I haven’t been here in a while, but my SO and I went for a vacation in Switzerland to see our friends and family for Christmas, and of course, we both caught a cold. The kind of cold that wakes you up in a panic ten times a night because you can’t breathe. The kind of cold where each morning you feel even weaker than the one before, and yet, you have to get to work. The kind of cold where every day, each and every one of your colleagues insists on telling you you look terrible. Thanks, guys, I’d noticed.
I’ve been feeling a bit better since yesterday, though, which means that I was finally able to do something else than lie in bed watching Elementary (all the while thinking that I really don’t like this show) or sit at my desk and play tower defense Flash games. It wasn’t much, but I’ve been thinking about what’s wrong with Contraband. Until now, I haven’t been able to think about the big picture. All I saw were grammatical errors and dialogues that needed to be tuned, but I couldn’t see the major mistakes I’d made. So here goes:
The beginning is weak. The first chapter, especially, lacks action. We see a random day in Val’s life and it’s boring, despite her quite uncommon job. I need to start with something more interesting than chatting with a new client, then eating with a friend.
Some of the characters are not defined enough. I’m especially thinking about Rosa. A friend of mine who has read the book was really surprised when I told him she was black, even though it’s written the first time we see her. It’s just an example, but she doesn’t read the way I see her. Plus, she disappears at a key moment and it’s disappointing.
There is an issue with rhythm, especially in the last quarter of the book. Nothing happens for a week, and then everything is resolved in what seems like an hour (“resolved” being a loose word).
The Dagda, a character introduced early in the book, isn’t frightening enough. He’s supposed to be crazy and creepy, and barely comes off as strange and amusing. Not the effect I intended.
At the end of the book, a character takes a drastic decision with a huge impact on themselves and the whole plot, and yet, it doesn’t sound logical. They have a thousand choices opened to them and they pick the worst one and it’s never really clear why.
My “big bad” (another loose term) explains their motivation for like one sentence, which means it doesn’t make any sense to my MC or to the reader.
I wanted to keep the secret of Val’s birth for a potential second book, but that’s stupid. I don’t want to leave that question opened anymore, because it’s a part of the story and it matters now.
A character is keeping a secret for most of the story, and when it’s revealed, there’s been so little foreshadowing that the reader may think it comes out of nowhere, even though it’s one of the most important elements of the plot.
That’s still a lot of work, but at least I see a bit clearer. Took me a bit more than a year, but I finally feel like I’m moving forward.
50 000 words. 1 character killed. 3 kisses. 1 impossible love story that wasn’t supposed to be the heart of the book. 14 000 words taking place in Montana. 3 mentions of Paul Bettany. Dozens of stupid T-shirts described. More mono-syllable dialogues than I can count. 3 write-ins attended.
Let’s start with a few gems:
Have you mad friends?
I grabbed my notebook and opened a web browser.
My eyes clothed.
It made me sound like a joke (instead of a jock).
They broke my heart with a baseball bat.
So, what have I learned during this NaNo? That moving in November is a bad idea for your word-count. That I absolutely can write 5k in a day if I’m motivated. That writing without a plan can be fun, but that “I’m almost at that scene I so wanted to write” is always a lie. That write-ins rock. That when you’re stuck, discussing your story with someone makes it much easier. That if you don’t look at your word-count every five seconds and write instead, it will actually go up.
Write-ins were great and I fully intend on organizing some more during the year now that I have a bigger apartment. It’s not about competition or anything, it’s about not working alone. I don’t know, there’s an incredible motivation to find in hearing other people typing. I wrote something like 15k during write-ins, which for me, is a lot.
Now that I finally know what A House of mirrors is about, I need to finish the story, because I still haven’t told why Charlie is pretending to be a guy, and I’m not even close to that point. At first, I didn’t think I had 50k to say over this story and I’m still surprised I’m not finished with it yet. Yesterday, I told a friend the story would end up being 70k, she reminded me that the part with Thanksgiving in Montana, which was supposed to go like “Hi, that turkey smells heavenly, Ma’am, bye!” is 14k long and that I don’t stand a chance. So, no prognosis.
I have a lot more to say about HoM and the NaNo, but Lisbeth, my pocket black panther, is much too fascinated by the cursor to let me write (and I’d like to avoid accidents, since it’s a touch-screen). I’ll get back to it later!
I’m usually a planner. I need to know where the story goes, I need to know the path it will follow before I put a single word on the page. I always have a synopsis, I know how it ends and what decision my characters make and why. That’s how I work.
Except with A house of mirrors. I know how it starts, I’ve written the beginning, but I have no idea where I’m going. On one hand, it’s exhilarating—I’m free, I can write whatever I want!—, but on the other hand, it’s terrifying. I love the beginning, I love my main character, but what if I don’t do them justice? What if I get lost on the way and never find out how the story should end?
To add to my confusion, it’s mainstream fiction. No magic, no mythology, no dark creatures, no nothing. Just my main character and her issues. To summarize quickly, when she quits her small town in the South for college in the big city, Charlotte cuts her hair, fills her wardrobe with male’s clothes and introduces herself as Charlie. In doing that, she finds the confidence and self-esteem she’d lost somwhere during high school; but the more friends she makes, the harder it is to keep her secret.
All I have right now is a few characters, a few scenes, a plot that may or may not be used as a common thread. And yet, I’m writing, which all in all isn’t so bad.
My biggest question right now it whether I should have someone know her secret from the beginning, an old friend, a brother or something. Getting Charlie’s reactions would be much easier, but I’m afraid having a confident reduces the difficulty of her whole plan.
Well, we’ll see. I’m getting back to writing, I wonder what will get out of it.
