OG's BLOG

My buddy Bill has gotten back on the writing horse, pretty much at the same time as I did. Both of us are rolling along trying to get 80,000 word novels finished in our spare time. I write at night, he, at 6 in the morning. Bill’s even got his progress page going again, so I’ve been inspired to put mine back up in sympathy. (I’ve put a permanent link over there on the right.) =>

My word count is all over the map, but I’m doing a bit of reconstruction on the book, which means gaining words on some days, and losing hundreds or thousands of words in other cases. Still, you can track my progress, if you’re interested in such things.

London’s Telegraph recently held an Infuriating Phrases contest. The idea was for readers to string together as many clichés and as much phoney bizspeak as possible into 150 words. There are some great entries listed, and I’ve quoted one of my favorites below.

“At the end of the day,” continued Simon, across a table of Eat’s Now!, his favourite nutritional sustenance solutions establishment, “running things up the flagpole is essential to ensuring we are all singing from the same hymn sheet, so that the challenges of the present economic climate are met with emotional intelligence.” He looked up to check Michelle was still listening. “Are you taking all this on board?”

“Confirmed.”

The nutritional conveyance facilitator arrived.

“Chargrilled chicken, flash-fried vegetable compote and sun-dried tomatoes. Twice.”

“Re-hydration, Sir?”

“Evian.” Simon turned back to Michelle. “I’d like to run this by you.” He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. “Non-Plus-Ultra Surplus-to-Requirements Collection Solutions requires executive disposal facilitator to supervise own ring-fenced area of operations, apply in first instance blah blah blah. Thought-share?”

“Cutting edge, actually. Literally.”

Simon smiled: “I always like to give a 110 per cent.”

End of story.

I hope readers of this blog will chime in on my comments area with their own entries. Come on, I know you’re just champing at the bit to give 110% and claim your moment in the sun…

Item thanks to Ken Levine, who has a really entertaining blog. Ken’s a TV comedy writer, and if you’ve seen MASH, Cheers, Frasier or The Simpsons, among others, you’ve probably seen his work.

The first 30 pages are out there and a few of my Beta Testers have come back with comments. Not surprisingly, one of my best friends, who has a novel ready to go out the door himself, wanted me to cut my work down a bit.

For the amount of stuff going on, he said, it was too long. Knowing him, I expected this comment. I thought it would be the first thing he said to me (it was actually the second) and when he reads the whole novel, I expect it will also be the last thing he says on the subject. He knows that we both like short, snappy, to the point fiction. My comments to him on his novel were pretty much the same: cut it down. Get to the point.

On the other hand, two people I admire felt it was too quick. Not enough background on the village and the people who live there. Ya know, I had to wonder about that. That was a lot of the stuff I cut out on my Second Draft.

I know I have a lively read here. It flows along. No one is standing around. Something interesting happens on every page. Certainly no one who’s read it has admitted to being bored by it.

But I also know why my friends are looking for more about the village and its inhabitants. I made a decision early on to sort of clear the stage so to speak. Something happens early in the novel that gets most of the village’s inhabitants either out or away, so that you’re not overwhelmed by 150 characters in the second chapter. It was a story point, but also a consideration for my poor audience. The bad news is that it makes the village seem blurry in the mind, and empty, and not real in any good sense of the word.

So, I decided to let it breathe a little bit. I let a few of the other children out onto the ice with my main character, painted the village in more detail. And a funny thing happened when I let the village breathe: a nasty kid showed up. I know this kid, and I have a lot to say about him. He’s thoroughly unlikeable, as are his parents who I also know well, but he’s a good foil for the main character.

And it has shown me, that although the protagonists have good, solid character arcs, they didn’t have much character. They rarely disagreed with each other, were rarely very mean to one another, and that has made them come off a little flat, a little too virtuous. You know, one-note wonders. Boring. This nasty kid has thrown it all into stark relief, and I’m glad to be able to see it now.

I knew better than this, to let the characters be so flat. The good news is that I have the opportunity before it’s too late to fix not only the village, but also the people who live there. And I got a great new character out of it in the bargain.

Funny how one little comment, one little decision, can affect an entire novel full of characters for the better. Thanks for the comments, guys. The novel is better for it.

WORD COUNT: 67,500