The 150,000-Word Question

Recently, my good friends over on the iWriteNetwork Facebook group were tallying up how many words they had finished of their current work in progress.  Some proudly proclaimed thirty- or forty-thousand words, halfway to the acceptable number for the average novel, which is 80,000 words.  Woohoo!  They were on their way.

I got to thinking, hmmm.  I wonder how far I am.  Now, (until I transfer it all over to yWriter5) each chapter of mine is a separate WordPerfect file (the one true word processor and victim of the great apostasy), so I painstakingly cut and past all 25 chapters into one big long document and then hit the word count button.  [drum roll please!]  I about fainted when it topped out at 149,000 words.

This is a problem.  This is a really, really big problem because I'm only halfway finished with this first installment of my series.  Did I mention that the plot of My Father's Son is so complex wrangling it into submission is like making a dozen two-year-olds dance a waltz?  (Sidebar:  it includes all the plot that has absolutely nothing to do with P&P and easily transferred over from The Famous Mrs. Darcy.)

Note to Self: Perfect Is Boring

I have a confession.  I have already mentioned that I actually finished my manuscript for The Famous Mrs. Darcy and was in the editorial process before I gave it up as a lost cause.  The truth is, I didn't give up because my writing was terrible, or even that my plot had grown so complex that I had no idea how to work myself out of it.  My brother/editor maintained that the reader may very well throw up their hands in disgust because it got so confusing, but not even that was enough to murder The Famous Mrs. Darcy.

The killing blow came as I penned the last compelling, heart-rending chapter and I  realized that anyone looking for a sequel to Pride and Prejudice would absolutely HATE this book.  My Mr. Darcy had demons and passions and deep and treacherous crevasses in his soul.  He battled to retain his sense of self.  He had developed evolved to such a degree that he had become unrecognizable.

Plagued with jealousy, torn loyalties and problems without solutions, my Mr. Darcy turned to alcohol.  The greater the stressors of honor and duty, the more intense the conflict between loyalties, the more volatile became his temper.  My Elizabeth threatened to become a cipher in his shadow.  She suffered indignities and made certain choices that would cause Jane Austen to turn over in her grave. My detractors would be screaming "anachronisms" and "social consequences" even louder than myself.

Note to Self: Never Underestimate the Value of a Good Editor

D2 (my #2 son) has accomplished something I never have.  He's received a rejection letter.  He wrote a very original piece of speculative fiction that I've never before seen treated, with some great ideas and choice humor.  Okay.  To be fair, I thought it was choice, as did his wife, Lynda.  His brother and sister-in-law thought not so much, but then, they don't "get" him like we do.  (Okay.  Nobody gets him like we do).  Still, D2's book was so him.  It was funny.  And thought-provoking.  And original.

But, it wasn't ready for publication or even a query letter, and he knows it.  He hasn't let the rejection from Thor discourage him.  He's considering rewriting it from scratch now that he's older and wiser.  He's just been too busy being a husband, father, and full-time post-graduate student to devote any time to his passion, writing.

Being his mother as I am, I want him to succeed.  I want the entire world to know how brilliant he is.  (Did I mention he's halfway through a second book that is absolutely fabulous?)  While I was driving to Austin with him a couple weeks back, we had a discussion about self-publishing.  It went something like this:

Tidbits: Francesca's Garden

Here's a bit of The Famous Mrs. Darcy that will never make it into print.  Still, it's worthy of a Tidbit.

[Location:  Longbourn garden---a joyous celebration for Jane & Bingley within; time:  evening after Elizabeth accepts Mr. Darcy's proposal; setup:  Elizabeth's pre-Pride & Prejudice history includes—among other things—a physical assault by a spurned suitor from which she was narrowly rescued from a terrible fate by a mysterious stranger, with his best mate hard on his heels.  The incident was the talk of Meryton.]

Francesca's Garden

by Penny Freeman

              Behind the house at Longbourn, behind the carefully groomed lawns and gardens meticulously planted to reflect its tasteful fashion, marshaled into order for inspection by the neighbors, behind a long and tall stone wall and through a little arched door which guarded the breach, tucked neatly out of sight where it could bring no shame to its betters, a small patch of dirt had been given over to the whims of little girls. To mark the distinction, because it was so marked and so distinct, they called it Francesca’s Garden.
              Had any outsider been allowed to frequent that garden (which rarely happened), initiated to the secrets beyond that curious door, if they were familiar with the Hermitage, a quaint little cottage on the grounds of a local abbey, they would suppose that the Bennets copied their more prosperous kin. They would have been mistaken, for it was entirely the opposite. The Mastersons, especially the gardeners of Oakhaven, knew that such as Francesca’s Garden grew from within. Anything else, no matter the grandeur of the scale, was simply a monkey aping the actions of a man.
              Once, when Elizabeth was just a girl and still unafraid of approaching her mother, she asked her why they called it Francesca’s Garden. Her mother’s eyes turned soft and sad. She attacked the soil beneath her spade until she had dug up enough courage, then leaned back on her haunches and looked to her daughter, her eyes shimmering with tears. When Elizabeth considered her mother’s timeless beauty, she thought of that day in the garden as she knelt in the dirt surrounded by a riot of blooms.
              Her mother told her that her father used to call her as much once, her name in a tongue strange and foreign. They had been young, before the hardships and disappointments of his life had ground all the romance out of him. But that was long ago. Before she broke his heart.

Note To Self: Ambiance, Ambivalence or Ambush?

"My dear fellow, there are in fact only so many notes the ear can hear in the course of an evening."  Emperor Joseph to Mozart in Amadeus (Orion Pictures 1984)

The same can be said of words.

While this particular post is part of the "Lessons Robert Jordan Taught Me" series, my reading of the Wheel of Time has primarily reinforced what I've already learned on my own: sometimes, there is just too much information.

I first started writing The Famous Mrs. Darcy out of sheer boredom.  The problem was, I didn't really have a plot in my head, so I decided I would make up for Miss Austen's lack of contemporary detail and historicity.  I would make my story about the difficulty Lizzie had adjusting to her new life and Mr. Darcy's unyielding family and fill up my tome with lots of luscious locales, grand palaces and fancy clothes beautifully illustrated in a vivid pallet of words.  The end result was a disaster.  The atmosphere was so thick, you had to use a machete to hack your way through it.

Novel Sequels: the Sequel . . . and sequels and sequels

This is the first in my "Note To Self" seriesor Lessons Robert Jordan Taught Me.  The advantage of reading the same author through a large body of work, particularly marathon style, is that their writing style, habits, strengths, and idiosyncrasies all become very apparent.  I am currently about 20% through Knife of Dreams, Book 11 of The Wheel of Time Series.  That's more than 8,461 pages of content (yes, I did the math).  You can learn a lot about an author reading that much of their work, especially if you're hyper-critical, like me.

So, brilliant me that I am, I'm sharing a few of my observations. And, since I would never wish to malign the revered Mr. Jordan who is not only published and very popular but, well, dead, I'll use examples from my own writing to illustrate the point.  I have to say here that I greatly admire Robert Jordan.  He died with his boots on, as it were, a worthy goal to strive for.

Lesson #1:  Beware Character Creep

Writing for me is creating a world.  It starts out a tiny microcosm as first one and then another character is developed, as they interact with each other and as I, as a writer, get to know them.  (I don't develop characters so much as grow acquainted with who they are).  Then, as they move through the plot, they interact with more characters who in turn start to reveal their personalities, and with them their back stories, in an ever-expanding spiral.