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Posts Tagged ‘first novel’

Too Many Characters

Posted in revision, tagged , , , , on August 1, 2012| 2 Comments »

There’s a dramatic scene toward the end of my novel that begins to resolve the mystery. But I had the hardest time getting this chapter through one of my two writing groups.

The intention was to show frenetic activity as each character stumbled over the others. At first, I had each character’s actions shown in full. Then I tried alternating paragraphs of each characters’ actions to show everything happening at once.

Yesterday, as I went back and forth between the group comments and my subconscious muse, I finally figured out what was sending this scene off on the wrong track.

Too many characters too soon!

And so, I’m busy re-sequencing the timing to bring them into the scene one at a time instead of having all of them there at the beginning. One character finishes before another one enters to interact and move the story along. It seems to be flowing much better. Such a relief.

But wait! I shouldn’t get too excited yet… what if the group still doesn’t think it works???

 

 

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The Dastardly Beginning

Posted in revision, tagged , , , , , , , on July 4, 2012| 2 Comments »

I’ve been fighting with my opening scene for quite some time now.

First is the opening sentence… how to come up with those clever words to convey not only the necessary hook, but have the thought connect indelibly to the plot?

And then there are those opening paragraphs and the scene itself. An agent recently told me that beginning with a phone call was not interesting enough, so I’ve moved it to my character’s arrival at the music shop, where the inciting incident happens. But in those first few pages, I also need to introduce my protagonist, set the scene, and connect what’s happening to her story-worthy problem, even if she doesn’t know what it is yet. And all without a lot of back story… my personal downfall.

A tall order? You bet! I’ve managed to arrive at the inciting incident by the end of page 6, but I’m thinking that’s still not soon enough.

And so, I will continue to massage the words on the page until it reads as succinctly as I can make it.

Will I ever have a manuscript worthy of submitting to an agent or publisher? Good question.

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Agents Weekend

Posted in Agent Review, Seminars, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »

This afternoon, I returned from an educational weekend session with three literary agents. This event was sponsored by the Cape Cod Writers Center, and held at the Colonial House Inn in historic Falmouth, Massachusetts. This old sea captain’s house is one of several that claim ghosts in residence, but none of them visited me during the night!

The three agents guided the fourteen attendees through informative hour-long talks scheduled between the one-on-one sessions with each author. Katherine Sands from NYC spoke about “How to Discourage an Agent Even if You’re a Brilliant Writer”. Paul Fedorko from NYC shared his thoughts about “Finding the Right Agent for You”. And last, but certainly not least, Ann Collette from Boston provided her insight into “The Do’s and Don’ts for Mystery/Thriller Writers”.

My personal one-on-one session was scheduled with Ann Collette on Saturday afternoon. I found Ann to be a delightful woman with a quick wit and a sharp eye for quality. She’d already reviewed and made notations on my first 10 pages. Her suggestions were pointed and constructive, given always with a kind manner and an encouraging smile. As I left our session, my head was bursting with her ideas to improve my storytelling skills and notch up my chances for publication down the road.

Later on Saturday afternoon, we all gathered together to hear Ann and Katherine discuss “Writing the Query Letter”, which was a real eye opener. Concentrate on the unique facets of your story… setting-protagonist-problem. Or as Katherine says, place-person-pivot. Your carefully chosen words need to jump off the page and grab the agent’s attention.The goal is to make the agent want to read more.

Sunday morning provided a three-hour Q&A session with Ann and Katherine, who fielded questions from the attendees. They also shared surprising agent stories as they related to clients found and lost, or passed and regretted. It was an enlightening discussion, and gave us all insights into the inner workings of the agent’s job.

I’m sure I can speak for all the attendees when I say the weekend was well worth the time and cost to attend.

And, so, here I sit at home computer. I’ve pulled up my manuscript and have begun the revision process. As I work, Ann’s thoughts make sense to me, and I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing any of the words that are being deleted. These revisions are only making my story better… whew!

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As I put down the mystery…

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on April 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »

…I said to myself, “Why can’t I write a book like this?” Unfortunately, I have no idea which mystery novel I had just finished, cuz I would share it if I could remember the title. Anyway, that’s why I started writing my first novel I sat down at my desktop and opened up a word document. All I needed to begin was my main character, the place where she would live, and a problem to mess up her life.

In my sleepy New England college town, there’s an old village library on the edge of the common, abandoned since the 1990’s when a larger, more modern library was built. I’ve always thought that old library would be the neatest place to live, and so that’s where my story began. Not a large building, it was built with huge brownstones and bricks. How much fun would it be to imagine the conversion into a home!  I was not able to gain entrance into the interior to get a good feel for the space and size, but my imagination has taken care of that for me. In my fictional world, I have walked through the open floor plan every day as I work on the novel. If I managed to get that tour now, it might be disappointing when compared to the home I’ve created in my mind.

I decided my main character would be named Gwen, a retired music professor at the local college in her 60’s, and widowed over two years ago by a freak accident that killed her architect husband on the golf course. This would provide her with vulnerability, plus a potential romance sub-plot. Her problem ended up to be the return of her old nemesis Henrietta, and Gwen is blackmailed by Jack at the music shop to hostess the woman until the music competition ten days away.

After I’m published, you’ll have to read the novel to find out what happens!

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