A few readers have asked me what’s happening with my work-in-progress, The Lies We Told, due to be published next June, so I’m here with an update. I’ve shared with you the synopsis process, the outline process, the writing process, the revising process and the torturous rush-to-deadline process. That was followed by two weeks of waiting as my editor and agent read the manuscript. Now I’ve received the feedback from both of them, and I begin revising again.

Both my agent and editor loved the book, and that’s excellent news. You never know if you’ve done good work until someone other than your very biased self tells you so, so I was relieved. Of course they each had ideas to share. My editor’s suggestions relate to one of the story threads. The book is about two sisters, Rebecca and Maya. Without giving anything away, I can tell you that they are in different locations doing different things, so their stories are, obviously, very different. Maya’s story is Gripping, with a capital G. My editor had some ideas on how to make Rebecca’s gripping storyline also worthy of a capital letter.  My agent, on the other hand, focused more on Maya’s thread, suggesting that I nudge her character a bit more in one particular direction.

As I’ve mentioned before, I usually need about 24 hours to digest editorial suggestions and get over my knee jerk defensiveness to them. That didn’t happen this time. I could see both my editor’s and agent’s ideas were good ones right away and now I’m happily toying with ways to make the changes. It helps that the weather is fabulous, and I’m alternating my workspace between Starbucks and the porch. Revisions are due September 28th. Unfortunately, I have two trips between now and then, so I’ll have to cram a lot of work into a few days, but that’s what makes the life of a writer exciting!

One of my fellow writers asked this question on Facebook today: If you could be anywhere, doing anything, where would you be and what would you be doing? I responded that I’d be on my porch, writing.

Am I lucky or what?

ch. 2 Rebecca 2009  Overhears rumor, realizes must flee, sees Brent before leaving, lies to him

I’ve finished the first draft of these two chapters and it totals seventeen pages–seventeen pages during which my creativity had very free reign. By page eleven, for example, Rebellious Rebecca (my new nickname for her) had already altered part of my story in a major way. You see, I thought a particular character had died of cancer, but she actually died in an overturned bus. Much, much better! Thanks, Rebecca! My outline shows me where I want to go; it’s my characters who create the maze to lead me there.

So you don’t need to be afraid of outlining. Neither do you need to be afraid that you’re doing something wrong if you don’t outline. You may be more comfortable being a “panster”–one of those writers who is more productive flying by the seat of her pants. Time and experience will give you that answer. Until then, the most important thing is to keep writing.

Wow, these cool new post it index cards sure do make my outlines neater! Kind of boring, compared to my old cut and paste method (see a picture of me with one of my old outlines on my gallery page). I have to say, this method is far more manageable!

So I’m now ready to begin writing. I know that, somewhere around the middle of this long strip of cards, the story will begin to change. It always does, as the characters start pushing me around. That’s okay. It’s great, actually. I look forward to the day the story becomes a collaborative effort between those unruly fictional people and myself. I’ll let you know when that happens. Until then, I’m sticking with my nice, neat, orderly strip of cards.

Whatever you want to call it, it’s finished! In the last post, my usual optimism was showing when I said I’d finish the synopsis on Saturday and rest on Sunday, but here it is Monday and I just zipped it off to my agent a couple of hours ago. It’s long. When people ask me how to write a synopsis, I tell them I’m the wrong person to give advice. I’ve written a boatload of them over the years, but don’t ever ask me to teach a class on how to do it. Thank goodness I’ve always had understanding editors who put up with me.

A synopsis is a summary of the story, complete with beginning, middle and end, character sketches, motivation, and arc (how they change during the course of the story). (I’ve heard the rule of thumb is one page of synopsis per 10,000 words of story)

An outline is a chapter by chapter/scene by scene abstract of the book.

My synopses tend to land somewhere in the middle of the two. I have tried really, really hard over the years to do it the right way, but it doesn’t work for me. Scenes come spilling out of my head and I don’t want to lose them, so into the synopsis they go. The synopsis I just turned in is 34 pages long, and whether it’s written the right way or not, I’m very happy with it. Very!

My fingers are crossed it will be a go. Why wouldn’t it be, you ask? There are so many reasons. Here are a few I’ve heard over recent years:

“No one wants to read about an old lady.”

“It’s too ‘woo woo’.” (cue Twilight Zone music)

“No one wants to read about a cult.”

“Your readers will never suspend disbelief long enough to give this story a chance.”

“You’re too white to write this book.”

And finally, the reason I most hate hearing because there’s no way around it:

“We’re just about to publish something similar.” Ugh. I hate that one.

So cross your fingers along with me, please. I’m hoping for good news!

I started writing as a hobby when I was a hospital social worker a looong time ago (think typewriter and carbon paper. ugh). I thought that working on a novel, the idea for which I’d had in my mind from the time I was twelve years old, would be a fun pastime. After about six months, I decided to take an adult class on novel writing so that I could do a better job with my “hobby.” The class was huge–probably thirty or forty people, all working on the story of their hearts. At the first meeting, the instructor said “I’m going to assume that all of you are here because you want your books to be published.” Wow. It changed the way I felt about my little hobby. Then he gave us our first homework assignment, and it took nearly all of us aback: write the end of the book. It didn’t have to be neat and clean, but we needed to know how the story would end. I’d never thought about the ending of my novel before, and once I did, I understood why he’d given us the assignment. Suddenly, I had a focus for my story and a goal to aim toward. 

Fast forward about a zillion years. I was working on the outline for my work-in-progress this morning, struggling a bit with the “flabby middle,” when I suddenly realized I didn’t know my ending. I spent a half day thinking about it, and voila! Everything else fell into place. If you’re working on a novel, I highly recommend starting at the end. You’ll be amazed at how it focuses the rest of the story.

However, I do have a teeny tiny problem. After zipping through the draft, I came up with an entirely different way of reaching the same ending. Entirely different. Now what? One approach to the story would be more “suspensefully emotional”. The other more “emotionally emotional”. So I think I’m going to write it up both ways and see which moves me more. Nothing like doubling my workload!

Oh, it hurts.

I believe it was Ernest Hemingway who coined the title to this post. He was referring to those wonderful turns of phrase a writer comes up with that, in the final analysis, simply don’t belong in the story and must go. It’s painful to chop a few beautiful lines from what you’ve written, but it’s sheer agony when it’s an entire scene–an entire, absolutely perfect, ingenious, stunning scene–that you ultimately realize  doesn’t belong in the book. 

This has happened to me more times than I care to admit. When I start working on a story, I often have a  dramatic scene pop into my mind. It’s usually an opening scene or even a prologue, and it’s crisp and provocative and often provides the spark I need to create the rest of the story. The problem is, as I do create the rest of the story, I often realize that that initial scene doesn’t belong. Sometimes I can see that for myself. Other times it takes a friend or editor to break the news to me.

Sometimes, though, it works. The very first images I had of Before the Storm were these two: a fire narrated by a special needs teenaged boy, and a teenaged girl sitting on the deck of a round beach cottage, trying to connect to the spirit of her dead father. I loved both these scenes, and they both made it into the final cut.   

Similarly, one of my early mental images as I wrote The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes was of a small, delicate and anxious woman coming onto the porch of her house to face a sea of TV cameras and microphones. That scene was cryptic, leading the reader to wonder “what is going on?” and it made it into chapter one. I find scenes like that incredibly yummy.                                       

However, I still remember the prologue I wrote in the first draft of my third novel, Secret Lives. The character Kyle was on a train and the reader is in his head as he dreads what will happen when he arrives at his destination. I loved that scene! I am happiest when I’m writing in a slightly gothic style–dark and mysterious and provocative–and that scene really fit the bill and helped me see all the scenes that were to follow. When I’d finished the draft though, my writing group told me it didn’t belong. I argued, pleading for its life, but to no avail. My group was right. The scene had given me the gift of the rest of the novel, but beautifully written or not, it served no other purpose. I killed it. Ouch.

So I am now writing the proposal for my new Work-in-Progress. A proposal generally consists of an outline and a few chapters. I wrote a page and a half prologue that is, in my humble opinion, a real winner. Gothic as all get out. Sure to make the reader wonder what the heck is going on. And a concise and pithy introduction to the main character. The only problem is, as I worked on the outline and the characters started doing their usual thing, shoving me around and telling me how I have it all wrong, the prologue was no longer fitting the story. I’m not yet to the point where I can plunge a knife in its heart. I’m going to see if I can rework it to fit. (There’s a chance I may rework the story to fit it. . . sometimes those babies are too stubborn to die). 

This will be my nineteenth book, and it still hurts to kill my babies. If you’re a writer, how do you pull the plug?