I’m not sure that I’m the right person to be writing for this blog because I’m nearly computer illiterate. Theresa says, however, that good software would enable me to do what I do more easily. It's unimaginable what that means, but I would certainly like the computer side of this business to be easier. The writing side isn’t a problem. In fact—a funny thing—the first book I wrote, Be Not Afraid, a story about a seventeen year-old hockey player’s fight to overcome a devastating injury, sold out immediately. From writing through publication and sales, it went very smoothly, so I thought this writing gig would be a nice easy way to make money.
Little did I know.
Here's the story of a book that didn’t come out right the first time, but wouldn’t die. Buried Lies, my fourth published novel, began in November 2005, but was not published untill Fall 2008.
This time, I tried out a few new tactics, largely because of encouragement from a pair of new agents who had no experience in books or crime fiction, but were familiar with other aspects of the publishing industry. All my prior books were written in close Third Person Point of View (POVi), but the new agents suggested First Person POV. I’d received a couple of comments about POV from reviewers, so I thought I’d give First Person a try.
In January 2006, I finished an outline, also a first for me. My usual style is to sit down at the computer and start telling a story on Page One. I write the story completely in a rough format. Later I go back and insert dialogue and descriptions of scenery. I work inside the same computer file from beginning to end. But not this time.
My new agents also suggested that I move the story out of Minnesota because I was limiting myself by "regionalization." I’ve lived here in Minnesota for my entire life and if you’ve read French Creek or Blue Springs, you know that I just love this countryside. But, they were the professionals, so I believed them. I wish I knew then to question their judgement; I would have been straightened out if I'd thought to talk to William Kent Krueger or Carl Brookins or asked the advice of my friends at Once Upon A Crime mystery bookstore in Minneapolis who publish a list of Minnesota crime fiction authors.
But back then, this all looked like an easy challenge and those agents sounded like they knew what they were doing.
The first manuscript of Buried Lies was completed by mid-March at 137,000 words, but it was not until June that the agents had time to meet with me. They promptly told me the manuscript was too long. By September I had cut out 16,000 words and the agents expressed satisfaction and promised to start selling the book. By January 2007, I still had no interested publisher.
Everyone who had read the manuscript liked it except for Pat at Once Upon A Crime bookstore who told me the story didn’t sound like me. I wasn’t sure how to take that remark, but as everyone else had liked the story, I knew a publisher was not far away. Theresa had published nice reviews of Blue Springs and French Creek, along with interesting and perceptive off-camera remarks to me, so I sent her the manuscript of Buried Lies. In June 2007, Theresa sent me, unbidden, a 23 page analysis of Buried Lies which I had to read sitting down. Wow. Watching my wife read Theresa’s analysis, she nodded her head so frequently that I thought maybe Theresa was making some sense after all. It was a bewildering experience.
Eventually I realized my new agents should never have accepted the manuscript—the story was not in the right condition to be published. In November 2007, I took the manuscript back into my own hands.
Then I took Theresa’s suggestion and called in Rob Walker, a 30+ year veteran writing teacher and a published author of 44+ books. I sent Rob a few chapters at a time and he wrote back with remarks. Let’s just say that Rob is fond of "slash and burn" and fondly calls his process "book autopsies at ’cut rate’ prices." A few weeks later, we went through the whole process again. And again. He was relentless and ruthless. Rob’s only real complaint was that I didn’t know enough about computers to put page numbers on the pages!
Thankfully the main story didn’t change, I don’t know what I would have done if it needed to. The manuscript was then at 121,000 words, so I had to get the word count down, as well as revise a few things which didn’t work. These are the main changes I made:
- Removed story parts which weren’t working well. Shortened many scenes and deleted a few. Happily, I didn’t have to add anything significant.
- Changed principal character from a retired newspaperman Jake to a Vietnam vet Gus. I also added some to the story to give Gus some background experiences. Actually, I was glad of the change to Gus, because he was able to rekindle my interest in the story—I had been getting entirely fed up with the same damn story.
- Swapped wife/love interest from one character to another.
- Deleted one character completely at a place in the story. In the earlier iterations of the story, this character was present until the end. Deleting all the dialogue recaptured an immense word count.
For the Vietnam vet, I did a lot of research on the internet. When I found information which looked interesting, I jotted notes into a spiral bound school notebook. I didn’t copy all of the research, just notes to help me remember what I had discovered. I also used that notebook when I was composing new scenes or had a bright idea about something.
At the beginning I thought to keep the story I had cut out of Buried Lies and moved text to a new file in the computer, though—even at the time—I wasn’t sure I would know how to retrieve the words. Eventually, I just deleted everything. Part of my reasoning was that I just didn’t think the cut text was very memorable.
For each change in the story, I went through the story from start to finish, deleting or changing the text. There was not any easy way to determine what needed to happen. Most of the time I used the PageUp or PageDown key over and over (and over) again. It’s almost too boring to write about! This continued right up until the very end to make sure that the new characters retained no vestiges of their former selves.
With a (finally!) completed manuscript, getting a new publisher was a piece of cake. Northstar immediately set up Buried Lies to be released in fall 2008. It sold out in hardcover, was released in trade paper, and is now nearly sold out again. So, I’m done with that story, but I’m certain the book wouldn’t have had this success were it not for the help of Rob and Theresa.
But, now that I’m here, I’m really curious about how software could make this job easier. Because this story most certainly was not easy to write (and rewrite). I just can’t imagine how software might help.
But I’m also sure Theresa will someday tell me. :)
Buried Lies is the story of a Vietnam vet’s foray into retirement only to find himself up against a bunch of cutthroats, and a mysterious woman, after the same collectible book. It’s a puzzle which takes him across the country in a costly race against time, with deaths and kidnapping littering his trail.
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How did you figure out what to trim?
Hello Peter and thanks for coming to the site.
How did you figure out what to trim? In the muddle of 137,000 words, it must have been difficult to sort out what could be removed. Of course, you could have thrown the manuscript in the air and see which pages were heaviest! Or perhaps closed your eyes and stuck your finger in the middle of the manuscript!
I know you didn't choose either of those methods because the published story reads extremely smoothly.
How did you determine potential ways to cut?
How did you choose between those ways?
Best,
Theresa
How I figured out what to trim
Working from Theresa’s comments, I highlighted those areas where we agreed and ignored the rest…at least temporarily. I was looking to expunge large chunks of text. I considered the protagonist, Gus (formerly named Jake). He came across as pretty dull in the original, so he became my first project: different name, with a different backstory. I changed his marital status to develop a romantic interest with co-protagonist, Cassidy, and created mystery about why he never married. Once I started in with the main characters, the words dropped off like box-elder bugs on hot tin.
My goal was to cut approximately 20,000 words. The more I cut, however, the tougher the project became, as all kinds of small details kept popping up that no longer fit in the story. It was a daunting task, as, for a while, I was not certain the finished product would be worth the effort. Mechanically, what I was doing was quite cumbersome. I'd remove large chunks and move them to another file. From there, I'd trim and rework and try and move what was left back to the manuscript. This became a hopeless endeavor--I couldn't keep track of everything moving back and forth so finally I just began deleting anything that didn't move the plot along. I saved almost nothing. Don't try this at home, folks!
Perhaps Theresa can come up with some sort of software to facilitate this movement of text, but in the meantime, we are left to copy and paste and cut and move and try and remember where the hell a certain precious bit of dialogue went. It really wasn’t until I had trimmed about 10,000 words that I began to like the story and the characters much more than the original.
Essentially, the revised edition was a tighter version with pacing that drew the reader into the story very suddenly and kept him/her turning the pages. When I finished with the novel’s severe haircut, I was very proud of the result.
www.prennebohm.com
Analyzing what to trim
Well Peter, good software could provide a lot of tools. I think software should work in a similar way (conceptually) to the kind of What If? analyses done by financial software packages.
Let me expand this for a moment, and begin by defining a term: Story Eventi. Your manuscript is made up of (broken into) a few hundred or couple thousand different events: some a sentence long, others many paragraphs. An event discloses part of a story to the reader: sometimes the reader hears the tiny intrusion of a protagonist’s thoughts, or inner wisecracker, and other times the reader witnesses a long altercation between characters. Each of these occurrences is an event. The length of each event is up to you, the author, to define.
Preparatory to pruning the story, good software would give an author help in deciding which events to trim. You mention you removed character B from the story after an event in which B was crucial. Something made you look at B, particularly after he had finished with the crucial event. What? How did you determine that the rest of the story would stand perfectly well without him?
I know you figured out how to trim the story because you’ve got a really excellent story in Buried Lies, but authors are no less deserving than accountants—they deserve good software too.
Fiction authors should be able to look at events in a manuscript in many ways. For instance, in Buried Lies, it would have been helpful to see:
There are, of course, a million other things which good software could do. Moreover, if I get my druthers, someday I will have reason to tell you all about it! :)
Best,
Theresa
Trimming, sorting, and such
Everything you mention would probably have been helpful in my case, Theresa. Again, assuming that a computer dummy such as I could mange to understand how to make it all work. I can't emphasize this enough, though: all such software has to be simple and easily understood. Also, keep in mind that the user (me, probably) will only be using each function a few times per year--if that. So, retention and memory of different functions could be problematic.
www.prennebohm.com
Keeping it simple
OK Peter, I get that message loud and clear! :)
Theresa
If you knew then what you know now . . .
Peter, if you knew at the beginning of this road to publication (Nov 2005) how much time and trouble this story would take on the road to publication, what would you have done differently? Would you have persisted with the story?
In the future, if you run into another log jam on the road to publication, what is your reaction likely to be? Do you think you still have things to learn?
-Theresa
If you knew at the beginning...
First of all, I didn’t learn until just recently, that most publishers won’t accept a manuscript that is longer than 100,000 words. Actually, for a suspense novel or mystery, 80,000 is more to the point. Like many things I’ve discovered, these little “pearls” of knowledge are out there, but come to me accidentally. I suppose that if a writer goes through an MFA program, much of what I’ve learned the hard way would be in the curriculum …or at least discussed. But, back to the question at hand. I would have invested in a trusted, professional editor to keep me on a straighter path, and been a bit more circumspect when choosing an agent. Still, I really like the finished product that is Buried Lies, so yes, I probably would have still persisted. My earlier novels were not without their own sets of warts, of course, but those paled in comparison to what I faced with this latest book.
I now have a couple of trusted advisors I use beyond my cadre of friends and family. If I run into problems in the future, I would turn to either or both of those people for advice and guidance. Above all else, I’ve learned that for the type of suspense/adventure novel I enjoy writing, a high level of tension and drama must be maintained from the very first page. And if, after the first draft is completed, the word count is excessive, I would go back and closely crop anything that did not contribute to that sense of tension. Maybe, there is a way to keep track of suspect passages as the story unfolds…some sort of computer trick to flag a section that might not fit, but it would have to be easily managed or I wouldn’t be able to use it.
Oh boy! Yes, I still have much to learn. I struggle with a computer, but am quick to acknowledge that were it not for this amazing device, I would not be writing. I don’t type well and as I get older, my eyesight is weakening. I could never work on a typewriter, but would love to find some way to have my words transcribed directly into text on a screen. If I didn’t have to fumble with the keys and manage the setup, how wonderful would that be? I actually sat down to study a huge manual on Microsoft Word, but gave up after a few hours. I don’t have the patience or interest to learn all that stuff. So, until something better comes along, I’ll muddle through just as I have been for a number of years.
www.prennebohm.com
Words to screen
You might want to check out a product called Dragon Naturally Speaking. It is a voice to text transcription tool which will not only capture your spoken words into text, but you can use it to format and manage the controls in Word and other software. I haven't used it personally, but the Controller at a company I worked with had bad carpal tunnel problems and he used it all the time. I also have an attorney friend who uses it for first draft legal briefs while taking his daily exercise walking on a treadmill! If you take the time to go through the training exercises ... partly a matter of training the software to recognize your speech patterns and partly a matter of training you to be clear ... then the recognition accuracy can be quite high.
Dragon Speaking
Thanks for the tip. I'll check that out. As I thought more about a "software wish list," I wondered about creating a gimmick such as a 'snooze alarm': When the story drags and the reader nods off, an alarm should sound warning the author to jump-start the tension level. Of course, this might put critiquing editors like Rob Walker out of business and I wouldn't want to do that...
www.prennebohm.com
More on The Dragon
Thomas, your suggestion to check out the Dragon Naturally Speaking may prove to be exactly what I need. I went to the web link and the product looks not only affordable, but manageable for a non-techie such as I. If I could speak into some sort of electronic gizmo that would recognize my voice and immediately transcribe the speech into text. . .well, Good Lord, how neat would that be?
Thank you!
www.prennebohm.com
Advice?
You took a lot of advice getting Buried Lies published. You mention having a couple of trusted advisors on whom you would rely in future, but you say in your blog post you took some really bad advice from a couple of agents.
In your reply about knowing at the beginning what you know now, you say you’d have invested in a professional editor to keep you on a straighter path. Not to put you on the spot, but didn’t you tell me once that upon receipt of six pages of criticism from an editor, you got very depressed and completely stopped writing for a while?
What kind of advice would you give an author still working on getting the first manuscript published? Especially one who can’t afford the money it would take to hire a top-notch editor?
Accepting advice (or not)
Way back in 2002 when I finished the first draft of French Creek, I sent it to a professional editor for her critique. Alice Peppler was, and is, a terrific editor I used for many years. Her initial critique did hurt, but I also recall she prefaced her comments with this: "You have the core of a very good thriller." Alice may be found here.
When I finally got over the hurt from her critique--many months later, I went back and reworked the manuscript as she suggested--all the while keeping her few words of encouragement in mind. Authors must develop very thick skins...if we do not, we won't continue to write. I now understand how important good, professional advice is to my writing process and gladly pay folks like Alice and Rob for their comments and guidance.
Here's an example of paying for bad advice. the agent I contracted with for Buried Lies suggested I hire an editor they knew. I did that very thing and regret that decision to this day. A nice lady who had worked with the agent in his previous business of publishing business magazines, but she had never worked on a novel before, and had little experience or expertise with my genre. It was a big mistake. Coupled with the agent's lack of experience, the lengthly (123,000 word) manuscript was accepted and sent out to publishers.
Months went by as rejection letters trickled in. It was at this point that Theresa read the manuscript and suggested it really wasn't ready for publication. Once again, like much of the knowledge I've acquired in this business, I paid dearly for the lesson.
So, to a new writer I would say: Borrow the money if necessary and hire a good, reputable editor with experience in his/her genre.
www.prennebohm.com
Peter's Buried Lies
Peter - great retelling of the anatomy of a murderously difficult but joyous process, the one we call writing a novel! Thanks for the pat on the back. I think we made a great team there but ultimately as always it is, was, and always remained YOUR effort that got the book done done, man! I was honored to get my signed copy in the mail sometime back, and lovely job your publisher did. Remains a memorable story, both the book and our working relationship.
Rob Walker
Watch for my DEAD On in July
Editing
Great to hear from you, Rob. I too enjoyed our experience and have you to thank for the way Buried Lies took on a truly polished and professional look. As soon as novel #5 is ready for your close scrutiny, I'll be in touch.
All the best to you, Rob.
Peter
www.prennebohm.com
Hi Peter
Great blog post, Peter! Not being a writer myself, I can only sit and ponder the frustration you must have dealt with. I recently looked at a manuscript for a friend. I felt like I was slow as molasses going through it, and would have liked to have done a second run-through for him, but wanted to get it back to him in this decade. He has assured me the comments were helpful and he's come back with some additional quesitons. I've ADORED being part of his writing process, but I can't even begin to fathom his (or your) end of the deal!
Anyway, I did want to ask you about choosing to write in a different point of view. How did you like that? Did it seem to come natural or did you find yourself reverting back without thinking? What kind of differences did you notice as you wrote - good or bad?
Congratulations on the success!!
Jen
http://jensbookthoughts.blogspot.com/
POV and helpful reading
Thanks for joining in, Jen. A couple of things come to mind about your post. First of all, friends and family can be valuable allies in the entire process. I use a small group of friends along with my wife for a "first impression" about a given manuscript. Do you like it? How much? Is it as good as the last? What's wrong with it? How about the characters? Likeable? Memeorable? And on and on. I'm not looking for structural corrections at this point. Punctuation and grammatical issues can be dealt with later. In short, I want to hear about their likes and dislikes with this first draft. It helps convince me that I'm on to something worthwhile. After the manuscript reaches a point of no return: I.e., I've made it the best I possibly can, only then, would I submit it to a pro for editing and critique. I know it sounds as if I'm shilling for Rob Walker and other pros like Rob, but the final product really must be almost perfect for a publisher to pay any attention to it.
Regarding the POVi question. I set out in Buried Lies intentionally to write in 1st person. Why? To challenge myself, I think. I also wanted to create a very strong female character in that story--something lacking in my previous books. Would I write in 1st person again? My answer to that would have been a resounding, "No!" a year ago. Now, I'm considering using that POV again. 1st person has its advantages: It's simpler with far less to keep track of. Third person allows for much more freedom and flexibility, but can also become quite complicated and cumbersome. I wonder if Theresa's new software might simplify that whole deal? Another wishful thought...
www.prennebohm.com
As a reader, I like first
As a reader, I like first person because it allows more direct identification with the protag and more closely matches the kind of detection which happens in the real world. But, while it simplifies some things, it seems to me that it is a fundamentally more difficult form, both in terms of keeping up the tension and of getting the story told. Much easier while the protag is dealing with some boring routine to bop over to action elsewhere. Much easier too to explain everything that happens without the protag having to actually find it all out. And, I do hate it when the bad guy suddenly blurts out a full confession at the end of a book and that is where you find out all the important stuff.
First person or not?
You are right about the problems with 1st person. Everything--without exception, must come through the protagonist. And, yes, it is nice to be able to end a chapter or scene, type in a few * * * * * and switch to another POVi while the protag sleeps.
I still think the writer has to be very careful in an omniscient POV not to get too carried away. This view is characterized by a roving camera and microphone held by a variety of characters. Any number beyond three or four becomes very, very difficult to manage and keep track of all that is spoken or thought by those who held the camera.
Hmmm. . . however, if the software was any good, maybe all this could be tracked automatically?
Theresa?
www.prennebohm.com
POV
Peter,
One of my heros - Robert Crais - used multiple POVsi starting in L.A. Requiem. Obviously, that isn't common; it also isn't unheard of. I've heard some authors say they want to remain "true" and therefore won't touch that approach. Have any thoughts on multiple POVs?
http://jensbookthoughts.blogspot.com/
What to cut and multiple POVs
I understand the long, slow path to publication, but my problems are different. I write lean stories that never need cutting, in fact, I have to add detail in the second draft. But my first versions are workable plots that editors love, but don't know how to sell. I also write in third person and use multiple POVsi. I love being characters. Very liberating. I may attempt first person someday, but it will have to be a very different kind of story than I write now.
L.J. Sellers
Author of the Detective Jackson mysteries
The Sex Club, Secrets to Die For
http://ljraves.blogspot.com
http://ljsellers.com
More on POV's
Hi, LJ:
Thanks for joining in.
I too have to go back and flesh out a manuscript. Being quite compulsive, once I start writing I just keep on going. (That may explain how Buried Lies started out at 137,000 words).
Your comment about "becoming the character," is so very true. As a matter of fact, when I'm creating a particularly nasty bad guy, my wife has to move to the guest room as my sleep is filled with violent thrashing and gnashing. 'Liberating' is one way to describe this experience; 'godlike' is another. I created a character in Blue Springs that was supposed to die at the end, but I loved this guy so much I couldn't pull the trigger. He lived.
www.prennebohm.com
Multiple POV's
Jen: Yes, I have thought about this technique. I'm currently struggling with a story that began as a short in first person. I can't continue on in this POVi as I want to bring in a different protagonist, so the idea of multiple views has some appeal. Having never tried this before, however, I'm concerned about pulling it off. Harlen Coben does this in some of his books, namely, Gone For Good.
www.prennebohm.com
Tracking multiple POV characters' knowledge
Peter,
Good software would enable the author to read Story Eventsi by POVi character, i.e. see only the parts of the story in which a given character participates.
At the moment, I'm considering the issues of what a character knows at any given point in the story, and mulling over the best way to record them. If you have ideas, please let me know.
Theresa
P.S. Some description of site behaviour might help this discussion. Earlier I mentioned Story Event. If you look closely at the first sentence of this post, there is a small superscripted "i" beside the word "Story Event" and others that have special meaning on this website. If you place your cursor on the "i", a definition will appear—in this case, what we mean by "Story Event" on this site. In addition, if you click on the little "i", all posts on the site which mention "Story Event" will be displayed.
Separating story events?
Theresa:
If you are suggesting that an author would have the ability to separate out and inventory different story events--that is, knowledge, by POVi character, well, I can't imagine how useful and time saving that would be.
Then, it would also mean that you could separate and categorize what...?interior monologue? It is a challenge to try and remember who said what and when. . .and, who heard what was said.
It's always the hundreds of little details that continue to plague the author and slow everything down. And, of course, if any of these details goes unnoticed or is misplaced, well it's like a meandering string of dominoes--everything falls apart. It would be nice to be able to keep track of all that stuff.
www.prennebohm.com
Separating Story Events
Peter, software designed for especially for authors would definitely allow an author to look at Story Eventsi belonging to various criteria which would, by inference, exclude any Story Events which didn't belong—this is sometimes called a "Filter"—which thereby reduces the amount of data (StoryTexti) which an author would need to sift through in order to find what s/he was looking for.
The criteria for filtering the story could easily be what you suggest, resulting in:
But, as I say, I'm also trying to figure out an easy way to say "In chapter 8, section 5, what does character B know now about the problem / victim / crime?" so that the author could then wander through the story and check what each important character knows in various stages of the story. I haven't figured that out too smoothly yet.
Sifting through stuff
Well, good luck with that, Theresa. I have a hard time imagining how you could possibly create a program to keep track of all the "stuff" we have to be concerned with in a novel. I keep wondering about the learning curve and how it might impact on time available to write?
www.prennebohm.com
Software learning curve
Peter, as with anything, there's a learning curve—but a tool's great value is its ultimately making the whole task easier. Does a word processor free up more time for the actual job of writing than a typewriter? Was a typewriter more efficient in this regard than writing by hand?
I vote yes.
But I'm also aware that a highly functional software system which you can easily use will be a formidable task! 8) Hee! Hee!
Theresa
Learning curve
No... seriously,Theresa, my lack of skill negotiating the computer is legendary around my family. Why, I've lost entire chapters that were "in process" because I hit the wrong key with fingers not designed for small keyboards. Never could figure out how to recover the precious words and am still puzzled about which "key" is the culprit. Something down on the lower right is all I know. This happens more times than I like to think about...
www.prennebohm.com
Deleting text unintentionally
Deleting text unintentionally is something that can be guarded against — somewhat. Did you know that you can set your Microsoft Word to automatically backup every few minutes? Did you know that there is a "Undo" or "Backup" key right there on the main screen?
Did I know?
No, no, and no. There's quite a bit I don't know about this PC and Microsoft Word.
www.prennebohm.com
Simple things you didn't know about Microsoft Word
Peter, very shortly we'll have a post from a new Guest Blogger about some simple tricks in Microsoft Word. Stay tuned.
separating story events
Theresa, in order for any software to be aware of all these things, the writer would have to input them into the software. I wouldn't be patient enough to do all this, plus write the story. It seems the task would just be made more complicated. Even as hard as detailed rewrites are, I would think they are easier than the detail you would need to feed the software for it to be able to track all these things.
Separating Story Events
Ah, Kaye, now there I beg to differ. Do you organize your spices? Do you organize your cutlery in the kitchen drawer? Many of these things are done to make life simpler. But, it's also true that to organize things alphabetically, one has to learn the alphabet first!
Somewhere in the early 80s, my company installed a word processing program at the office of a bunch of shrinks, and my job was to teach them how to use a word processor. I said "It's just like a typewriter but it's got two special keys, 'escape' and 'control'." So all these shrinks started making woo woo noises, like something out of Wizard of Oz: "Oooh ooh, 'escape' and 'control', 'escape' and 'control'" — I could hear the monsters coming out of the walls! It's just so hilarious to remember.
The world has come a long way since then, and the next generation will be dragged forward kicking and screaming as they embrace yet another technology. Everyone gets to do it!
In the prototype version of author software which I'm working on, I select things by keying in a record number, not something most humanoids would like to do. But I'm an old accounting person from way, way back, so data entry is not complex for me.
Do you know how to cut and paste with a mouse? Do you know how to "tag" things by positioning a mouse on something and right-click? This is how I envision good software working.
Anyway, we're still a long way from having a smart venture capitalist to invest in the idea, so you won't have to face this decision for a while yet!!
Best,
Theresa
P.S. And thanks so much Kaye for coming to visit. Hope you'll be back often!