area 20 miles across with no access to the outside world. No one's coming in. No one's watching. And weird stuff is happening. Some of the kids have developed supernatural powers. Some of them are evil. Over the course of the six books, battles are fought, your favourite characters face death again and again, alliances are formed and broken and formed again, and of course there are some complicated romantic relationships.
If you've read Stephen King's Under the Dome (and if you haven't you absolutely should), you might be thinking this all sounds a little familiar. Truthfully, there are a lot of similarities, but being that the Gone series is all about kids, it is different. Some of the problems are the same, but the reactions are different. It's hard to explain - hey I never claimed to be good at reviewing books - but they're both worth reading. I was gripped. Utterly. I don't want to give anything away so just take my word on this one.
Another blog coming up on what happens to a society when there are no outsiders to judge or intervene...As for the writing exercise, I realise now I have never in my life written a short story and I'm not sure how to go about it. But it's definitely on the to-do list. Meanwhile, I am still working on the third draft. Wish me luck guys!

I'm back, baby

So...long time no post, right? Apologies guys, I've been busy - and sadly not with writing. I have completely failed Camp Nanowrimo - even with another 6 days to go, there's no way I'm going to have time to write any more. It was crazy to sign up for it, really, given how busy I am this month, not to mention the fact that I should be spending my spare time working on the first book before I race ahead with the second! Plenty of time for that later. If I manage to meet my deadline on book 1, maybe I'll sign up again in July.

I saw my brother again at the weekend. I like how direct he is with me.
"How's the book going?"
"It's kind of stalled at the moment. I've been really busy." (To be fair, I'd just got back from a week in America.)
"So what are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know. It's like the more I read it, the worse it seems."
"So what are you going to do about that?"
"I don't know. Maybe take a break from it for a while."
"Maybe you should try writing something else. Maybe a short story for your blog."

He's so wise. I do need to rebuild some of my confidence, gain some momentum, fall in love with writing again. A blog-sized short story sounds like a good idea. I'll try and make that my next post. It won't be well crafted, more like a writing exercise - which is probably the kind of thing I'd know about if I'd actually taken the creative writing course I applied for all those years ago!

(Flashback: I'm 18, it's time to apply for university. I want to do English with Creative Writing. I apply to six universities and get rejected by three. Ouch. Rejection stings. I get accepted by one, but when it comes to it, I'm too afraid to pursue it. What if we sit around reading out our work and everyone thinks mine is bad? I switch to English with Film Studies and put my writing on hold for...oh, about 8 years. End of flashback.)

I'm typing this and watching MTV. Sometimes music can be so perfect. You know, when it just fits, and it's like a soundtrack to your life? "Everyone's a kid that no one cares about. You've just got to keep screaming 'til they hear you out." I have to keep screaming if I want to be heard. The softly, softly approach will get me nowhere with this.

The epilogue blog (The Epiblog?)

You guys, I've almost finished the second draft of my novel! Hooray! It has taken for-actual-ever and it has definitely felt a lot more like pain than gain, but I am nearly there. That's not to say there won't be a third draft. I will be repeating the print, bind, read, scrawl, edit process, but I'm hoping - nay, begging - that it will be less arduous than it has been this time around. In the third draft I hope to add in the small details that make the world seem more complete, while the second draft has been more about making sure the plot adds up and there are no glaring inconsistencies. Also, I would take sentences like that and reverse them so that the second clause (or whatever that's called) goes first, because that just reads better.

A while back, not long after I began the second draft, I decided I needed to add an epilogue. The entire book is written from Chase's perspective, which is cool, but doesn't give me much of an opportunity to say what other people feel about her, for realz. (I don't know why I said that, but it's late and I've pretty much been typing the whole weekend, so deal with it, ok?) So I decided the epilogue would be from Steel's perspective (that's potential crush numero uno aka the first boy to save her life) and would give the reader a little insight into how he feels about her and a good strong nudge in the direction of Team Steel, so to speak, having spent most of the book sorting out their feelings for crush numero dos (is that Spanish?) aka the second boy to save her life, aka Will.

So I was all, "Hey girl," (remember that part about my inner self sounding like feminist Ryan Gosling?) "The epilogue is going to be super easy and fun to write. Why don't you do the hard stuff first and save writing the epilogue as a treat for the end?". Ryan Gosling is never wrong, so I sweated the hard slog and edited the darned book. (And you know I don't really mean darned.) Then, today, I got to the last word of the last chapter and It Was Time. I typed the word 'Epilogue' and then I changed it to the Heading 1 font, which makes it all seem more real. Then I typed about six versions of the first sentence. Maybe more. Then I made a good five attempts at the second sentence. Then I deleted those two sentences and wrote them again. "Hang on RyGo," I thought. "Isn't this supposed to be the easy part?" But then I remembered how hard it was, in draft one, to figure out how to end the book. I knew the ending, but I didn't know how I wanted to write it. Books with sequels have to leave you wanting more, but at the same time I knew it needed a degree of resolution. And by adding an epilogue I am adding another ending. And by making it from someone else's perspective - and someone we haven't heard from in a while - I'm effectively starting and ending a story in the space of a few paragraphs. "Holy crap, RyGo, you set me up!"

I've written some words. Maybe 750. I reckon I can go to 1500, tops. But I'm doubting myself - and Ryan Gosling, which is never good. Is this epilogue necessary or am I just writing it to make sure everyone understands how lovable my characters are? Am I doubting myself because it's hard, or because it's wrong? Am I struggling because I'm stupid and unsure or because it's 11pm on a Sunday night and I have been at this all weekend?

When my inner dialogue (oh how I wish it were a monologue!) starts getting all swing-ball-y I know it's time for bed. So goodnight, sweet dreams...and if anyone has any insights on epilogues I'd be grateful!