I've been doing the deed over the last few weeks, eliminating Z____ and D_____ from World Leader Pretend. It's a little bit, I suppose, like losing old acquaintances, people who were important to you in college, but who got haircuts and became Wall Street brokers.

Losing them has been less painful than I imagined, my only concern is with how it's effecting the rest of the story. What I'm worried about is this: Z_____ and D______ were sort of my foil for the forward motion of the story. That is to say, throughout the middle part of the story, the reader reads on because they want to know what X_____ will do about the fact that Z______ and D______ are in rehab and that D_______ is pregnant with either X______'s or Z________'s child.

Without this, the story seems to lose some of it's punch--granted X______ is having his own new little love affair, and he also has his schizophrenic sister G_______ to worry about--but it's the thing that's far away and that he's ignoring that seems to be driving him to the online seclusion he buries him throughout the book.

Anyway.

Clearly, I'll have to revisit this once I finish the hacking. Perhaps, I'll end up leaving some of it in. Give the reader just enough information to know what is going on without spending 80 odd pages on Z_____ and D______ in rehab.

Labels: Writing Process

There have been visitors: first our friends T.J. and Ben from San Francisco; then my parents and sister from Prescott, Arizona. Visitors tend to preclude blogging--thus the radio silence.

T.J. had just finished reading the first draft of Very Minor Prophet, and we had a very nice discussion over dessert about it. It's great when someone tells you what you already know about your book, but what you've chosen to ignore or justify for whatever reason--it's always just the kick in the ass you need to go change it.

T.J. had told me via email that he loved the book but that he wanted more. I took this as a complement and didn't think much of it, until we got together and had desserts, at which point I realized that there was more to that flip comment than I thought.

Basically, T.J. felt that book ended early--way, way, way early--and that there was a lot of lead-ins that never went anywhere and that in general the story didn't get to where it was supposed to go. I knew this when I was writing it. I had gotten impatient and written the ending far before the story was ready for an ending. I had thought to myself, "cool, what a great effect on the reader, they think the stories going to go on, but I'll trick them and end it here." Yes, tricky, but ultimately a premature death for the book. As T.J. said, "I'd be really pissed if I bought this book in the store and it ended when it did."

Sorry, no Pulitzer for me...

The editing is in full-swing now. I have no idea whether this will be of any interest to anyone, but since this is supposed to be a blog about the editing process, I suppose I should, for once, talk about the editing process. Most of this will be nonsensical if you haven't read the book...

My editor pointed out a flaw in the book that I knew existed but had been too cowardly to attack, mostly because fixing it would involve a month's worth of work, and the potential for creating bigger problems in attempting to fix a smaller one was very high.

This was the flaw: In the first section of the book I have a scene which, because of it's length, is broken up into chunks. In between the chunks, I flashback to some scenes in one of the character's lives. This is all very appropriate, as there are parallels between what is happening in the present and the past.

The problem comes, however, because I'm also inserting these "flash-forwards" in the section. In my book, there are dual universes--there is the real-life present of the characters in my book; and then there is also the present of this online fantasy game that they are playing. Things can happen in the game while the characters are away from their computers; in essence creating dual presents in the same book.

This sounds very confusing, written out, but in most sections of the book it's fairly seemless to the reader. Everything is written in the present and time only passes when I say something like "an hour passes in The Realm" or "two days later X____ wakes up with his Chuck Taylors still on his feet"

In this one section, however, it really doesn't work, because there is the present, the flashback in the past, and game sections scattered throughout that actually take place about 12 hours in the future. The reader loses all track of what is happening when...

Anyway... I finally braved it. Following my editors suggestions, I essentially took out all the game stuff and put it after the scene, leaving the flashbacks in, but shortening the whole segment a tad (although, not as much as I my editor suggested). This, of course, had repurcussions throughout, as I then had to weave the happenings of the Game into other segments later on. This had effects as far-reaching as 150 pages down the road.

I still don't know how any of this reads. At the end of all these edits I'm going to have to read the book straight through, and see how the timing turned out. I have a feeling its' going to be very wonky, at which point I'll have to tackle this issue again.

I've been pruning the novel a bit lately, avoiding the major cuts, and happily snipping away at stuff that sticks out unnecessarily. My editor wrote me back an interesing note in regards to my question, "well, what if I don't want to cut that section that you want me to cut."

In the end it is your book and if you look at my edits and hate them, you're free to disregard everything.

Leave it to a New Yorker to be blunt.

Labels: Writing Process

Powell's largesse left me feeling uninspired, so I wandered over to Reading Frenzy, the local independent bookstore, for that feeling of sacred in-ness that only a small bookstore can make you feel.

While I was there I ran into a copy of the Philadelphia Independent, a bi-monthly newspaper put out by some nuts from Philly. The newspaper has a sort of The Onion feel, except that when you get out from under the snarky titles (Reverend Rove's Red Rubes Rock Rickety Republic, Righteous Rabble Ratifies Rogue Ruler's Reign), the editorials are actually quite poignant, if somewhat self-indulgent. (What is it with the whole McSweeney's-esque self-indulgent thing anyway?)

The copy I got a hold of was their early winter issue, so the "news" isn't really news any more, but still I like what they had to say. This is from A Note to the Reader, on the re-election of Gee Whiz:

...so pay no attention to self-appointed surveyors who try to divide the provinces of belief and doubt, the country and the city, the interests of you and your countrymen. What better way to subjugate a nation than to split it along invisible lines? The commentators trying to divine the nation's heart with a box of Crayolas are the same ones who sat hushed and rapt when Colin Powell told us about the weapons of mass destruction, the ones who remembered the infamy of Abu Ghraib for all of a fortnight. Now they have set themselves up as mapmakers, and wish to make every person beleive that he alone inhabits an island of good sense in a rising sea of savagery. They are correct to say a civil war is taking place, but its fronts are not so easily drawn. The United States is not a jigsaw of fifty states or a purple scrim of variously shaded countries, but a collection of individual consciences. It is within these borders that common sense is doing battle with fear, and we maintain that common sense will ultimately prevail.

Nothing changed on November 2. George Bush is still the president. We are still aligned against him, as we are compelled to by our beliefs in peace among nations, equality among men, and the obligation of the govenment to be honest with the governed. For a time, John Kerry was a vessel for these beleifs, but his defeat does not equal ours. Fifty-six million Americans have had enough of this failed president, and so long as each of us remains bent on seeing his agenda defeated, it is he who should be afraid. We stand ready to do whatever it is in our power to do to erase the awful mark the president intends to leave on history. With time, our rights and alliances will be restored, the wealth of the land returned to the people, and the world will no longer have to live in fear of America. Our work will not cease until history forgets this little man who rose too high, and there is plenty of work to be done.

I've been screaming for new fiction, but it just hasn't been happening. All the new titles--chick lit, historical fiction, complicated love triangles, yet another Nazi Germany story--they look like all the new titles last year, and the year before, and the year before...

Sigh.

I'm dying for something like 1984. You'd think that someone would be writing a book with a social conscience these days, given, well, these days.

I ended up with Saturday, by Ian McEwen; The Franchiser, by Stanley Elkin; and The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffennegger. I picked up Saturday because it was the closest thing I could find to a novel dealing with contemporary issues (it's about a neurosurgeon who runs into an anti-war protestor on the way to a squash game); The Franchiser because Lewis Buzbee recommended it, and because he has an eye for almost-forgotten novels that say something; and The Time Traveler's Wife because it was published by MacAdam Cage, a West Coast Publisher that makes beautiful books, and I really liked the premise (it's a sort of magical love story between a man who involuntarily travels through time, and a woman who can't).

I'm skeptical about all these, but maybe I'll get lucky.