Tag: writing about writing

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Other than a general need to have a three act structure, there really aren’t any hard, fast rules about how to write a novel. At least, not in my opinion. But I am of the general opinion that that one should delay putting spicy scenes in your novel until as late as possible.

In my personal opinion, it’s bad form to open a novel with a sex scene. I’m not saying it should never be done, just that in general it’s not my style. I’m of the opinion that spicy scenes should only happen after you’ve given your audience a little bit of time to grow accustomed to the characters and universe that your presenting to them.

Having said all that, I have a spicy scene in my first chapter and much of the second scene has sex in it. Ugh. And, yet, these scenes aren’t gratuitous and do, in fact, serve to further the plot. It’s just I don’t know. It makes me uneasy to have spicy scenes so early in the novel.

But, as I keep saying, I’m doing all of this in a vacuum so, lulz, who knows. It could be that I’m fine and no one will blink an eye that there is so much spicy content so early in the novel. I do have a tendency to overthink things a great deal with this novel.

The only thing that makes me feel better is if someone, say, an editor, asked me why I had this or that spicy scene I can tell them specifically why I felt it was necessary. I have given the nature of these spicy scenes a great deal of thought.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have reimagined and significantly improved — at least in my view — the beginning of my first novel. One thing I’ve notice from my re-reading of Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played With Fire” is how much time he spends on establishing character, universe and relationships.

The ideal name for my first novel, if I had my wish.

With that in mind, I have given a great deal of thought to how I can pull readers in with engaging characters so when The Big Event happens, they care enough about them enough to finish the rest of the novel. That, at least, is the goal.

But, as I keep saying, I’m doing all of this in a vacuum. I just don’t know. It could be that even though I love what I’m doing with this novel, the audience will be repelled. If nothing else, I have come up with some pretty provocative plot points that will make readers sit up and take notice.

I talk about periods and the specifics of sex from a female point of view. I have a female “consultant” that I talk to about these things so I don’t make a fool out of myself. I’m not a very dark — or serious — person by nature and as such, rather than shocking the audience with explicit violence, I hope to intrigue them discussion things you usually don’t see in novels.

Anyway. I continue to realize that I need to stop making my heroine so fucking passive. She’s suppose to be the prime mover of the novel. She’s suppose to be ornery and have agency and be someone you like and care enough about that you want to spend the time necessary to read roughly 100,000 words about her life.

In the end, I just can’t overthink things. I need to just write and come back and edit things as necessary. There’s a reason why they say all novels are abandoned rather than finished.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My computer is going to kick the bucket at any moment it seems, but in the meantime I’m trying to write as much as I can on the third draft of my first novel. I continue to do all of this in a vacuum so I have no idea if this novel is anywhere near as good as I think it is.

I have come up with a very ‘Barry’-like dichotomy for my heroine. And, yet, I just don’t know. I don’t know if women — who read a lot of novels — will like the surreal situation I’ve come up with or if it will only lead them to throw the book across the room.

And that doesn’t even begin to address the issue of me being a male author frequently writing from a female POV. When I started working on this novel several years ago, I just decided, in general, to do what Stieg Larsson did, not knowing there had been a “woke cancel culture” shift in audience expectations.

Ugh. Sometimes, you just can’t win. I can’t help how old I am. I can’t help that I’m a CIS white male. Not everyone can be a undocumented transgendered woman.

I’m really feeling my mortality these days. I have a limited amount of time to put up or shut up on the novel front. It doesn’t help that I have a growing problem with one of my teeth just as my computer is just about to crash on me. It’s definitely interesting how everything seems to decide to fail at the same time after a long time of nothing changing.

So, we’ll see. It could be that I will spend all this time on my first novel, only to drop dead of a heart attack like Larsson did.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There is a chance that I’ve finally cracked the nut as to how to make this novel novel an Old Brown Shoe to fans of Stieg Larsson’s original Millennium Series. Maybe. It’s possible.

I imagine my heroine looking like a younger version of Nicole Scherzinger.

My gut tells me that I’m at least within shouting distance of that goal. I’m reading “The Girl Who Played With Fire” AGAIN because my computer is on the fritz and I have no choice. It could be it dies altogether pretty soon and I will have to pivot to reading for a few weeks until I can scrounge up the money to buy a new computer.

That seems to be a very real possibility at this point.

The key to my goal is to ratchet up the suspense and drama by leaning into those scenes from a POV different than my heroine’s. Showing events that she’s not present to experience allows me to have it both ways, in a sense. I get to develop my heroine’s character while at the same time showing building tension and danger in the first act as we progress towards The Bad Event that pushes us into the “fun and games” part of the novel — the first half of the second act.

I have often thought this very same thing in the past, only to have it all collapse on me to the point where I say, “Fuck it, let’s just get to the story as soon as possible.”

But maybe — hopefully? — this time will be different.

I’m feeling pretty confident about this third version, with my only major fear at the moment being I will overshoot my goal of about 100,000 words to the point that an editor will want me to slice about 20,000 words — or, the exact number of words I went into this third draft wanting to add.

Ugh.

Anyway. We’ll see. Wish me luck.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Well, not only is my fucking computer on its last legs, I’m at a loss as to word count for this novel. Because of my computer problems, I’ve decided read a lot for the next two weeks while I wait to buy a replacement computer and, as such, I’m yet again reading Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played With Fire.”

This go round, I’m trying to get a sense of some of the finer points of what makes the novel my “textbook.” If I can produce a novel as great as The Girl Who Played With Fire, I will be ecstatic. It’s exactly the vibe I want for this novel and I want my novel to be an Old Brown Shoe for anyone who’s read it.

And, yet, the more I read it, the more I realize not only how much work I have ahead of me, but the issue of word count. The novel — while rather wordy — is really, really good. And I keep trying to figure out why Larsson did this or that thing as part of his storytelling vision.

It definitely looks as though I may match him in word count for the third draft o the novel — which is a bad thing. I’m trying to keep the thing down to about 100,000 words, but I’ve totally reworked the beginning of the novel to the point that the Big Bad Event that is the whole point of the novel doesn’t happen until roughly 50,000 words into the story.

My vision is that by the time the Big Bad Event happens, you will have invested enough into the world and the characters I’ve created that the rest of the novel will zoom by, just like with much of Larsson’s work.

But there is a lot I just don’t know — just like I’m on edge about my computer. It definitely looks like it could have a catastrophic crash at any moment and I won’t have anything to write on until early October. Ugh.

And there is also the issue of making the novel a lot darker. I need to make my villains not only more evil, but also give them a lot more rationale for being the way they are. I have a few ideas as to how to do it, but it’s not going to come easy.

I’m just not a dark and twisted guy and it’s really hard work for me to think up evil people. Oh well. That’s why they pay me the big bucks, I guess.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For far too long, I struggle to understand the fucking structure of my “texbook,” Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played With Fire.” It just did not make any sense. I tried to figure out basic things like the midpoint switch and…I simply could not find it.

Well, I recently discovered that the novel that we know of in english as “The Girl Who Played With Fire” was actually ONE novel, cut into two. This makes a lot more sense because now it is clear that the cliffhanger at the end of the novel is actually the midpoint of a far larger novel.

The thing about the novels about Lisbeth Salander that Larsson wrote is they would have greatly benefit from a grim reaper of an editor. With “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” you could probably have compressed or revised that novel down to about to a tight 100,000 words and it would have been just as big — if not bigger a success as it was.

Meanwhile, the massive novel that “The Girl Who Played With Fire” is the first half of, probably could have just been one novel, if an editor with a scythe had cut and cut and cut the novel down to what was essential to tell the story.

As it is, all of Larsson’s novels are bloated and became a success despite themselves.

Anyway, now watch me rewrite my own novel is it balloons into a tome significantly over 100,000 words. UGH.