Getting through the First Draft

Recently I posted a comment on FB that I had reached 57,000+ words in my work-in-progress and now, at last, knew how it was going to end. This sounds absurd to anyone but another writer, and has become more and more likely in my work. 

When I began writing the Mellingham series in the 1990s, I knew who the killer was, the motive, and how the final scenes would play out. The problem was getting there, how did I begin with a killer and a sleuth and keep them occupied through 70,000 words. My first step was to decide on ten chapters with ten scenes each. This idea had flaws, which I discovered in chapter one. Some scenes were long and others were short and some were repetitive because I was determined to get those ten scenes into that chapter. By the end of the book I might not even have ten chapters; instead I had eleven or nine. Sticking to a rigid plan was harder than I expected. I dropped the ten-chapters idea.

 By the time I began the Anita Ray series, set in a hotel in South India, I wanted my scenes to be of somewhat even length, approximately three pages or fifteen hundred words. Confident in my new plan, I scribbled along happily until I found some scenes running fifteen pages and others barely one. I once asked another mystery reader what was the shortest chapter she had encountered, and she replied, "It was one word. 'Help!' "  It's nice to know another writer has won that competition and the rest of us can stop worrying about it. The only conclusion I was ready to draw was that each chapter should have more than one scene, but I soon had to abandon that rule also.

I once read a short story that went on for almost fifty pages without a single scene break. (Some of you may know this story, and if so, leave me a note in the comments.) I read with one part of my brain watching how she did this, how she managed to keep the pace and scenes threaded together without exhausting the reader, who usually expects a moment of rest for a deep breath and assimilation. I'm not likely to try this approach in crime fiction.

 

My current approach is to give each day a chapter regardless of how many scenes that involves. In a busy day for my MC, that could mean up to nine scenes. My tendency is to mark a scene change when the emotional tone of the action changes, and this can be even in the middle of a conversation. My Beta readers often comment on this in negative terms so I've had to revise my thinking, but I do so somewhat reluctantly. I like my placement of scene changes because I think they signal something to the reader.

 

After I have a completed first draft I expect I'll have to go back to the beginning and reorganize the scenes into more logical chapters, but right now this is the structure that gets me through the writing and keeps me moving forward. I didn't say it was logical. It's useful. And as a writer I am always practical. What devices do you use to push your way through the first draft?

Time Away

Since my first book, A Reader's Guide to the Classic British Mystery (1988), I've stuck to the basic rule of writing every day, which for me has also meant developing a story idea, doing research, revising, rounding out characters, and working out ideas for the narrative. That's been a pretty good guide for all the years since my first mystery, Murder in Mellingham (1993), though I haven't published nearly as much as more prolific writers. I also include in my writing history hundreds of grants, essays, reviews, and other nonfiction work. But this month, I found I'd taken a hiatus of almost ten days. Was it a disaster? Did it ruin my WIP? (And where did the time go anyway?) 

When I took the time to assess where I was in the ms along with my list of questions about the plot, I found that the ten days' respite had given my unconscious time to resolve the issues, and the narrative gaps and bumps had been filled in and smoothed out. It was a relief.

 

I didn't expect this to happen, and I'm not convinced it would have if I'd planned it. Writers learn to trust the unconscious, our intuition, to solve story issues. Would this character actually do this? or say this? Does that sound like him? Would she really want that to be the end of it? If I let her do this, can she really follow it with that? Sometimes I can't answer these questions until the end of the first draft, and then I have to go back and pull scenes into line, straighten out the wobbly character or fill in the missing dialogue. But this time none of the resolutions were forced, and each seemed exactly right.

 

The time away from writing while I was absorbed elsewhere served me well, but I'm not going to make a practice of it. When the first draft is finished, I generally set the ms aside for two or three weeks so I can come to it fresh and see more clearly where it falters, when something is missing or a passage sounds clunky or confusing. But I avoid taking time off in the middle of the first draft because it feels risky. I'm afraid of losing the thread of the plot, or the energy propelling the story forward. But I'm glad to know I can survive a hiatus if I have to.

 

Do you have the same worries, or is taking a break in the middle of the first draft easy for you?

 

 

Exploring Narrative Form: Review: Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi.

As part of my reading around the world in the company of women, my project to read a book by a woman from every country, I read Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi. Those who expect a linear narrative will find this novel challenging. Several characters move to center stage and give us their view of their life. In the end we have a vision of the people of Oman, the impact of significant changes since the 1920s, and the web holding several women together. 

Translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Booth.

First published in Arabic in Oman in 2010.

Published in English by Catapult Press, 2019.

Winner of the Man Booker International Prize.

 

Mayya is a young girl, silent and devoted to her sewing machine. Around her swirls the life of her large family, her two younger sisters Asmi, who hoards books recovered from the trash, and Khawla, who fixates on her beauty and the cousin who promised they were to marry; her mother, Salima, and the girls' father, Azzan; the servants and newly freed slaves; and the various relatives and neighbor women who come in and out of the house, visiting, paying condolence or congratulation calls. 

 

Told in the setting of a deeply conservative culture, sprinkled with historical turning points and Arabic poetry, the narration explores the family members, each one getting short chapters of his or her own. The narrators circle around the mysteries of their lives: Mayya, Abdallah her husband, London, their first daughter given an unusual name that elicits distress from others; Asma, Mayya's younger sister, who wants an education but is too old for the early grades; Qamar, a Bedouin woman who has carved out a life of near-total freedom for herself among her people who live camped outside the village and turns her desire on Mayya's father; Zarifa, a slave who was sold and forced to marry, who takes it upon herself to defy her slavery by sheer force of will and who challenges her son who insists now that he is free he can violate all the traditions if he wants to, but she knows secrets; Masouda, a wife locked into a room, cared for by her daughter, who may or may not be mad; Khawla, who is determined to remain true to her childhood sweetheart; Salima, the girls' mother, who grew up neither slave nor daughter of the house; Ankabuta, a slave woman and Zarifa's mother; Khalid, Asma's husband; Fatima, Abdallah's mother; Marwan the Pure, who isn't; Sulayman, a young merchant who founds a long family line with his wealth from the slave trade beginning in the 1890s.

 

The author only hints at linearity in the narration, and yet the stories hold together, the lives intersect, and mysteries are answered.

Goals 2022

I've been thinking about setting goals and whether or not it's worth the effort. I can't even remember what my goals for this past year were, and I'm not eager to check and see if I met them. The pandemic has thrown everything off for me as well as many others, but as I look forward into the new year I admit that I have hoped to get certain things done.

First, the fifth Anita Ray is ready to go, so one goal is to publish and promote In Sita's Shadow. This means promotion, so . . . 

 

Second, I will try at least one new promotional approach in sending Anita Ray out into the world again so I can feel I'm not stagnating in that department (I won't mention backsliding).

 

Third, I've enjoyed doing more with my blog, so I'll continue that (or this).

 

Fourth, a certain magazine continues to reject my stories, even though I sometimes get a nice note from the editor. I'll keep trying to place one story in that magazine. Maybe I'm becoming obsessive, but at least I'm motivated.

 

That's enough pre-planning for one year. I'll leave world peace and ending poverty to those more powerful than I am.

 

What about your goals? Are they simple, practical steps or are they larger, more abstract?