Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 215

Anti-Rant: Last Night in Sweden

Evidently Trump cited the horrific events that happened “last night in Sweden” during his love fest campaign rally for the 2020 election.

Nothing happened in Sweden.

This would be just another alternate fact in the increasingly bizarro world America is now inhabiting were it not for Twitter, which immediately adopted the hashtag #lastnightinSweden. The tweets there will warm your heart (especially if you like Ikea and the Swedish Chef).

Also, I’m moving to Sweden.

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RANT: Own Your Awfulness, Asshats

Feel free to skip this, it’s just me frothing at the mouth over something personal.

I’m furious with somebody.

That somebody is being a hypocrite on Twitter.

I would like to tweet back something cutting.

I’m not going to.

BUT I WANT TO.

I don’t like it when people hurt my friends. I tend to overreact. And of course, I’m not over-reacting as Jenny Smith, I’m over-reacting as Jenny Crusie with all the baggage that entails. So that’s bad. But hypocrites make me crazy, so I’m posting here instead of on Twitter. It seems like a good compromise. My only other option is silence. Okay, that’s not really an option for me, but I can mutter quietly in my little corner of the universe. (That would be here.)

So my snit today is about a guy who tells his wife he wants a divorce on Jan. 1, leaves her stunned, horrified, and alone to explain things to her children while he takes off on vacation, and then gets engaged to somebody else at the end of the month, only to sorrowfully post on Twitter that the divorce was a hard decision for him to make.

I would really like to reply to that. I won’t. My friend doesn’t want me to, and she’s the one dealing with this, not me. But . . .

You know, if people want to be asshats–say our President–I can respect that. The choice to be a duplicitous son of a bitch is as legitimate as the choice to be a saint. You get to choose who you want to be, how you want to live.

But then, for fuck’s sake, OWN IT.

I’m a bitch. I know I’m a bitch. I’ve never pretended NOT to be a bitch. I figure as long as I’m up front about it, people will see me coming and either know what they’re getting into or get out of my way. I am not a fuzzy bunny, unless I’m the fuzzy bunny from the Holy Grail. And I’m okay with that as long as I’m not kidding myself that I’m really a nice person. Polonious was a bore, but he was right about knowing yourself. He just didn’t go far enough. Know yourself, be true to that self, and then BE HONEST ABOUT IT.

Trump is a sociopathic narcissist. He’ll do whatever it takes to get the applause, bend reality however he has to in order to believe he’s a winner. And now he’s taking his pathological need to be THE BEST national, and he’s letting the dregs of humanity dictate policy because they tell him he’s great, and my country is going down the tubes. The thing is, if he’d won the election and then said, “HAH, gotcha,” and resigned, I’d have a kind of grudging respect for him. He’d have accomplished something–the disintegration of the Democratic party establishment–and he’d have rick-rolled the party that tried to laugh him out of the election, and he’d have won by thumbing his nose at politics in general. There’s something kind of noble about that, even if he has mobilized the worst of racist, sexist, intolerant, dickhead America. Instead, he thinks he’s a great President, the best, and now my country is in chaos, all because this asshat will not admit that he’s in over his head and that people loathe him because of what he’s saying and doing. My only comfort is that he’s only been in office a month and he’s already in flames. With any luck at all, Paul Ryan will pull a coup and take over the government. I think Paul Ryan is a despicable weasel, but he’s a sane despicable weasel, and in the end, he’d be a pragmatist. I don’t think Ryan says, “Hey, I’m a man of the people.” He says, “Hey, I love Ayn Rand, screw the people.” If only Trump were that kind of honest, despicable weasel, we’d all be in better shape.

I feel the same way about this guy on Twitter. If you get engaged four weeks after you ask for your divorce, it was not a difficult decision. You had a plan. Embrace your despicably weaselly efficiency, if nothing else.

January: The month of Weasels With No Sense of Shame Who Refuse To Accept Responsibility For Their Weaselhood.

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Cherry Saturday: 2-18-2017

Today is Pluto Day.

Because Pluto is a planet:

And also, of course, a dog:

Do not attempt to argue in the comments that Pluto is not a planet. It’s a planet. Anything else is an alternate fact.

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So Let’s Talk About the Romantic Moment

It’s Valentine’s Day, which for me is the day that the cinnamon jelly hearts go on sale. Not that I’m allowed to have any, but still, I know they’re out there. It’s also the day I’m doing a romance pass on Nita’s first act. Huh. I just realized that “romance pass” may not be the best term for the rewrite in which I go through and try to remember that I’m setting up a romance-to-come. Which is also probably not a good term to use. Uh, rewrite to foreshadow a future romance? Not as catchy, but then not snicker-worthy, either. Which reminds me, the Snickers in the pink foil wrappers are on sale today, too.

So what I’m doing is going through the first act and looking for story moments to foreshadow a romance. Usually, romance readers do a lot of this work for me. I’m fairly sure that if Nita has the first scene and Nick has the second and then they meet in the third, most romance readers will say, “Hello,” and settle in to see things develop. That’s because the real fun of a love story is seeing how thing develop: how they work together, how they handle disagreements, how they come learn to trust each other, the building of the community of two, the growth of the community around the relationship, all of that stuff. Usually when I write a romance, that stuff comes happens first, and then I think, “Right, I need a plot,” and find an antagonist. This time, it was all about the supernatural and struggling with ideas, although I liked both characters from the start.

The thing is, I don’t like most of the shorthand romance tropes. Like he’s gorgeous and she’s gorgeous, so of course they’ll be gorgeous together. I like it that Nick is supernaturally handsome because he’s not real, but that means that Nita has to point that out from the beginning or he becomes Romance Guy. I like it that Nita is kind of scary-looking. I like it that she doesn’t start to trust him until she sees that he’s a skeleton (helps that she’s drunk). But I still need cues in there that there’s a spark, moments that make the romance reader lean into the story. They’re not in there now.

I also like the idea of shared experiences, like the breakfast scene in Nita or the awful-movie-watching in Anyone But You. Okay, I like food and people who like food, so people who like the same food seems like a no-brainer to me. (For best romantic food scene of all time, see illustration above.) Beyond that, people working together on a problem are often drawn together through a shared goal and through stress which produces adrenalin which produces heightened awareness. Also, stress often makes people fall in love: see office and wartime romances. So a shared antagonist and interlocking problems and goals are already in the mix here. I just need to find the moments that make that clear.

But there are also a lot of little clues that work. I think one of the best ones I ever wrote (patting myself on the back here), was Shane giving Agnes the air conditioner. So not a romantic gift. So much more romantic than roses. It’s that moment of understanding that’s a throwaway, not a big production. In fact, I think the most powerful moments are always the throwaway moments, the things that the characters don’t even think about because it’s the natural thing to do.

And there’s there’s the retro but still compelling “I’ll take care of you” move, which isn’t that retro because it works both ways. Like the special license that Freddy brings Kitty in Sprig Muslin Cotillion. Cal defending Min at her parents and vice versa in Bet Me.

And then there’s the always powerful comments-by-others-who-know-the-couple. One of my faves is from The Grand Sophy: When one of Sophie’s friends says “. . . heaven preserve me from marriage with her,” another friend says, “If heaven did not, I fancy Rivenhall would,” an acknowledgement within the story what the reader has known all along, that Sophy and Charles Rivenhall are Meant For Each Other.

I could go on, but it would be more fun if you were playing, too. What are your favorite romantic moments in stories–page or film–and most important, why did they work for you? This isn’t a Valentine’s Day squee topic, we’re doing serious narrative work here. I have a romance to write. You should help.

Let’s talk about what makes a powerful romantic moment.

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Cherry Saturday 2-11-2017

Today is Peppermint Patty Day.

Actually I think it’s supposed to be the candy, but let’s face it, the girl who called Charlie Brown “Chuck” and hung out with Marcie is much more iconic,

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Democracy

Still a thing in America.

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So, About Bodies . . .

How’s by all of you? We’re having a blizzard here. The power went out for two hours, but I was already in bed typing, so I just put Mona and Milton under the blankets with me–Veronica has issues and so does not burrow–and we stayed fairly cosy. It was wonderful when the lights came back on, though, along with the heat. I love electricity. And now back to work.

Which is figuring out Nick’s body issues.

So Nick’s dead. His only earthly remains are a skeleton in a tomb in Italy. When Satan first pulls him out of Niflheim to be his assistant, that’s the body he projects/remembers, but that upsets the other demons who are really just another race of people, so Satan gives him the same power he gives his agents to Earth, the ability to create a facade, and Nick creates a facade that’s what he remembers. That’s the facade he brings to Earth, the facade Nita can see through after she drinks the scupper. It’s also the reason he doesn’t have pores and that even before the scupper she thinks he’s been air-brushed; he’s just doing the general impression of who he used to be, there’s no there there. No body, no emotions, just the mind/intellect.

Of course, he’s gonna have to get a body before the book is done, although I think I want him to stay dead. I’ve had enough dead-then-alive-again plot points from the Berlantiverse, thank you (how many times has Sara died now?). So like Marley, Nick is dead to begin with. But then he starts to change. Part of that is being back on Earth which awakens memories, like being uncomfortable on barstools and being tired. Remembering being tired reawakens muscle memory which will lead to muscles as part of the facade which will lead to the need for sleep. He goes to breakfast with Nita and sees not just the food but how much she enjoys it and remembers taste buds. I don’t want anything mystical about Nita making him human again, I just want his human memories reawakened which will change how he imagines his facade which will awaken further memories which will make his facade more life like and so on until one day he looks at Nita and remembers lust.

What I need to know is, does this make sense? I don’t want to have to explain it, I just need to know if people will buy that. What do you think?

(I just talked to Krissie in Slack and told her my hero was a skeleton. She said, “You’re kidding, I hope.” Nope.)

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Drafting: Discovery to Truck

The process of moving from a discovery draft (which is just writing to see what the story’s about) to a truck draft (which is an early draft that isn’t great but is probably good enough to publish if I get hit by a truck) is mostly about deconstructing a scene by beats to see what the hell is in there, and revising that to what’s supposed to be in there, once I’ve gotten a good overview of the act or entire book. I’ve done about a zillion drafts of the first breakfast scene, but they were all discovery drafts. It’s time to get serious about this sucker. For one thing, this scene over 3900 words and for another, it goes nowhere. it’s an overwritten, wandering, bloviating mess.

Here’s the rewrite analysis:

First, I need to break the existing discovery draft down by beats, units of conflict, which in a discovery draft are often just topics of conversation or thought with no conflict. That’s bad. This shows me what I have to work with:

1. Nita regroups at the diner.

TP that starts the scene: Nick joins her. [Starts after 301 words. That’s more than a page.]

2. Conversations with Sandy

3. Nita asks him about Joey.

4. They talk about food (eggs).

5. Nita asks him about Joey.

6. Nick asks her about her parents.

7. Nita asks him about Joey.

8. They talk about food (french toast).

9. Nita asks him about Joey.

10. Nick explains what he’d doing there.

11. They talk about food (bacon).

12. They talk about Grandpa’s bar.

13. Nita asks him about Joey.

14. They talk about food (lunch).

15. They talk about Mr. Lemon.

16. Nick explains about his agents.

17. Nick has Joey’s cellphone.

18. Nick proposes a partnership.

Final turning point: Nita says no and leaves.

Some things I know up front:

• I like Nita hammering him about Joey. I don’t like that it doesn’t escalate and that Nick is ducking the question for awhile and then just answers it. That makes no sense.

• I like the food talk because it’s the way they start to bond, because it shows Nick’s changing, because it gives them something non-antagonistic to talk about, because it’s going to be a motif throughout, slopping into metaphor occasionally. But this is too much and it’s not relevant to the scene itself.

• This scene is supposed to be the first move in the partnership, but I don’t get there until the last beat. Nick should be pushing for that from the beginning, using what he knows as a bargaining chip.

• One of the things that I need to hit harder in that earlier scene in the bar is that Nick can’t quell Nita. He gives her the look that shuts everybody else up and she just laughs. This has to be the second beat of that move after the first time in the bar: he’s a con man trying to con her into a partnership and she’s just not having any of it. I need it to end in a draw, and then subsequent scenes will make it obvious that they have to reconsider, that Nick is going to have to take her as a partner and not a dupe, and that she’s going to have to treat him as an equal even though she thinks he’s nuts/a conman, but this has to be the first move. This entire scene has to be the first move.

• This also has to intro Sandy and Daphne and the diner as a setting.

• This has to move the relationship another step closer to the start of the romance, foreshadowing it. (The food bit does a lot of this.)

So:

Nita comes into diner, sees Sandy and Daphne, sits down.

Scene Begins. Nick joins her. (Scene begins when conflict begins.)

1. Nita asks about Joey/Nick has questions of his own.

* Food: Eggs

Nita returns to Joey question, pressing harder/Nick offers a trade, info about Joey for info about her parents. Something in the exchange makes him decide to con her into a fake partnership.

Things Go Wrong Turning Point. Nita knows he’s conning her, she’s even more suspicious.

* Food: French Toast

2. Nita goes along with the trade, but presses harder: Why are you asking these questions, what’s going on? Nick explains his problem.

Point of No Return (fake it till you make it)Nita decides that even though he’s nuts, she’ll treat him as sane to get this kind of info. .

* Food: Bacon.

3. Nita helps him out with Mr. Lemon info, tips him to the historical society to get him on her side, then hits him again about Joey.

Crisis Turning PointNick recognizes that she’s formidable when sober, suggests real partnership.

4. Climax Nita says no thanks, goes back to work.

So the scene is Nita questioning Nick, realizing he’s conning her, deciding to play along to get info, taken aback when he stops conning and offers her a real partnership, and rejecting the offer.

That is much tighter.

Now, what’s all that food doing in there?

I know I want it in there because it establishes the beginnings of the relationship and the motif, but neither of those things have anything to do with what the reader wants, which is story. So if I want to keep the food, I need to make it relevant.

Nita loves food. It’s one of the few things she’s positive about. Her goal in this scene is straightforward: Find out what Nick knows about Joey’s death. His goal is much more complex: get information about Joey’s death, his missing agents, clues to the Hellgate, and probably most important, who and what Nita is, without alerting her to the fact that he suspects she’s not human.

So Nita asks about Joey, but Nick’s distracted by the eggs. Why? I’ve already got that he yawned the night before, so he’s becoming human again. Do the eggs awaken a memory? Or did the process of becoming human just give him a sense of smell and taste buds? And does being with Nita have anything to do with that? Not in a supernatural sense, but just that he’s trying to connect to her to con her? Trying to understand who and what she is? It’s his first clue that she likes to talk about food, so that’s probably the key: he’s going to use the food to establish a bond.

He proposes the trade, and Nita plays by telling him about her mother, but then Nita rebuffs his con and asks about Joey, and he asks about French Toast to keep the conversation personal. Then he gets caught up in the French Toast.

He tells her enough about his job to draw her in; when she says, “I’ll pretend you’re telling the truth if you tell me what I need to know,” he knows he’s halfway there because if you pretend to believe something, you start to believe it, so he reinforces it with the bacon talk, and then gets caught up in the bacon.

The final beat is her giving him good information and him returning the favor, and that makes him realize that the smartest thing he can do is stop conning her and go into partnership.

She turns the partnership down and leaves, and he eats the rest of her French toast.

That’s closer.

The stuff that has to go: Grandpa’s bar and the cellphone and most of that first 300+ words

The stuff that has to be cut back: the food and the explanations of Nick’s job.

So next, break this down into four sections and rewrite for my first pass at a truck draft.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Always do the discovery draft FIRST. Analyze when you have the discovery draft of the scene and the overview of at least the act done so you know what the scene is about and what you should focus on. Discovery first, fix later.

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Act One: Getting Closer

So this week, I cogitated.

My first act was too long and too wordy. My fourth PoV was introduced too late. The threads of the main plot and the subplots weren’t coherent. The book didn’t know what it wanted to be. So I opened my Nita Curio file and did some mapping.

Story mapping for me (not necessarily for anybody else) is taking the essence of a scene–Protagonist and Goal, Antagonist and Goal, who wins, what plot does it move?–and reducing it down to a Curio card, and then arranging the cards in chronological order in columns that identify the setting. My curio cards look like this:

So at one glance, I can see that:

• It’s Nita’s PoV (yellow background to the box)

• The focus of the scene is on solving the mystery (the magnifying glass)

• The subtext of the scene is the relationship between Nita and Button (the sun)

• What Nita’s focusing on throughout the scene, her goal (do her job, the thing that gives her life meaning).

• What Button’s focusing on throughout the scene, her goal (keep her job, the thing that gives her life meaning.

• What climax the scene is heading for (Nita wins and gets out of the car, Button following)

Later on, Nita and Button revisit the partnership bit in the car, once they think they’re done investigating for the night:

• It’s Button’s PoV (pink background to the box)

• The focus of the scene is on the partnership (the sun)

• What Button’s focusing on throughout the scene, her goal (which side is best for her career).

• What Nita’s focusing on throughout the scene, her goal (setting Button free to save her career).

• What climax the scene is heading for (they’re partners heading into danger together; nobody thinks Nita’s going to stay in the car)

I can do that all analysis with text, but since there are sixteen scenes in Act One, I can’t see the progression at a glance in text. In Curio, I can.

• I can see that Nita has nine scenes and Nick has eight, which is the right balance; Nita’s the protagonist so she should have the edge.

• I can see that Button has two scenes which is right for a subplot, and that they’re distributed throughout the act and not clumped.

• I can see that Max (green card, bottom right) has one scene and that it happens too late in the act; not sure how to fix that but cogitating.

• I can see that they move throughout multiple settings on the island, developing the world in the background of the action, starting on Primrose street with the bar, Nick’s apt. and Nita’s house, then moving to the diner and the rest of retail Deville, then to the government buildings, including the historical society, and then farthest out to Hell and the Nature Preserve, a gradual progression from a closed setting (the bar) to a wild, open setting (Hell and the Nature Preserve) so the reader doesn’t get lost in the shifting scenery bouncing back and forth between settings.

• I can see (okay, it’s harder to see in this little graphic but obvious in Curio) that the mystery and love story continue throughout the plot, swapping main plot and subplot roles as the character arc demands.

Looking at this, my big structure problem is that Max’s PoV comes in so late. I’ll foreshadow Max to set him up, I can do that in the Belia phone call, but I’m not sure that’s enough, and since Nick can’t go to Hell any earlier, Max is pretty much stuck with a late intro. So lots of foreshadowing. I thought I was introducing Button’s PoV late, but I think I can get away with that since she’s so present in Nita’s scenes.

The point here is that I can fix this act because I can see it in this map. It meant cutting the lunch and morgue sequences, but I can either use them in the second act or just lose them forever; this act is tighter without them.

One big caveat here: I wrote over 60,000 words before I did this. Don’t start organizing until you’re well into your discovery draft. In this case, I had the first act discovery draft done, but I needed to focus it before I could move on to finishing the discovery drafts of the last three acts. I am not doing this for those three acts yet because I don’t know exactly what’s in them–I have a pretty good idea and a lot of it written, I just don’t know all of it yet–so I have to keep on writing to discover the rest of the story. But now I know what it rests on, so I’m good to go.

EDITED TO ADD:

Fixed the numbering and added notes as to the time progression, which wouldn’t be on my map, they’re just there for you all.

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Cherry Saturday 2-4-2017

Today is Wear Red Day.

(Sorry about the Courier. No idea why that happened. Jane, I set the puppy free of the bow.)

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