We’re now past the halfway point (as measured by how much of the previous draft has been eaten). Present working draft is around 95,000 words, which is 100% of many other books, so it doesn’t feel much like a celebratory milestone. I know I love this book because no matter how tired and defeated I feel, walking away from it has never been a consideration. I’m very much not a sunk-cost sucker. I’m a big fan of quitting the moment I admit the alleged reward has less value than the effort I’ve already put in.[efn_note]”What would a person with self-respect do in this situation?” is a great question to ask periodically. Then do that, especially in circumstances where recognizing that your own time and labor have value is portrayed in a negative way.[/efn_note] “Misery builds character” is a lie told by people who benefit from others’ misery.
This isn’t misery. It’s hard, and other demands mean I can’t devote myself entirely, and progress comes in minuscule increments that make finishing unimaginable, but I’m going to keep showing up and doing the work because this one relationship gives back everything I put into it rather than sucking the life out of me.
Fixed the logic gap of why the fugitive with her face on wanted posters everywhere kept possession of the giant, attention-getting horse. Well, “fixed.” I excused the decision, which I anticipated would seem sketchy to a nonzero number of readers. There’s an Act 1 reason why it needs to be a giant horse. There’s an Act 2 and characterization (of three people!) reason why Heroine can’t just abandon this liability to stealth. I just hadn’t sold it in the text at all.[efn_note]There’s a technique called “address and dismiss,” whereby the writer acknowledges that something seems like bullshit, which (in theory) validates the audience’s perception enough that they’re willing to go along with a little bit of bullshit. I first encountered this in Brian McDonald’s Invisible Ink, which is a gem of a writing book, small, accessible, and packed with useful information. He’s mostly a screenwriter, so he frames it as having a character actually utter the “this is bullshit” sentiment the audience is thinking. In a novel, the writer has the luxury of additional nondialogue words, both character thoughts and pulling back a bit for narration, as means of acknowledging the bullshit. I’ve always preferred to eliminate the bullshit before it becomes an issue, but I’ve always (mostly) written “real world” stories, and as I venture more into the speculative realm, I feel… not that anything goes and I can change the rules on every page with no penalty to clarity, but that, for example, if I declare the calvary of a secondary world is mounted on battle moose, any dissent based on the impracticality of domesticating real-world moose for that purpose is in bad faith. It’s fantasy! A certain amount of going-along-for-the-ride is a prerequisite, and if I haven’t abused that trust by the halfway point, maybe I should get one free minor side-eye to blow as I see fit in the second half. Then again, maybe this is how everybody excuses sloppy writing and I need a figurative slap in the mouth for quality control. This is why we have editors![/efn_note]
Had a related spell of confusion searching for a reference to said horse by a particular character. Just before the wailing and rending of clothes commenced, I remembered it’s in a bonus story[efn_note](Mixed metaphor warning.) Genuine bonuses, not things necessary for the books to make sense. Strong feelings about everything necessary to assemble the story being included in the book-shaped box. The instant I have to go on a scavenger hunt to find deliberately omitted information without which clarity is impossible, I’m done with that author forever. Marketing gimmicks make shitty stories. The goal should be writing well enough that readers are thoroughly satisfied by the meal of words you’ve served but summon the dessert cart to prolong their stay in your excellent establishment. I should call them “dessert stories” all the time. You don’t need them, but if you really want to indulge, I will provide.[/efn_note], not lost or a hallucination. Such are the dangers of supplemental materials. Did it happen in the main timeline or off over there? Hyperventilate for 20 minutes to find out!
Spent a long time mangling a dialogue-heavy scene that physically is just getting from Point A to Point B. Another “20 minutes of conversation in a 5-minute bag” problem. Either some topics had to be cut/moved or I had to invent physical complications to stretch the time. I didn’t want to make any major additions, but a hint of ongoing pursuit added a little more tension and broke up the dialogue more, and part of the convo got punted to later because it’s still too much talking for the time limit. Still not ecstatic about it, but it’s better than it was.
Way back in the before times, this book was going to be dual POV because that’s what I’m used to writing almost all the time. Real-world influences precipitously changed my mind. I still strongly feel “I’m not yielding one second of a woman’s time to these bloviating, self-important shitbags” is a fantastic principle! But single POV was always going to cause problems later in the series. I don’t think it’s even remotely possible to tell the fifth from one perspective, and if I tried, it would have to be Hero 5’s, which would wreck any precedent for single female POV anyway.[efn_note]Yes, “make everybody lesbians” was considered early on. Somewhere on my desk is a pro/con table that punted me away from pursuing that course. “Un-romance the whole thing” was also an option, but we’re past the point of no return there. In a romance novel of any type, the driving force is getting/keeping these people together. If you rip out that requirement, which dictated all your plot and characterization decisions, you have to start over all the way back to concept and make every choice with a different goal, and I’ll never do that. If I decide to kill a project, I’m not going to waste my limited resources trying to revive it. (See: “not a sunk-cost sucker” above.) Ideas are cheap. I’ve got millions that haven’t already moved me to murder them if I want to write an entirely different genre. (See: Nax Niquill, Novice Necromancer and The Modern Woman’s Guide to Cannibalism, to name two that are far enough along to have names.)[/efn_note] And I was thinking the other day about other problems this rigidity will cause, which led me to think perhaps the endless problems this book’s hero is giving me are because I know who he is and what he’s up to, but I can’t put any of that in the text because he’s not telling Heroine the truth, and the lie is hollow without insight into what it conceals. Furthermore, there’s a lot of utility in showing a primary character through another character’s eyes, since nobody’s self-perception is reliable. AND IN ADDITION, another character could be doing something interesting while Heroine’s activities are in a lull that can only be “fixed” in single POV with a jarring time skip—if I put a little spacer instead, readers will have the sense time has passed without being bored or jarred.
So I’m increasingly thinking I need to add some Hero POV. Absolutely not 50/50 alternating, but based on a quick glance at the synopsis, out of these first 95,000 words, there are perhaps two scenes that might be shifted to his perspective plus two that would have to be written from scratch. Am I enthused about this work? No! It’s depressing and stressful! I feel terrible! But I have a responsibility to make the story as good as I can, and this fixes a lot of problems I’ve otherwise been struggling with. No doubt it will create new problems! But if it proves to be a gargantuan mistake rather than a minor inconvenience, I still have the single-POV version safe and sound.
And like I said before, this is the last draft where major changes will be feasible, so we either fix it now or enshrine the problems. Hi ho, hi ho, back to the beginning we go so the last half can sit on the correct foundation.
See what I mean about love? An entire contemporary romance that was way less problematic than this went in the trash because there was no love there.
Fuel an author!