Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 214
March 4, 2017
Cherry Saturday: 3-4-2017
Today is Grammar Day.
I feel strongly about grammar, but I have a feeling you all do, too, so go ahead and vent in the comments.
The post Cherry Saturday: 3-4-2017 appeared first on Argh Ink.
February 28, 2017
Still Cutting Breakfast (Rev. with Hint)
So I’ve been cutting the hell out of the breakfast scene, and it’s no longer 4400 words. Now it’s 3400. Which means I need to go back in there and hack some more, at least another 600 words, plus I need to add a couple of sentences from the lunch scene. So it’s gonna be awhile. In the meantime, there’s an Easter Egg in the drafts you’ve read so far. In all honesty, I don’t expect anybody to get it because the reference is to a book I published more than a decade ago and it’s really, really obscure. On the other hand, you like puzzles. So there’s a single word in the stuff you’ve read so far that ties this book to some of my other stories.
If nobody gets it by tomorrow night this time, I’ll tell you what the word is. And it’ll still be obscure. When I plant an Easter Egg, I plant it deep.
ETA:
Yeah, it’s too obscure. I’ll give you the word:
Giordano
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February 27, 2017
Dissecting the Romance Blurb (Rev.)
After playing with Nita’s blurb yesterday–and thank you all for your help–I wanted to see how the last pass compared to the pros, so I went back to Saturday and Sunday’s Book Bub e-mails and pulled out the blurbs that had plots that were most like Nita’s. This is not to trash Book Bub’s blurb writing; as we found out yesterday, it’s damn hard to sell a story in fifty words. I just wanted to see what happened when I slotted Nita’s characters, identities, and basic plot into existing blurbs. Here’s what I got:
“Nick’s the Devil’s fixer but he falls hard for no-nonsense Nita anyway — but will her love be enough for him?”
“Sparks fly when mysterious Nick, Satan’s fixer, helps Nita investigate her friend’s murder. But as the clues lead them into danger, will he be able to keep her safe?”
“When Nita Dodd meets a gorgeous stranger, she can’t stop thinking about him — but little does she know he’s actually Nick Giordano, the Devil’s fixer, traveling anonymously!”
“When Nita investigates a murder, she meets gorgeous Nick. There’s no place for him in her carefully ordered world — but she can’t resist their attraction…”
Here are my problems with these:
“Nick’s the Devil’s fixer but he falls hard for no-nonsense Nita anyway — but will her love be enough for him?”
Anybody think her love won’t be enough for him? Anybody? Bueller? Anybody?
I think a blurb has to have something intriguing about it, and this one says, “The central question of the plot is whether the hero will get bored with the heroine.” I think the draw in Nita’s story isn’t whether he’ll stick with her once they fall in love–of course, he will, it’s a romance–it’s how they’re going to deal with all the garbage around the attraction. The “they” is important there; the blurb has to show that Nita has agency. Also, much better to start with Nita as the subject of the sentence; it’s her book. (Of course in the book this was for originally, it’s possible the story did belong to the hero.)
“Sparks fly when mysterious Nick, Satan’s fixer, helps Nita investigate her friend’s murder. But as the clues lead them into danger, will he be able to keep her safe?”
This is another agency problem: Why does he have to keep her safe? I mean, I’m all for him looking out for her, but she should be looking out for him, too. And again this reads as though the story belongs to Nick, not Nita. (And again in the book this was for originally, it’s possible the story did belong to the hero.)
“When Nita Dodd meets a gorgeous stranger, she can’t stop thinking about him — but little does she know he’s actually Nick Giordano, the Devil’s fixer, traveling anonymously!”
Okay, Nita’s the subject of the sentence. YAY. But Nick’s interesting and Nita’s the gazer who can’t stop thinking about him, even though she doesn’t know who he is. We know all about Nick and nothing about Nita except she has good eyesight. I want my protagonist at the center of my story, not staring at somebody else.
“When Nita investigates a murder, she meets gorgeous Nick. There’s no place for him in her carefully ordered world — but she can’t resist their attraction…”
So now Nita’s the subject of the sentence AND active–PROGRESS!–but then she meets this great guy and rejects him because there’s no place for him in– Wait a minute. Is she nuts? Does anybody think she won’t make room for her him in her spic and span life? Anybody? Bueller? Anybody? The idea of a blurb, I think, is to make the reader want to find out . . . something. If you can read the blurb and know what’s going to happen in the book, I don’t see much to intrigue you into hitting that BUY button. Of course everybody knows the romance ends happily, but there should be something in the teaser that says the road they travel is going to be more interesting than “Will she decide to let love into her life?” (Yes. Yes, she will.)
Which leads me back to the last pass I made after listening to all of you (thank you again; if you don’t like it, it’s your fault), looking at it in this new light:
“When Nick Giordano shows up on Demon Island claiming to be (a) dead and (b) the Devil, Detective Nita Dodd thinks he’s a conman. But as evidence piles up that the supernatural is real, Nita reconsiders her assumptions . . . especially the ones about the Devil she knows.”
Nick’s name comes first, so that’s not good, and Nita’s the active subject of the sentence, but her action is “thinking” which is not all that active. And in the second sentence her action is “reconsidering.” Bleah. Also, I see the point about “Demon Island” being confusing. Hmmm.
How about:
NOTE: Obviously, that’s not real, but for anybody new to Argh, don’t push the button. The book isn’t finished yet, and when it is, it’s not gonna be ninety-nine cents.
Revision:
ANOTHER NOTE: So you can see that I played fair in adapting the blurbs, here are the real ones:
• Rock star Bodhi falls hard for no-nonsense Kimberly — but will her love be enough for him?
• Sparks fly when mysterious Wren, a professional fixer, helps Emery investigate her cousin’s disappearance. But as the clues lead them into danger, will he be able to keep her safe?
• When Emily Sinclair meets a gorgeous stranger, she can’t stop thinking about him — but little does she know he’s actually Vittorio Barrali, the crown prince of Sarcaccia, traveling anonymously!
• When Sydney takes over her grandfather’s business, she meets gorgeous Mikhail. There’s no place for him in her carefully ordered world — but she can’t resist their attraction…
The post Dissecting the Romance Blurb (Rev.) appeared first on Argh Ink.
Dissecting the Romance Blurb
After playing with Nita’s blurb yesterday–and thank you all for your help–I wanted to see how the last pass compared to the pros, so I went back to Saturday and Sunday’s Book Bub e-mails and pulled out the blurbs that had plots that were most like Nita’s. This is not to trash Book Bub’s blurb writing; as we found out yesterday, it’s damn hard to sell a story in fifty words. I just wanted to see what happened when I slotted Nita’s characters, identities, and basic plot into existing blurbs. Here’s what I got:
“Nick’s the Devil’s fixer but he falls hard for no-nonsense Nita anyway — but will her love be enough for him?”
“Sparks fly when mysterious Nick, Satan’s fixer, helps Nita investigate her friend’s murder. But as the clues lead them into danger, will he be able to keep her safe?”
“When Nita Dodd meets a gorgeous stranger, she can’t stop thinking about him — but little does she know he’s actually Nick Giordano, the Devil’s fixer, traveling anonymously!”
“When Nita investigates a murder, she meets gorgeous Nick. There’s no place for him in her carefully ordered world — but she can’t resist their attraction…”
Here are my problems with these:
“Nick’s the Devil’s fixer but he falls hard for no-nonsense Nita anyway — but will her love be enough for him?”
Anybody think her love won’t be enough for him? Anybody? Bueller? Anybody?
I think a blurb has to have something intriguing about it, and this one says, “The central question of the plot is whether the hero will get bored with the heroine.” I think the draw in Nita’s story isn’t whether he’ll stick with her once they fall in love–of course, he will, it’s a romance–it’s how they’re going to deal with all the garbage around the attraction. The “they” is important there; the blurb has to show that Nita has agency. Also, much better to start with Nita as the subject of the sentence; it’s her book. (Of course in the book this was for originally, it’s possible the story did belong to the hero.)
“Sparks fly when mysterious Nick, Satan’s fixer, helps Nita investigate her friend’s murder. But as the clues lead them into danger, will he be able to keep her safe?”
This is another agency problem: Why does he have to keep her safe? I mean, I’m all for him looking out for her, but she should be looking out for him, too. And again this reads as though the story belongs to Nick, not Nita. (And again in the book this was for originally, it’s possible the story did belong to the hero.)
“When Nita Dodd meets a gorgeous stranger, she can’t stop thinking about him — but little does she know he’s actually Nick Giordano, the Devil’s fixer, traveling anonymously!”
Okay, Nita’s the subject of the sentence. YAY. But Nick’s interesting and Nita’s the gazer who can’t stop thinking about him, even though she doesn’t know who he is. We know all about Nick and nothing about Nita except she has good eyesight. I want my protagonist at the center of my story, not staring at somebody else.
“When Nita investigates a murder, she meets gorgeous Nick. There’s no place for him in her carefully ordered world — but she can’t resist their attraction…”
So now Nita’s the subject of the sentence AND active–PROGRESS!–but then she meets this great guy and rejects him because there’s no place for him in– Wait a minute. Is she nuts? Does anybody think she won’t make room for her him in her spic and span life? Anybody? Bueller? Anybody? The idea of a blurb, I think, is to make the reader want to find out . . . something. If you can read the blurb and know what’s going to happen in the book, I don’t see much to intrigue you into hitting that BUY button. Of course everybody knows the romance ends happily, but there should be something in the teaser that says the road they travel is going to be more interesting than “Will she decide to let love into her life?” (Yes. Yes, she will.)
Which leads me back to the last pass I made after listening to all of you (thank you again; if you don’t like it, it’s your fault), looking at it in this new light:
“When Nick Giordano shows up on Demon Island claiming to be (a) dead and (b) the Devil, Detective Nita Dodd thinks he’s a conman. But as evidence piles up that the supernatural is real, Nita reconsiders her assumptions . . . especially the ones about the Devil she knows.”
Nick’s name comes first, so that’s not good, and Nita’s the active subject of the sentence, but her action is “thinking” which is not all that active. And in the second sentence her action is “reconsidering.” Bleah. Also, I see the point about “Demon Island” being confusing. Hmmm.
How about:
NOTE: Obviously, that’s not real, but for anybody new to Argh, don’t push the button. The book isn’t finished yet, and when it is, it’s not gonna be ninety-nine cents.
ANOTHER NOTE: So you can see that I played fair in adapting the blurbs, here are the real ones:
• Rock star Bodhi falls hard for no-nonsense Kimberly — but will her love be enough for him?
• Sparks fly when mysterious Wren, a professional fixer, helps Emery investigate her cousin’s disappearance. But as the clues lead them into danger, will he be able to keep her safe?
• When Emily Sinclair meets a gorgeous stranger, she can’t stop thinking about him — but little does she know he’s actually Vittorio Barrali, the crown prince of Sarcaccia, traveling anonymously!
• When Sydney takes over her grandfather’s business, she meets gorgeous Mikhail. There’s no place for him in her carefully ordered world — but she can’t resist their attraction…
The post Dissecting the Romance Blurb appeared first on Argh Ink.
February 26, 2017
Exploiting You: Blurb Nita (Rev.) (Rev. Again) (Rev. Again)
I am swamped today, but I stopped to read the Book Bub e-mail and remembered that Nita still needed a blurb. This one is awful. Fix it, please.
Detective Nita “Spooky” Dodd protects and serves Demon Island, a definitely non-supernatural island amusement park/tourist trap that is flooded every summer with drunk people in green make-up pretending to be demons, or as Nita calls them, asshats. When Nick Giordano shows up in the off-season claiming to be (a) dead and (b) next in line to serve as Devil in Hell, Nita dismisses him as an early asshat. But as the evidence piles up, Nita is forced to reconsider all her assumptions about reality in general and about Nick in particular. And then she finds out that even she is not what she thought she was. It’s a damn good thing the Devil has her back . . .
The Devil in Nita Dodd
A little bad can be very good.
Yeah, that last line in particular sucks. But I know you will all have MUCH BETTER ideas. You always do.
Second Pass:
Detective Nita Dodd protects and serves Demon Island, home of The Devil’s Playground, a definitely non-supernatural amusement park/tourist trap, so when Nick Giordano shows up in the off-season claiming to be (a) dead and (b) next in line to serve as the Devil in Hell, Nita thinks he’s either a conman or a crazy. But as the supernatural evidence begins to pile up and people keep trying to kill her, Nita begins to reconsider her idea of reality, along with her feelings for the Devil she knows.
The Devil in Nita Dodd
A little bad can be very good.
Third Pass, 57 words (not counting title):
Detective Nita Dodd protects and serves Demon Island, site of a definitely non-supernatural amusement park, so when Nick Giordano shows up claiming to be (a) dead and (b) the Devil, Nita thinks he’s a conman. But as the supernatural evidence piles up, Nita reconsiders her idea of reality, and with it her feelings for the Devil she knows.
The Devil in Nita Dodd
Fourth Pass: 50 words, still not right:
When Nick Giordano shows up on Demon Island claiming to be (a) dead and (b) the Devil, Detective Nita Dodd thinks he’s a conman. But as the evidence piles up that reality is not what she thought, Nita has second thoughts, especially about the Devil she’s just beginning to know.
OR
When Nick Giordano shows up on Demon Island claiming to be (a) dead and (b) the Devil, Detective Nita Dodd thinks he’s a conman. But as evidence piles up that the supernatural is real, Nita reconsiders her assumptions . . . especially the ones about the Devil she knows.
Also, latest collage:
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February 25, 2017
Cherry Saturday: 2-25-2017
Today is World Sword Swallowers Day.
There are better hobbies. As the Wikipedia says:
“Sword swallowing is a skill in which the performer passes a sword through the mouth and down the esophagus to the stomach. This feat is not swallowing in the traditional sense; the natural processes that constitute swallowing do not take place, but are repressed in order to keep the passage from the mouth to the stomach open for the sword. The practice is dangerous and there is risk of injury.”
YA THINK?
“Careful focus is required to complete the process without injury, as the sword passes within millimetres of vital body parts such as the aorta, heart and lungs.[6]”
What idiot first thought, “There’s a long sharp object. I think I’ll put it in my mouth in order to bring it closer to my aorta, heart, and lungs. Hold my beer.”
I recommend crochet. No swallowing.
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February 24, 2017
The Joy of Socks
I’ve been thinking about socks lately because one of my fave online shopping places has new designs in, and I’ve been buying one design I love–“Fight Like A Girl”–for everybody. And at roughly the same time I’ve started sinking into who Nita is.
I know she wears all black because she’s so driven that she doesn’t have time for clothes, and because it absorbs heat, and because it fits her mood most of the time. Also, if everything’s black, it all matches. But I thought she’d have a secret lust for color, and that her big sister would know about it, and she’d buy her something that was wildly colorful that she could keep hidden. My first thought was underwear, but I’d done scenes with Liz and her t-shirts and underwear and it didn’t feel right.
And then I saw the “Fight Like a Girl” socks, and I remembered that when I’d gone in for the eye surgery, the nurse looked at my feet and said, “You win best socks of the week” (different socks, same store), and I thought, “That’s it. Socks.” And then I started searching for the Socks That Nita Would Wear.
They’re fabulous.
From BlueQ
[image error]
And then I found Sock It To Me:
[image error]
(That top squid is Cthulhu. Because Nita says so.)
And of course there’s Amazon:
The key is, I picked them all because they’d fit in with scenes or conversations I already knew were coming up. They’re actually part of the plot.
Socks. The key to characterization. Who knew?
(I’m going to have SO MUCH FUN with these. And the other ones I picked out. And will pick out. SOCKS!)
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February 23, 2017
Research is Hell
Yesterday, I forced myself to go to the diner for Nita’s breakfast. Today, I made the huge sacrifice to go back for Button’s lunch. It’s not Nita’s lunch because Nita’s lunch is insane, but Sandy’s Diner (and my diner) still serves a damn good regular burger. So here’s Button’s lunch:
And once again, here’s Nita’s breakfast:
The things I eat do for my art. It’s mind-boggling. (I’ll put the breakfast rewrite up on Sunday. Tomorrow is more research, and Saturday is Cherry Day. The days are just packed here on Argh.)
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February 21, 2017
Cutting Breakfast (Revised for Bacon) (Revised Again for Daphne’s Headscarf)
First, thank you all very much for the feedback.
Second, I agree with almost everything. Here’s a discussion of the comments as of midnight last night:
SANDY: She’s such a nice person and yet you wanted her cut back. You were, of course, right. What I need to do is figure out what I want her there for. She’s there to establish Nita’s relationship with the community and Nick’s impact as a newcomer, and she’s there to sling hash. But I can do that in one pass. The person who’s a real player in this is Daphne and I’ve got her stuck behind the cash register. And there’s a bit that was in the lunch scene that I should probably transfer in here, Dag and Rab coming in for breakfast, too, just a couple of sentences. All of that is actually setting, not part of the scene which is Nita vs. Nick. So I need to figure out a three-beat there, and it’ll probably be Sandy/Daphne/Sandy, just delivering food with Daphne in contrast to Sandy because she’s mad at Nick. So pull out the three food-deliveries so they’re not beats, they’re just breaks between beats maybe.
BACON: I had no idea the bacon was an issue. So first, what kind of diner only gives you two pieces of bacon? The diner here piles it on. I eat some and take the rest home for the dogs and there’s always at least three or four pieces for them. So Sandy piles it on, but yes, I have to go back and count the strips. Should have done that once the discovery draft was over. Discovery drafts can be sloppy. Truck drafts, not so much. Also, bacon and eggs are not carbs, plus I think the way I used it was wrong beyond that, I don’t think Nita would think that, so that goes. Three eggs; I think maybe our diner only has two but I can’t remember. The reason I thought the spread with the French toast was lavish was because when I order it at the diner, it’s two orders, one full order of French toast, one full order of eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns with toast. People have been known to make comments. It’s important because Nita eats like crazy and doesn’t gain weight because she’s burning energy like crazy just trying to stay warm while . . . other stuff. It’s actually a plot point. But I can cut the food talk back some. The other thing is that this is the second (hopefully subtle) foreshadowing that Nick’s subconsciously remembering being alive, and when he remembers something, he automatically develops that sense again, in this case, taste buds. When he remembers something and wants it, that part of being human comes back to him. The first beat was sleep, which he managed to reject, this second beat is tasting food, which he gets caught by. So I need that, but I can cut a lot of this way back.
SUNGLASSES: I think that what Lani calls a vestigial tail, something that was important in an earlier draft that lingered after it wasn’t needed. I had a whole thing about sunglasses, but it’s just extra stuff and I don’t need it. So I can cut the sunglasses.
LUNCH CHAT: Yeah, that can go.
JOEY’S CELLPHONE: I have no idea why I put that in there. Probably seemed like a good idea at the time. I need to figure out a way to make that work or it can go.
GRANDPA’S BAR: I’m not sure about this one. I know it’s important, but I agree that it doesn’t really belong here. For one thing, it makes Nick too human too quickly. I think I can have her negotiate this with Rab later that morning. So cogitating, but I agree it doesn’t fit and should be cut.
JOEY AND THE AGENTS: I think this is really what both Nita and Nick would be focused on. The food stuff should be happening, but I think it’s stronger if it happens without them realizing it, they’re antagonists on the information so they don’t notice they’re bonding over the food. I had Nita repeating the Joey question because I wanted that sense that she was implacable, but it just comes off as repetitive. So what I need to do is look at the beats in that conversation, cut out all the repetition, and then match them to the background beats of the food. I can do that.
And then miscellaneous stuff:
• Let my editor make the cuts: Nope. I send Jen a mss. that’s a perfect as I can get it. Then she tells me the weak places, the same way you all just did, and I fix it. This is my book, I’m responsible for every word. Yes, I am obsessive about that. Anybody here who thinks I’m sane about my writing obviously hasn’t been paying attention.
• When did Nita find out Vinnie was e-mailing with Mr. Lemon? When she questioned him at the bar. It’s in the last couple of rewrites. You haven’t seen them, but I promise, it’s there.
• Does Nick eventually stop giving off heat? Yes. But he also figures out what’s making Nita cold and fixes it. So they recalibrate each other.
• Nita’s awfully calm about him not having a pulse. Yeah. I might just cut that. It was a late addition, and I’m thinking it happens too soon. She shouldn’t be touching him that casually that quickly. So there’s a chunk that can go.
• Two “cutes” for Daphne; I’ll get rid of one.
• Why would Nita tell Nick about her mother? Huh. I hadn’t thought about it. It was mostly efficiency, and I wanted them struggling over something, but what Nick really needs/wants to know is if both of her parents are human. Since she obviously thinks they are, questioning her about them is non-starter anyway. What he really wants to know is the agent/hellgate stuff. Must cogitate, but that’s probably something else than can be cut.
• Why does Nick sound so modern? Because he is modern. That is, he didn’t go to sleep yesterday in the fifteenth century and wake up today in the 21st, he’s been here all along, five hundred Earth years and fifty Hell years. Plus he’s been to Earth, all over it, many times as Satan’s agent. I look at it this way: I left home at 17 which was fifty years ago. I have a vague recollection of those years although pictures of them are always a shock, but the only thing that’s really vivid in my mind is the music. I have little recall of food, for example, except for the egg salad sandwiches at the Dairy Bar, which was the diner behind my dorm. (They had “Different Drums” on the juke box.) I have almost no recall of drugs I did except for the mescaline trips. I don’t remember the clothes except for one blue calico mini dress that was so short I had short shorts that I wore under it. That’s the thing about the passage of time: you LOSE stuff. And Nick’s dead, he doesn’t even have sense memory left. I’m not even sure he can see color although he might need that to function as a fixer. So the fact that his language is modern and his clothing is modern seems to me to be more logical than anything that would hearken back to fifteenth century Italy, especially since as Satan’s con man he’d be adapting to whatever environment he had to work in. The problem will come in that other readers might have the same question, but I don’t think it’s logical that he’d be a throwback. I just have to find some way of getting that on the page.
• Lack of physical variation: This is a problem for me because I don’t see these stories, I hear them, so I have to really work to get physicality on the page. In this case, though, I think I want Nita and Nick on opposite sides of that table. In the earlier scene, the first time they’re together, they’re on opposite sides of the bar, first he’s behind it and she’s in front, then later she’s behind it and he’s in front, and then at the end of the scene he goes around to her side behind it because he knows she’s going to pass out. So now it’s six hours later and she’s sober, and they’re on opposite sides of the table, but they don’t really have reason to move. They’re eating breakfast; musical chairs makes no sense. So the physicality becomes the food. She has a spread in front of her and he has a single egg-white omelet. By the end of scene, they’ve divided two breakfasts and he’s eating her French toast. I think in this case, that’s enough, since they’re also swapping food. That is, she flips a piece of toast over to him, he takes a strip of bacon from her, he dumps half of his toast serving on her plate . . . they’re concentrating on what they’re saying, they both live the life of the mind, but their bodies betray them, first because bodies need fuel, and then because even while they’re in conflict, they’re collaborating on the food. I agree that the beats of the scene should be played out in the physicality, but I’m fine with them staying in their seats and doing it all with the food.
Here’s something I’m still struggling with: Nick’s appearance. In general, I’m not crazy about the Super Hot Guy unless there’s a reason. Cal had to look like a prince in a fairy tale, Phin had to look like the blond frat boy, etc. Nick’s idealized because he’s not real, he’s what he remembers, and he’s going to change as he remembers more and gets more real—I have him getting shorter, for instance, and his ears start to stick out—but he was a con man back in the day from a family of grifters, all of whom were beautiful, and he really is strikingly handsome. I have a couple of placeholder photos that really aren’t Nick any more but that give me a touchstone for description, but I am just not comfortable with what I’ve got yet, it’s too over-the-top-bad-romance-hero. I’m trying to undercut it with Nita’s resistance to it because she knows there’s something wrong there, but I think it’s going to take me awhile to get that right. When I was doing the collage search, I found an article that quoted the placeholder’s straight best friend who said that when he’d first met the guy, he’d thought that he was the most beautiful man he’d ever seen, and I wanted that kind of reaction, but it just seems clunky on the page. So I need to figure that out. Up side: I’m spending a lot of time looking at pictures of a great-looking guy.
The big difference between the Discovery Draft and the Truck Draft is that now that I’m in the Truck Draft, I can be spare. That’s Krissie’s favorite writing word, and it basically means that once I know what that scene has to do, and I can slash everything else, once somebody points out to me what slows everything down. (Congratulations, you are all now beta readers.) I’ll still be tweaking it forever, but I know that I can cut pretty much everything that everybody mentioned, and tighten everything else.
I’m feeling much better about this. Back at you tomorrow with a rewrite. Probably.
ETA:
After talking about breakfast here, i was hungry, so I went to my diner and had the eggs over easy (with bacon, toast, and hash browns) and the french toast. Please note the bacon:
ETA AGAIN:
Daphne’s head scarf:
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February 20, 2017
Get Your Knives Out
So I’m not a fan of scenes that run on too long. I’m not a stickler about it, but in the first act, I try to keep my scenes under 3000 words, 2500 even better, and then in the last three acts never top 2500, in the last act even shorter. I’ve been rewriting the breakfast scene which has to do a lot of heavy lifting, and I like it. But it’s 4400 words. That’s ridiculous. It must be cut.
I am still in the darling stage with it. I want EVERY DAMN WORD. But at least a thousand words have to go. Your job, should you choose to accept it, it to tell me where it lags, where it’s confusing, where you’d cut it. Feel free to be brutal. As always, I won’t respond for twenty-four hours–YOU WANT ME TO CUT THAT??????–because I need to detach for distance, but all feedback is more than welcome.
Yes, I know I keep exploiting you. But you keep coming back. It’s a symbiotic relationship.
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