Well, it helped when I asked myself why in hell I'd felt the need to introduce and give a personality to the housemaid who plays lady's maid to the heroine at the house party where most of the action takes place when she has absolutely no relevance to the plot. I cut two pages in one fell swoop without losing a bit of plot or characterization.
Atherton: Half the men in this room wish you were on their arm, tonight. Inara: Only half. I must be losing my indefinable allure.
'Shindig'
The Great Write Way
A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.
Susan W. - Oct 12, 2003 10:23:07 pm PDT #2180 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights
deborah grabien - Oct 12, 2003 10:24:51 pm PDT #2181 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.
Hee! Susan slays the Unnecessaries!
Susan W. - Oct 13, 2003 7:20:55 pm PDT #2182 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights
Random editing rambles....
As it stands, Lucy meets her future husband James on page 64 of a 530-page manuscript (for those of you who got my editing copy, it fattened up considerably when I changed the font to Courier to make it all professional-like). To my eye, the story really picks up once he appears. For starters, he's the hero, and he's an energetic person who likes to shake things up. And, he slightly edges out Lucy as my favorite character. I love writing him, and I love any scene he's in.
So I keep asking myself if there's any way I can move that first meeting forward, perhaps even open the book with it. And I keep deciding I can't--that the reason James shakes up Lucy's life so much is in how he contrasts with and contradicts everything she's always taken for granted, and I need that first 60 pages or so to set the scene and introduce her properly. Otherwise it's just a woman meeting a man, not a particular woman meeting the man who'll turn her well-ordered world upside down.
But I'm not happy with the first 60 pages. I don't fall in love with my own story until James comes in.
P.M. Marc - Oct 13, 2003 7:26:59 pm PDT #2183 of 10001
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear
Is there a way to tighten the opening, to use fewer words with more impact to introduce her?
As a reader (of romance and of the historical kind), I often find my interest will vanish completely if they're not introduced within, in paperback form, I'd say about 30-40 pages.
sj - Oct 13, 2003 7:28:56 pm PDT #2184 of 10001
"There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea."
Either what Plei said, or could you introduce him earlier in the story in a different setting before the meets Lucy?
deborah grabien - Oct 13, 2003 7:29:51 pm PDT #2185 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.
I'm totally with you in finding a way to show us James earlier. Considering how....
BTW, I have now broken 50,000 words on Matty. Yowsa!
Susan W. - Oct 13, 2003 7:37:53 pm PDT #2186 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights
Either what Plei said, or could you introduce him earlier in the story in a different setting before the meets Lucy?
Not with it in Lucy's first-person POV, unfortunately. And I've been trying and trying to tighten without losing Lucy's voice, but I'm not satisfied with the results as yet. More and more I'm thinking I'm just going to have to sit down with an outline of what we absolutely need to know about Lucy before she meets James, and rewrite the opening two chapters almost from scratch.
deb, are you liking James so far? I'm so fond of him as he exists in my brain that I can't judge whether or not that sexiness comes across on the page.
And congrats on breaking 50,000!
sj - Oct 13, 2003 7:39:29 pm PDT #2187 of 10001
"There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea."
Not with it in Lucy's first-person POV, unfortunately.
Sorry, I wasn't considering that.
deborah grabien - Oct 13, 2003 7:46:06 pm PDT #2188 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.
I really am liking James. One of the problems, though, is that the early painting of Julius as a character (this is the draft you sent me, not incorporating any of your rewrites) leaves me as the reader thinking, why bother with James, because Julius and Lucy....
You know what? You give Good Male Character.
I think you should send me the entire thing again, only this time the version that incorporates your rewrites from the last few days, and let me read that. Are you up for it?
Susan W. - Oct 13, 2003 7:58:19 pm PDT #2189 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights
I really am liking James. One of the problems, though, is that the early painting of Julius as a character (this is the draft you sent me, not incorporating any of your rewrites) leaves me as the reader thinking, why bother with James, because Julius and Lucy....
Hrmm. Maybe I need to get bigger anvils for the "Julius is chauvinistic and patronising" message instead of toning them down, as I've been doing. Though, in fairness to my writing and your reading comprehension, those anvils get bigger later in the story, once I noticed people in my writers' group liked Julius better than I did. And I'm pretty sure there's one scene late in the book where he's entirely too Victorian for a Georgian with his "must protect women from all the ugliness in the world" shtick. Though it's almost worth it for the "are you on CRACK?" looks James and Lucy give him, and the "why the hell did I marry this man?" fear on Anna's face.
And, latest version insent.