I Wasn’t Expecting…Murder

I’m about to commit a crime. I’m going to kill some of my “darlings.”

Words, of course. I’m talking about walking back a scene in my novel. You see, I was sitting here, in this very chair, blithely writing away, when a character took a walk, because it was necessary that he talk with someone, someone who didn’t want to be seen. But then I needed a reason for that character to walk off, away from his friends, and in the circumstances, it seemed the most normal thing in the world for him to be responding to a call of nature. That would certainly explain why he was alone when this other character accosted him.

Unfortunately, as the scene developed, it became obvious fairly quickly that it could easily devolve into sophomoric humor. Even if it didn’t, I couldn’t trust that the reader’s mind wouldn’t go in that direction, which would be bad. You see, comic relief is all very well and good, and I have used it myself, but it has its time and place, and two-thirds of the way through the novel, when the hero has been stripped of his companions and is trapped in an inescapable prison and about to engineer an escape anyway which will lead to the final act taking place in the midst of his enemies, isn’t it.

My novel Once a Knight is essentially 80,000 words of comic relief–except very near the end. In the end, the plot has to be resolved, and while the lead-up to your main characters saving the kingdom can be funny as you want, when the hero and the villain finally square off…well, not too many battles to the death are that hilarious. And so it was here. I am getting too close to the end of the book for comic relief, particularly since this book hasn’t featured any so far. To insert humor–or even allow it to be inferred–at this point would be off-putting and discordant. So my darlings have to die.

This is the kind of thing you learn as you go. What you leave out is as important as what you put in, and you have to know when each is appropriate. There are those who say that you should throw everything at the page and move on, then clean it up later, and to them I say, “Absolutely. Don’t let the right brain interfere with the creative process.” But there are those times when, if you don’t let it interfere, your book will go off on a tangent and you may not return for thousands of words. That’s time wasted.

And wasting time… is a crime.

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Suffering from a Sense of Untitlement

They say that the hardest thing to know, is to know yourself. Well, maybe they do, and maybe I just made that up. It’s hard to know. But one thing I do know is, that the longer I write, the more I understand about my own process.

Like, for instance, when I said that I thought the hardest part of re-writing a story would be coming up with a new title. I had no idea how right I was.

The story’s drafted; I need to run it by a beta reader, but I think I fulfilled the magazine’s requests–except one. I have been racking my poor excuse for a brain for over two weeks, conjuring literally dozens of ideas, and discarding them all. And then, to add insult to injury, my novel-in-progress started making noises that it wanted a permanent name, rather than just the working title I slapped on it months ago. Last night I tried on and immediately dumped five of them. I think I have the general idea in place, but nothing’s guaranteed.

What to do? I need to get this story out the door so it can (with luck) sell. I also need the brainpower to finish the novel, which, just as I thought I was entering the home stretch, began presenting new problems. (Why does every scene have to contribute to the plot? Why? I can name lots of famous authors who pad their books mercilessly, but like Tess McGill said: “You can bend the rules plenty once you get to the top, but not while you’re trying to get there.”*)

Perhaps I’ll try one of those random word generators. But you know the worst part? This posting. I knew its title before I ever started writing it.

Irony, thy name is writer.

 

*Of course, she was merely trying to smash a double-glass ceiling shielding corporate America, while I’m trying to come up with a title for a short story. Who’s got the better chance here?

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Never Judge a Book by Its Title

I’m working on re-writing a story. Happily, this is due to an editorial request. I sent in a story, it was considered, and the Powers That Be decided that, while in their opinion it was good, it could be better. Editors sometimes give you notes and ask if you will rewrite a story in line with those notes. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Sometimes the requested changes conflict with your idea of the story. You can always say, “No, thank you,” and move to the next market. (You want to think very carefully before you do that.)

In this instance, I reviewed the suggestions, found them palatable, and replied that not only could I make them, but only one was likely to be difficult: Changing the title.

You’d think that would be the easiest, but titles are tough–they’re like flash fiction, where you have to tell a complete story in 1000 words…except titles are much shorter.

Your title must express to the reader what kind of story it is you’re telling. Is it horror? Fantasy? Philosophical? Satirical? Is it more than one of these? Your title has to tell all of that in fewer than a half-dozen words. At least if you’re writing a book you have a cover!

Alas, it turns out that I am as good a prognosticator as I feared: I have finished a draft of the revised story, but I have no new title. And the editors were quite clear they want a new title.

I could send it back as is, arguing for my present title, or simply tossing the problem to the editors, but I tend not to want to make trouble for people who might pay me for the trouble I’ve already gone to. And nobody likes a problem author. There’s no guarantee my revision is going to meet with approval; I don’t want to stack the deck against myself.

I think back on the million monkeys typing on the million typewriters. I don’t need Shakespeare; I need maybe five words.

Maybe if I hired five monkeys with five typewriters?

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