Revisions! (The Musical, Part 2)
I had the great fortune to chat with my editor this morning and I have to say, I’m feeling good. Optimistic…dare I say…excited?
Yes, yesterday I was the in the denial stage. The my-MS-is-so-awesome-it-has-its-own-brand-of-taco-sauce stage. But today, the landscape looks a bit different. I see it through someone else’s eyes instead of just my own. And I fully understand what I’ve done here. There were many sins, but my greatest was pulling my punches with the hero.
I’ve written honorable heroes. Most notably my Sheikh from The Inherited Bride. He carries the weight of his duty on his shoulders. It is in everything he does. It makes his actions heavy, thoughtful, decisive. It is a part of him. When he goes against that honor it is physically difficult for him. It was also hard to write.
But by the end of that book I felt comfortable exploring honor and what people will do to fulfill their duty. But what about a character who has lost his honor? That’s a scary thing. And I think I was a little bit scared to fully explore that. Might still be a little bit and as a result, with Blaise, my Frenchman, I didn’t show the weight. Not the weight of his honor, but of his dishonor. Of bad decisions made that hurt people he loves. Of mistakes. Of failure. It has to be in him, a part of him, evident in all that he does.
When a person carries a heavy, physical burden it’s visible, whether they talk about it or not. But it affects their movements, their actions, everything. How much more is that true of someone carrying the burden inside?
I didn’t show that with him. I pulled back. I didn’t wring the most out of him that I could have.
The same goes for my heroine, but the hero was where it was most egregious. I thought I was showing it. I thought I was doing it. Torturing him to heal him. But I hadn’t gone deep enough.
My editor was full of awesome and good advice today, as always.
She said sometimes you have to write a books across (from beginning to end) so that you can find out what it’s really about, so you can see the core of the conflict and characters. Then you go back and really write in deep. It makes brilliant sense to me.
I had to get it all down before I could get to the heart of it all. Now that I have that, I get to take it and bring the focus back to the characters and to the essential conflict.
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You and Jackie are just where I am this week. Literally. Last week I sent off my 90K behemoth book to CPs, thinking it was mostly perfect. Sure, the end might have needed a little tweaking, but c’mon, it was almost there. Right? Wrong. What did one of my CPs say? My hero wasn’t flawed enough. Which, of course, was untrue. He’s extremely flawed. But bowing to comments in the past that have claimed my hero’s not heroic enough, I caved. Pulled all my punches. Ignored what the wonderful hero I was in love with and completely understood would really do in that situation. Because I wanted him to be smarter than he was before it was time. So…back to the drawing board I went. I think – *think* – I’m nailing it down now. But hello, sleepless nights until I started getting a handle on it.
Your editor’s advice is priceless and oh so true. Sometimes you really do have to write the story all the way through before you can see where heavy excavation is needed. 😉
Looking forward to the finished product! Good luck and have fun with your Frenchman. 🙂
Hugs on that, Cari, that’s tough. It’s so easy to absorb TOO many opinions. Be it reviewers, or readers or CPs. It can paralyze you and…it can neuter your hero. It can weaken your heroine, or make her abrasive. Either way, it’s not good.
I’m coming to a conclusion that to do something that isn’t meh, you have to run the risk of offending some people. I don’t like that thought. It scares me. But I think in my pursuit to make my hero too universally palatable, I neutered him for sure. And no one likes a neutered hero. :X
Good luck with you revisions! I’m sending cyber vodka your way…
Ack, Cari, Maisey, I’m SO with you! The editor has been critical of my heroes recently – they were sleazy. So because I’ve been so sensitive and worried about creating a hero who wasn’t sleazy, I kept wimping out and making my hero a little bit weak. How can you have a bad boy who isn’t bad?? In fact, I have a horrible feeling I did the same to the hero who’s currently sitting on the eds desk right now. Hope she’ll give me a chance to make him more dangerous…
Anyhoo, her advice about writing across is spot on. In fact, I have to do that with all my mss. It was through doing that that I realised I’d neutered my last hero, which I probably wouldn’t have spotted if I hadn’t written the black moment. Poor man kept insisting he was no good and I realised that in fact I hadn’t given him anything to be ashamed about. It was his way of requesting his balls back. 😉
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH *deep breath* AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
*deep breath*
A good way for him to ask.
As I’m reaching the end of my current WIP, I’m hopeful to have critiques from people as brave and honest and insightful as your editor. It’s hard to face what’s not wonderful, but that’s how you get the chance to make it wonderful.
Julia, I have to say that Jenny is extremely fabulous and that I am so blessed to have her insight. It’s absolutely essential and even when I get whiny about revisions, I trust her judgment and KNOW she’s right.
And you’re absolutely right. I remember doing my third round of revisions on HVA and deleting half of the MS and feeling SO free. Because I could make it as good as I wanted to! I wasn’t penned in by what I had done before…I could make it better.