Jennifer Crusie's Blog: Argh Ink

One problem I’ve been having in the past years (argh) is going too dark. And here’s Zelda, stuck in a house where people are getting murdered, so I can feel the lights dimming. But there’s I’m-so-depressed-I’m-going-to-kill-myself dark and there’s Gorey dark. Black comedy. Or at least Charcoal Gray Comedy. I just need ways to remind myself of that. So I thought about chapter heads. Usually I don’t use chapter quotes or comments or anything besides “Chapter One” because I want the chapter breaks to be invisible, but I’m thinking maybe I’ll try chapter heads this time as part of the story. A little retro post-modernism, if you will, using old techniques to do commentary and play with readers’ perceptions. Usually when I get this clever, i get shot down because clever screws up story telling, and there’s a good chance that’s going to happen again. But I’m going to work with the chapter heads for awhile anyway.

Here’s the chapter head for Chapter One:

The big problem is that commentary like that is third omniscient so I’m essentially yanking my reader out of my nice third limited story with every chapter head. That’s bad. And I’m creating distance because it’s hard to attach to characters when the writer keeps telling you at the top of every chapter, “These people are characters in a story, not real people you should care about.” That’s very bad. And it’s very possibly too precious for words. That would be the worst.

But for right now, I’m trying it if only because it gives me another way of seeing the progression for Zelda and James.

What I’ve found as I looked through my plot descriptions is that I kept forgetting who my protagonist was. Everybody in this book has a problem, and I kept writing the plot sentences with different people as subjects instead of “Zelda does this” followed by “Zelda does that.” It’s Zelda’s book. All the sentences of the main plot description should start with her. No wonder this book was a mess, it had no center.

So now Zelda’s back in the center. With plants. Doing perennial jokes. Okay, maybe not, but she’s definitely in the center and I definitely have to learn more about plants so I can keep that as part of her personality. I don’t really know Zelda yet. I don’t think I knew her three years ago, not the way I knew James and Scylla and Rose. I know what she doesn’t want but I don’t know what she wants. Why are negative goals (“I don’t want to go to Rosemore”) so much more attractive (to me at least) than postive goals (“I want to find my father”)? I can give you six reasons why Zelda doesn’t want to go to Rosemore, but I still can’t think of why she wants to find her father. Anger, maybe; she wants to face him and say, “You jerk, you never gave a damn for me.” That might be good except that here comes another angry Crusie heroine. Still, I need something that comes from her character, not from the outside. I need to have a talk with Zelda and ask her what she’s going to do when she finds him. There’s a good question right there.

Oh, and in the meantime, I cut the first scene to 3000 words. I should be able to get more out of there with another couple of run throughs. So that’s almost 5K gone right there. Or course it doesn’t make sense, and when I write the last chapter I’ll go back and change it all anyway, but for right now, I’m moving ahead while the word count falls. Sigh.

The Twelve Days of Zelda officially began today, so I opened the You Again files.

There are ten thousand of them. The earliest is dated May of 2004, but I know I started it in 2003. I don’t know why I thought I’d open the folder and it would all be neat and tidy. It looks like a goat threw up in there. And although I have many files to open yet, here’s what I’ve found so far:

In a desperate attempt to save this book, I have called Zelda “Emma,” “Esme” and “Roxy.” Her best friend Scylla was once called “Beth.” James, however, has always been James.

I have started this book it three different places, once too late in the story, once too early in the story, and once just in the wrong place. The first scene, which should be Zelda meeting an antagonist, was actually three scenes and a coda: the first scene had 2392 words, the second had 3889, the third had 1384 and the fourth had 241. Yes, folks, almost 8000 words to get my heroine on the scene and in trouble. That’s, uh, too many.

Then the hero, James: 7225 words to establish him and his relationships with his cousins. Yawn.

The heroine’s best friend, Scylla: 2248 to get her POV.

That one may actually be pretty good, but it’s still going to have to be cut unless I move her to Chapter Two because by the end of the first chapter, I have to have my heroine with her goal and antagonist, my hero with his subplot goal, and something that’s brought them together so I can get the love story subplot going. Which means I now have over 17,000 words for a first chapter. Which is about, oh, eleven thousand too many. So I have to cut it which means that 60,000 word head start I had on the novel just faded to 50,000.

Helping in this weeding out process is some great shareware that I found called Scrivener. If you’re not on a Mac, don’t even go look at it because it’ll break your heart that you can’t have it. It’s a writing word processor that’s only meant for writing drafts of fiction and screenplays. When it’s done, you save it to Word or whatever major word processor you want. But as composing software, it’s great, well worth the $34 they ask for it.

I now have my first chapter scenes all in Scrivener where I can keep them straight with the note card that goes with each scene that I can see all at once tacked to Scrivener’s corkboard which looks like this:

And I have my basic plot outline (Beginning, Act One, Turning Point One, Act Two, TP2, Act Three, TP 3, Act Four, Climax) filled out for Zelda, for the James/love story subplot, for the Scylla subplot, and for two other major characters so I know where there are at the crucial moments. Tomorrow, I’ll add some of the minor characters so I know where they are in their plots at those moments.

Plus I have my One Sentence Idea (Bob will be so proud):

A woman goes back to the house for a Christmas house party and meets the same people she was with at a summer house party fifteen years before while trying to discover who fathered her at a similar Christmas house party thirty-five years before.

Yes, it needs work.

And my “this book is about” sentence (which is easier for me than a One Sentence idea):

This is a book about ZELDA who wants to find her FATHER/FATHER’S IDENTITY but can’t because X is destroying evidence and killing the people who know.

And my central question:

Will Zelda defeat X and find out who her father is?

And yes I did a conflict box. You’re not getting it because it gives away the murderer.

So while I still have a mess on my hands, at least I’m clearing away some underbrush and getting my plan in place. Pretty good or a first day.

Maureen Dowd trashed women’s fiction in the Times the other day. I’m pretty sure she did it to get letters because she’s fairly bright and that was the most illogical, poorly presented argument I’ve seen in a long time. My son-in-law who is professional blogger tells me that the blogs that get the most response are the ones that thrive, so many bloggers are posting deliberately incendiary posts to stir indignation and get those readers writing. Ann Coulter did much the same thing in public appearances when she criticized the 911 widows. This has the same feeling. It’s not that Dowd’s ideas are outrageous or insulting that gets to me on this one, it’s that they’re so DUMB. And she’s not a dumb woman. So I’m thinking she’s generating mail on this, not serious about her argument. Nobody could be serious about that argument.

I managed to not respond to the Coulter insanity because I thought her fifteen minutes should have been up a long time ago, but on this one I tripped: I wrote the Times. They probably got six thousand letters on this article so I keep telling myself that mine didn’t make any difference, but I still feel stupid for letting her get to me and swelling her response numbers. She played me. I’m betting she played all of us. I shoulda known better.

Dear Miss Dowd,

A few things:

If The Bell Jar has pink on the cover, perhaps that’s a sign that making mock of all books with pink on the cover is not a legitimate approach for honest literary criticism.

The “log-rolling blurbs” by other authors who write women-centered books is prompted by the fact that a blurb from Tom Clancy rarely spurs readers of women’s fiction to think, “That’s my kind of book.” This happens in other genres, too. It’s not a plot by women’s fiction writers to take over the bookstore. Even the male writers do it.

Your worry that people will confuse the heroines of twenty-first century women’s fiction with the heroines of eighteenth and nineteenth century is unfounded. Readers, I have found, are generally pretty bright about things like that.

I think it’s thoughtful of Leon to think that women should read The Red Badge of Courage instead of women’s fiction. I also think Leon should stop projecting his reading taste on all women in general, but I think it’s nice that he cares.

I’m puzzled when you say, “The novel was once said to be a mirror of its times,” and then go on to recommend novels that are more than a hundred years old (except for that youngster, 1984). It makes it difficult to discern the actual distress behind this article. Is it that no author today is writing what you want them to? That readers aren’t reading what you want them to? That fiction is “undergoing a certain re-feminization” and that’s upsetting Leon? Or are you against “feminization” in general and you’re seeing this as the thin end of the wedge? Because I think you’re right on that one.

Whatever it is, I hope your day is better today. Read a little Austen, she is wonderful, and you can probably find her books without pink covers. Oh, and my compliments on a great article for generating outraged letters. I remember the good old days when columnists were informed, logical, and incisive, but I know times change and the pink cover of commentary is now The Rant. Does the Times evaluate you on how much feedback you provoke? Because this is going to make you look so popular.

Best of luck,
Jennifer Crusie

And then I hit send and made her look more popular. Sigh.

You know what would have been wonderful? If everybody had looked at that and said, “Sweet Jesus, this woman is dumb as a rock,” and ignored it. And then she’d have sat in her office waiting for the mail that never came.

THAT would have been a great response.

Mara Lubell does it again:

Isn’t she the greatest? Both Agnes and Mara.

So the idea was to use this on the website and also on aprons as gifts within the industry, and then Mollie said, “Put it on merchandise and sell it,” and I thought, Ouch, exploiting fans. Except people are asking if there’s a Cranky Agnes apron as soon as they read the scene where she puts it on (beta readers, the book won’t be out until August) so is that still exploiting?

And I’d been thinking about other things, too, just for fun. Like a bumper sticker that says “Tucker for Mayor, More of the Same,” which given the way many readers feel about Phin and the dock scene, has that nice double meaning to it. And an advertising calendar from the Goodnight Gallery with one of Tilda’s paintings on it. Things that might have been in the books, fun things.

I don’t know why that seems less exploitive than a T-shirt with a bookcover on it. I’d still be charging for the stuff over on CafePress and making money, albeit not raking in the big bucks. Maybe because it wouldn’t be such blatant advertising? We’re going to do a T-shirt over there for the HWSW workshop definitely (“Nothing but good times ahead” on the front and “We’re doomed” on the back which pretty much describes the mental state of writers), but that’s another “real” thing, you get T-shirts when you go to writers’ conferences.

I can see Zelda’s business logo on the T-shirts her employees wear to work in, especially if we come up with a business name that’s really fun (I know Mara will come up with a logo that’s fun). Part of me loves the idea of making things from the book real, and part of me is still saying, “Ouch, exploiting fans.”

I think I like the idea of this stuff so much because it extends the world of the book into the real world. You get the Goodnight Gallery Calendar because you’ve been to the Goodnight Gallery. You wear the Cranky Agnes Mob Food apron because you’re a Cranky Agnes fan, not because I’m selling Agnes and the Hitman. I know, it’s a fine distinction, but I think that’s why it feels like play to me instead of promotion, even though it’s blatantly promotion.

So we’re cogitating on this and we’re probably going to do it. But I do want to know what you think of it all. Does the fact that the things we’re thinking about selling all come from inside the book instead of outside it (bookcovers, etc) make it different? Can you think of anything else that would be fun? Because if we’re going to do this, I want to do things that will make people smile when they see them, bring back the stories for them. It can’t be a T-shirt that says, “Buy everything Jenny Crusie ever wrote RIGHT NOW.”

Although that would be a damn fine T-shirt.

So Agnes went out yesterday, and then I dealt with some trauma which meant my head was anywhere but my writing, and then I woke up at the crack of dawn still upset and read a book by a pal that made everything better. Mad Dash by Patricia Gaffney. It’s not out until August, so this is cruel, teasing you like this, but it’s so wonderful, and I wept all over it in a GOOD way, because it’s just beautiful but not sad at all, just true. You know how it is when you read exquisite writing that just nails something you’ve known but couldn’t put into words? And then you weep because it’s so true? That kind of crying. Mad Dash, wonderful, wonderful book.

And of course reading great books makes me want to write. I’ll never be the writer Gaffney is, she’s a miracle, but I’m pretty damn good, and I have that Zelda file right there on the desktop looking at me. And now I want to write.

But not yet.

So my daughter calls and we’re talking about the Cranky Agnes logo (the logo Agnes has at the top of her newspaper column and on her promo aprons) and I tell her that now I have to find a new occupation for Zelda because she was a cookbook writer and now Agnes is a cookbook writer so Zelda cannot be one. Which is all right because I wasn’t married to that anyway. And I ask Mollie, “Any ideas on what Zelda should do for a living?” and she says, “Why would I have ideas?” and I say, “Because whatever she does is what you’re going to hang the marketing stuff on,” and she says, “OH.” Because she is business 24/7.

Mollie says, “She has a cable TV show,” and I’m thinking, “Uh, no,” and Mollie says, “About plants,” (Mollie was a landscape architect in first career), and I say, “Oh, well . . .” and she keeps going with ideas and hits “perennial expert,” and I say, “Oh!” and she talks about how you can’t plant perennials under walnut trees because the roots kill them, and I’m thinking, “Malcolm is a walnut tree, Zelda could look at him and think ‘walnut tree,’” (oooh, maybe I should change his name to Walter) and that certain perennials are really good together and that others are toxic to each other, and I’m thinking, “Hoo boy, symbolism there,” and then she says that many perennials are poisonous, and I remember there’s a murder by poisoning in the book, and what if Zelda is known as an perennial specialist, and all of a sudden, I’ve got Zelda’s profession and a whole new way into this book.

Because Zelda’s nemesis (although not necessarily antagonist) in this book is Rose, and Rose has a mother named Lily, and then I started thinking about how tough roses were, both to grow and then to get rid of, especially the wild rambling kind which have to be perennials, right? I don’t know, I haven’t looked yet. But is this not crunchy?

And that’s when I realized that you could get a second go round on Sticky Time.

Sticky Time is that period at the beginning of a book where you keep tripping over things that need to be in it. You’re not looking; it’s just that everywhere you go, suddenly you think, “I can use that.” I used to think that everything stuck to the book during Sticky Time, but then I realized that I was seeing and hearing thousands of things during that time, but only the stuff that the book wanted registered. It was like the book knew what it needed, and turned sticky for those ideas.

But I always thought it only happened at the beginning of the book. Oh, sure, sometimes things come along later, like Wonder Woman in Don’t Look Down, but the stuff that stuck in the beginning determined the shape of the book. Only now it turns out that if you go away from a book and then come back, you get a new Sticky Time.

Well, I’m thrilled.

So now I’m looking at perennial books and googling and making notes, and Zelda is coming through strong again. The work a character does is so important, it says so much about who she is, that getting that right can sometimes bring the entire character into focus.

Plus did you know that if you don’t separate perennials every few years, they start to strangle each other? How’s that for a metaphor for family? I’m LOVING this Zelda-as-plant-specialist idea. Mollie does it again.

And—how crunchy is this—Strop is right, YoU AGAIN type does look like it has small vines or something growing on it. That’s A Sign.

Excuse me while I go find things that stick to my book.