By Dame Jackie
I’m lucky that Loss isn’t due for a while, because right now I am on draft #5 and am nowhere closer to done. Oh, it’s not like I have five completely written manuscripts; I have five very different beginnings, up through chapter two. And that’s it.
I hear it now, from the wings: “Just write through it,” or “Come back to it later.”
But I can’t. Not at the beginning of this novel. See, this one plays with memory as well as other things, and I have to have the beginning firmly established before I can move on. Sure, there are plenty of times when I can put a placeholder in an entire chapter — when I was writing Hotter Than Hell, for example, the Mozart chapter was simply that, “The Mozart Chapter Here,” until I was emotionally ready to come back to that part of the book and write it. I knew exactly what was going to happen, but I needed to be in the right place to write those particular scenes.
Not so at the beginning of a novel — particularly not for Loss, when I’m first really learning about who the main character is. (Of course, this is true for me; other writers may have a different feeling about beginnings.)
The process so far went something like this:
In draft #1 (a prologue and part of chapter 1), we meet two of the main characters (one of which has a different name), and while the action is intense in chapter 1, reaction is glossed over. Too sparse; not hitting the mark. Next.
Draft #2 is very similar, but chapter 1 is slightly expanded. Everything stops at the same point in draft #1; can’t go any further. Something’s not right, but I’m not sure what. Time to reevaluate.
A-ha. Draft #3 introduces a new character — one that readers of earlier books will recognize. No prologue this time. Chapter 1 gets filled out, and something that had been missing is now reading much better…but again, I’m hitting that same damn stopping point. Crap. Still not working. Okay, time for something different.
Draft #4 is completely different — chapter 1 now kicks serious ass, and chapter 2 is emotionally wrenching. But but but…damn it, it’s still not right. It’s way too soon for what happens in chapter 2; readers aren’t invested enough in the main character. Argh! **hits head on desk**
At this point, I had a brainstorming session with my friend Diana Rowland when we were at ComicCon. She asked me some pertinent questions, and offered some suggestions and some from-the-hip criticism. And boom, things got…well, not crystal clear, but certainly less murky. I returned to the hotel room and banged out notes about the book, the structure, issues to tackle…and then I sketched a very light chapter outline of part 1. Which later led me to…
Draft #5. Prologue from earlier versions has returned, as has a modified version of draft #3′s chapter 1. Okay, almost there. Maybe. Because starting tonight, I will be up to…
Draft #6. After thinking things through, I’m going to delete the prologue and keep going with chapter 1, and completely change direction so that I never hit that same stopping point. Thanks to my spiffy outline, I know where to take chapter 1. Maybe, after I delete the prologue, chapter 1 will read better, and I’ll be able to move from there. God, I hope so.
It’s distinctly possible that I’m simply burned out. From September 2009 through the end of April 2010, I’ve written:
2 short comic book scripts (“Carpe Noctem, parts 1 and 2″)
1 YA novel (Rage, not counting the prologue and first three chapters, which had been previously written)
1 charity novella (“Hell’s Angel”)
3 Hell short stories (“Where We Are Is Hell,” “Hell’s Fury” and “To Hell With Love”)
And I’ve also done page proofs for another YA novel (Hunger) and copy edits for that second novel (Rage). That, my friends, is a lot of work — especially considering I also have a full-time day job. Whew. It’s not burnout, no…but I probably did need this time to let my batteries recharge. Other than the starting/stopping of Loss and an attempt at a new middle-grade project that I’ve since put on the back burner, I’ve done no other writing for three months.
Well, I look at it like this: the soup’s got to simmer for a while, right? So all this starting and stopping and starting again is just letting other parts of Loss heat up. Heck, I already know exactly how the book will end, down to the last line, and there’s another scene that I can picture so clearly it’s like the scene has already been written in my mind. And hopefully, when I sit down to write tonight, the words will flow.
If not…there’s always draft #7.
What do you do when you can’t find the right beginning?
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