Tag: writing

Finally Rewriting Some Scenes That I Was Reluctant To Do Anything With Before

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So. I’m finally forcing myself to rewrite some scenes that ostensibly are fine, but clearly need to be rewritten. And this is only going to get worse as I get closer to the full-blown solve-a-mystery part of the novel. That part of the novel I haven’t been writing and rewriting for a few years.

And it doesn’t sync up with the first part of the novel because of story drift.

I still really want to work on a scifi novel, but I’m so obsessed with this novel and I can (hopefully) wrap it up in a few months and actually query, so I am allowing myself to work on it instead.

Anyway. I hope to get a lot of rewriting done this weekend.

Struggling With A Plot Point

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Your protagonist is supposed to be really pro-active, their actions are supposed to push the plot along. But I have a really crucial plot point where I think I’m going to have the male romantic lead do some stuff simply because it serves the purposes of the plot for the heroine to be…indisposed.

This is where using more than one POV comes in really handy. I just have to be careful not to have too much given to the male romantic lead. So, for the moment at least, I’m kind of pondering what I’m going to do.

I may go for a walk and brood on how I’m going to thread this particular needle.

Probably Going To Rework The First Scene Of The Novel I’m Working On…AGAIN

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I gave the very first scene of the novel to two readers and they said, effectively, that there was just too much going on.

Sigh.

So. I guess I will split the scene into two and try to flesh these two new scenes out in a way that doesn’t throw too much at the reader. I really like the first scene as-is, but for two readers to tell me I’m throwing too much at them is enough to give me pause for thought.

I don’t know quite when I will really do this, though. I will probably wait until I’ve stabilized the entire novel first. That’s the most pressing thing at the moment — to get a novel that hangs together.

Now In The Second Act Of The New Version Of The Thriller

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The outside world is slowly beginning to rattle my cage to the point that I’m too distracted to do anything but stare out into space. But I’m not quite there yet — I still can concentrate enough to work on my novel.

As such, I’m now in the second act of the latest iteration of the novel. What I think I’m going to do is try to slowly go through the rest of the novel, but not worry too much about totally rewriting everything.

Then, once the new version of the novel is really stabilized, I will make one last pass through of the entire thing before I query. I have to think of some way whereby I don’t just continue to drift towards my goal.

I’ve set a pretty tight deadline — September 1st. That’s when I hope to begin to actively query this novel.

Now, obviously, a lot — A LOT — could go wrong between now and then that would either slow me down or dramatically change the context of it all. But you have to believe, you know.

You just have to believe.

Some Thoughts On My Novel’s Heroine

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Since I’m determined to query this damn novel as early as this fall, I feel comfortable talking more directly about some elements of it. My heroine for the first novel (of a planned four) is a 32-year-old Amerasian woman named Union Pang.

She is obsessed with owning a small town newspaper and that is the throughline of the novel which turns into a “murder in a small town” novel at the beginning of the second act.

I keep mulling in my head what I imagine her looking like and these days I think she probably looks like Pom Klementieff. But, alas, Ms. Klementieff has a very thick French accent. But at this very moment I think she probably looks closer to Shay Mitchell.

Shay Mitchell as Union Pang?

I fluctuate all the time as to what she looks like, but in general, she a darker skinned Asian-American. I suppose she literally looks like Nicole Scherzinger, but Ms. Scherzinger is too old.

If, hypothetically, a movie were to be made from this thriller, I suppose an Asian-American woman in her late 20s, early 30s would be chosen.

Anyway, I really like, in general, the characters I’ve come up with. The novel isn’t perfect and I have a few more months before I have to absolutely lock things down.

Things Are Going Well With The New Version Of The Novel…So Far

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am going through the new fused-together version of the novel at a pretty nice clip, rewriting scenes as necessary. I should be rewriting the whole thing, but some of the old scenes are just too good and I can’t bring myself to re-invent the wheel.

At the moment, I’m still stuck in the first act, but soon I will be officially in the second act and that’s when things probably will slow done considerably. There’s just too much to re-write.

But I’m overall pretty pleased with the new direction the novel is taking. And I’ve managed to cut the number of novels down from a proposed six to now a proposed four. And I did it by just adding a few hundred words here and there explaining something as different than what I first imagined.

The real world will be when I complete this draft and have to go through and bevel off all the edges by making everything consistent. Right now, it’s pretty easy to move things around because each scene is almost independent of all the other scenes.

But once I officially lock everything down, I’m going to have to give the novel a level of flow that it doesn’t have at the moment.

I Got Some Feedback On A Version Of The Thriller I Gave Someone

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I got my haircut today and the person who cut my hair is someone I’ve in the past given a version of my thriller novel to. She gave me some feedback on what she read.

First, she said she didn’t finish it “because she didn’t have time.” But she did read about half of it, which makes me worry the novel may be too long. Yet you could also look at it as it just needs to be more engaging — she did read half of it, afterall.

The other issue she mentioned was my heroine having a “non Southside Virginia” name, ie: it’s Asian. I really like my heroine’s name, even though there are some contrived elements to her having it.

I guess I see her name as existential in its own way. Though, if an editor told me I absolutely had to change it, I guess I would.

I’m very pleased the young woman read at least half the novel. She also said that she didn’t think the novel’s spicy scenes were “smut,” which really made me feel good. I was kind of worried that’s how they would come across to her.

Anyway. I have a lot — A LOT — of rewriting to do.

At Least I Have A Vision For Thriller Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I keep saying, I have a very clear vision for this thriller novel I’m working on — I want it to be an old brown shoe to anyone who read and enjoyed the Stieg Larsson Millennium series of novels.

That’s my goal and that’s always been my goal, from the very beginning.

As such, I use a few subtle and not so subtle techniques that he used so when people start to read the novel they’ll think, “Huh, this is like a Stieg Larsson novel from 20 years ago.”

For instance, I refer — outside of quotes — to people by their surname like he did. I also, within chapters, change POVs. Both of these things will either annoy the hell out of you or you’ll remember Larsson’s works and say, “Huh, cool.”

Had I been a bit more clued-in when I started working on this novel, I probably wouldn’t have done these things. But I really, really love The Girl Who Played With Fire and so I decided to use it as my “textbook.”

As such, I tried to hone as close to “how would Larsson do it” as possible.

Now, one thing is clear — Larsson on the backend clearly had a much more elaborate development process. Mine is all ad hoc and just do whatever necessary to finish the Goddamn thing.

Anyway, I guess I’ll see what happens.

Yet Again Distracted By A Scifi Concept For A Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a really good scifi idea for a novel that would be very much like Andy Weir’s The Martian in its vibe. And, yet, I don’t want to get distracted from the main passion project event.

This is when I really hate being so fucking old. If I was 25 years younger, I would have all the time in the world to bounce around between projects. But, as it stands, I have limited amount of time to get anything done, unless, of course, the Singularity happens and I upload my min into the cloud.

That doesn’t seem likely — at least for now — so I need to focus on the thriller novel I’m working on. It doesn’t help that whenever I mention the scifi idea to an AI it gets all excited and helps me game out the plot.

Sigh.

Anyway, I really need to buckle down and get some writing done on the thriller. I’m still drifting through the first act AGAIN.

Mulling My Actual Odds Of Getting A Literary Agent

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The biggest thing I have to worry about when thinking of querying is, well ME. I’m a loudmouth crank and I always do the wrong thing, at least when it comes to zigging when “normal” people would expect a zag.

So, that’s the main thing I worry about when I think about the practical nuts-and-bolts of querying this thriller. I’m really concerned that the moment I start to send out query letters that this Website will be pinged by literary agents who will roll their eyes at me being such a fucking kook.

In the past, I’ve really had a problem with literary types taking me seriously. And the fact that my novel is rather…spicy…and has a part-time sex worker as its heroine is not exactly going to help me any.

I’m just too opinionated in ways that might offend the “woke cancel culture mob.” The great irony is, of course, is if I could meet any of these hypothetical literary agents in person, I think they would find me quite personable.

But, just like how I can never get anyone to swipe right on me on a dating app, I suspect I’m zooming into a huge, catastrophe. The literary agents that I contact will probably roll their eyes and laugh at me.

It wouldn’t be the first time something like that has happened, so, lulz. I just want to go through the actual experience of querying to see what happens. I’m bound to make oodles of mistakes, but as long as I go into the experience with extremely low expectations, I should be fine.