Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 226

I Have Yet To See FIRST STAR I SEE TONIGHT, But . . .

Today, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, the Queen of Romantic Comedy and My Close Personal Friend, releases “the most important book of the 21st century,” First Star I See Tonight, a book I have not read even though somebody said, “I’ll send you a copy.” Well, she’s busy. Because she has a new book out that you should buy. Here’s what you need to know about it:

“Pal Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ newest, FIRST STAR I SEE TONIGHT, goes on sale August 23. He’s the recently retired quarterback of the Chicago Stars football team. She’s the founder of a brand new detective agency. Unfortunately for her (but not for us), her first assignment is to follow him. It’s not going to go well. Plenty of SEP’s trademark humor, great conflict, and lots of sizzle.”

From the blurb on SEP’s website, I know this heroine is my kind of protagonist: When football star Cooper Graham spots Piper Dove following him, Piper decides not to go with the truth–“Why yes, I am a detective”–and instead confesses to criminal intent as the lesser of two evils: ““The fact is . . . I’m your stalker. Not full-out barmy. Just . . . mildly unhinged.” Since “mildly unhinged” pretty much sums up some of my favorite SEP heroines, I’m already in her corner. Add in a great starred Kirkus Review (and those people are not easy to please)–“This thoroughly enjoyable novel delivers a swift kick to the heart—an essential summer read”–and it’s clear that you should BUY THIS BOOK.

Also “laughter,” “heart,” and “sexy” are key words. As in “This book will put much laughter in your heart, you sexy reader.”

Here’s the gorgeous cover:

It’s by this equally gorgeous author:

I’ll let you know specifics when I’ve read the book, but I can assure you that it’s a Susan Elizabeth Phillips romance which means it’s excellent romantic comedy. (It does have a football player hero instead of the Devil, but there’s no accounting for taste. Some people are just strange.) You should buy this book because it’s by the Queen. There’s a reason she’s the Queen. (It’s not because of her office, though.)

Also Charles will appreciate it.

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Monday Notes

There was a wasp in my bedroom a couple of weeks ago, and I thought about getting a shoe and killing it, and then I thought, “No, be one with Nature.” Then it stung me on the bottom of my foot, incredible pain (I beat the damn thing to death with my slipper), and then I limped for two days. Fuck Nature, this is MY BEDROOM. Then last week I looked up and there was a spider the size of Milton (almost) on my bedroom wall. So I cut the top off an empty water bottle, trapped it inside–sweet Christ that thing was huge–and then took it out on the porch and threw the whole thing over the rail (the spider lived, I’m not a monster). I know spiders are Our Friends, but not in my freaking bedroom. Also, they bite. Then last night, a giant bee started harassing my reading lamp, so I water-bottled it and flung it outside to buzz again, too. And that’s before we get to the no-see-ums and other general insect population munching on my flesh. (Benadryl Itch Stopping Cream: it’s like 42, the answer to everything.)

This has been your Nature in New Jersey post for the month.

One of the many things I love about my dogs is the way they all pick up their heads when I close my laptop and then they run for the door because we’re going OUTSIDE (sometimes) and they’ll get COOKIES (sometimes) and then they’ll sit in the grass blissfully until Milton (the Houdini of dachshunds) manages to get outside the fence while I’m not looking and they run for the gate because we’re going INSIDE and then snuggle down on the BEST PLACE EVER (my bed) and snooze. I need to recapture that kind of enthusiasm for life; after all I’m pretty much living the same life they are.

I went spam-diving to see if I could find Sure Thing’s lost comment a few weeks ago (wasn’t there) and found a wealth of names to use in fiction. Do spam bots just randomly generate names? Because these were great. I’m pretty sure Randell Orts is dating Dahlia Oik (she calls him “Randy” and says “Randy Ort to do something about that” and then goes off into gales of snorting laughter; he kills her at the end of Act One). And you just know that Lauralee Wentcell keeps Dorian Schiveley around as a back-up date, not realizing that some day, he’s going to twirl his mustache and tie her to some railroad tracks, which is when she’ll meet Ford Shelby, a mountie, who will save her and vanquish the evil Dorian (who looks remarkably young for his age). And I don’t know about Leland Wetherall’s love life, but I’m positive he works in a bank.

In other news, I’m still on the first act while writing other parts as they come to me no matter where they are. Because chronological order is for wimps. I know where I want the characters to start now, so that’s something. And I get snatches of dialogue and scenes that I have no idea where they’re going, like this.

[Button pulls a gun on Max.]

Max: You’re three foot tall, you look like a dandelion, and your name is Button. I’m terrified.”

[Button shoots him.]

I also broke the first act down into scene sequences which was reassuring because, hey, there’s a pattern there, and it pretty much establishes everything I need established. Of course as I get more of the other acts done, I’ll have more to establish, but I think the first act is structured right, even if it’s not written right yet.

First Scene Sequence/Invitation to the Party: Meet Nita (Nita vs. Button), Meet Nick (Nick vs. Vinnie), Meet Nita and Nick (Nita vs. Nick), your romance for tonight.

Second Scene Sequence/Complication: Nick deals minions and antagonist (Nick vs. Dagals), Nita deals with minions and antagonist (Nita vs. Button), Nick and Nita deal with each other at breakfast (Nita vs. Nick).

Third Scene Sequence/Barriers and Idiots: Nick and Nita at the morgue (Nick vs. Nita), Nita at work (Nita vs. Lieut.), Nick at work (Nick vs. Cromas), Nita at work (Nita vs. Button), Nick at work (Nick vs. Satan), Nita at work (Nita vs. Mort).

Fourth Scene Sequence/Enough of This Crap: N & N at Hell Bar (Nick vs. Nita), N & N at Sadie’s (Nita vs. Nick), N & N in the Nature Preserve (Nita vs. Ranger Rich)

Fifth Scene Sequence/Nita’s Head Explodes: Still trying to cut this one back . . .

I actually wrote the first draft of this post weeks ago, and there was this:

“Democratic convention this week; it’ll be fun to see contrast between the two. I am expecting something that’s so tightly organized that nothing happens, except that the Russians just hacked the DNC and proved that Bernie was right, they were out to get him (how is Wasserman-Schultz still in charge, there?), so that’ll be fun. Also Tim Kaine seems like a cheerful guy with his head screwed on right, so that’ll be a nice change from “The Apocalypse is coming and only I can save you!” Trump. Is anybody watching “Braindead?” I’m starting to think it’s a documentary.”

And now Debbie is history, and so are the Khans in a different way (and I kinda love it that Muslim Americans may have saved the country) and the election has only gotten more bizarre–Trump spoke to a crowd in Florida on Thursday and said, “It’s great to be here on Friday,” and the crowd yelled back, “It’s Thursday,” but he insisted it was Friday . . . Oh, well, it was Friday somewhere (Hello, Australia, I think. I remember getting two Tuesdays on the way back home . . .). Trump also just threatened to bar the New York Times again because that’s a thing that would be possible to do. “They can’t cover me if I don’t let ’em.” And he also told a group of Evangelicals to vote for him because if he’s not elected he’ll go to hell. In other news, Russia just released more hacked Democratic e-mails. Jill Stein has grave doubts about the oversight on our vaccines (because the anti-vaxxers really need another reason to endanger everybody else) and real fears about the impact of wifi on children’s brains (not a thing in real life) and . . . Oh, God, make it stop. American elections are always ridiculous but this is like Christopher Guest met Kafka and they got drunk and formed a suicide pact. Another two and a half months of this unless the Republicans hire somebody to do the Second Amendment thing since they’re losing faith in the Pivot; they’re definitely possibly seriously considering cutting off funding to The Donald in October. We’ll get back to you on that.

Can it just be November 9 now?

Oh, and the first Wonder Woman trailer dropped last month. I am very happy:

Okay, too much slow motion (can somebody do something about Zack Snyder?) but LUCY DAVIS! And period costumes. And Wonder Woman with a sword in the back of her fancy dress. Gal Gadot looks fabulous and Chris Pine looks pretty good, too, given the thankless role he’s playing. Really, this could be good. Especially since the Wonder Woman pjs I bought for Don’t Look Down disintegrated awhile back. Surely there will be new WW pjs when this comes out. I still have a lot of my Wonder Woman stuff from back then. VERY EXCITED ABOUT WONDER WOMAN.

Plus the election will be over then and with any luck there will be a woman in the White House, so TAKE THAT, Y CHROMOSOMES.

Okay, sorry about that. #NotAllMen. #JustTooDamnManyOfThem.

In other news, Bantam is running a a price promo on TRUST ME ON THIS, lowering the price of the digital edition to 1.99 from August 19 to September 2. Or so they say.

Also, kill wasps as soon as they show up so you don’t have to deal with the aftermath. (I’m fine now, but do NOT get stung on the bottom of your foot, people, or anywhere else for that matter.)

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Cherry Saturday 8-20-2016

Today is National Radio Day.

Old radios are vintage art. Full confession: I have a space heater that looks like a radio because I love the way these little guys look.

About the current state of radio, I know nothing.

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Students Question, Ancient Author Answers

• A while back a lovely teacher whose class was reading some Crusie got in touch, and I told her I’d answer any questions her students had.

• I’m behind on everything this week and need an Argh post.

You can see where I’m going with this.

******************************************

1 Since the ABC story is focused on Zoe (even though Quinn is the narrator) what made you decide to focus the novel on Quinn vs continuing the story of Zoe?

One of the ways you know who the story belongs to (the central character or the protagonist) is who changes?

Zoe is very sure of herself, always knows who she is, and is never at a loss as to what to do next. Zoe’s a lot of fun, but she can’t own a story because she’s not vulnerable. (This is why Superman needs Kryptonite.)

Quinn, on the other hand, is really vulnerable. She loves Zoe, she’d like to be Zoe, but she defines herself as Not-Zoe. That means that Quinn is in trouble (vulnerable) and in conflict (she loves Zoe but she wants her gone), which means that she’s going to act, fight to get what she wants (Zoe out of the house so she can have some space), and the fight is going to change her. Her character is going to arc.

If you’ve read The Great Gatsby, it’s the same story dynamic. Gatsby is larger than life and fascinating, but he never changes. Nick, the observer narrator, changes radically because of his relationship and experiences with Gatsby.

The person who owns the story is almost always the person whose goal moves the story and who is most changed by it.

2 Why/how did you know to put the novel in 3rd person, instead of 1st person?

Point of view is almost instinctive; the story often tells you what it needs to be. For me personally, not as a general rule of thumb, my novels are usually in third person because I can’t take the claustrophobia of a first person narrative for that long. I have one novel in progress that’s in first person, but I’m having a tough time with it, and it might be that I just can’t do novel-length first person.

3 How many rough draft “darlings” did you kill before you got to the finished version of your novel?

Many, many, many. It’s hard to tell because I revise on the computer, but I revise over and over and over again. I’m about to post a later draft of a book I’m working on so people can compare it to an earlier draft, and I’ll send the links so you can compare the two next week. I’d probably done two or three drafts before the earlier draft, I’ve done at least four since then to get to the current draft, and I’ll do at least a dozen more. But every writer is different, so it’s basically, do as many as you need.

4 Are there still things in the book you would like to change/fix?

Oh, hell, yes. There’s always more to do. But you get to a point where you start rewriting all the spirit out of it. In the beginning, it’s really hard to get into a book, to make it come alive in my head, but once it starts to glow, then I can’t stop writing it. And then the glow starts to fade and my window closes and I know it’s not perfect, it’s never going to be perfect, but if I keep going, I’m going to ruin what I have. So I let it go.

5 How do you make sure each character has a distinct voice and they don’t blur into each other?

That’s a big problem for me because I’m all about the snappy patter. I go through in the rewrite and make sure the rhythms are different and they’re using different expressions, swear words, and so on, but I can also track people growing closer by how they start mimicking each other’s speech patterns and word choices. Mostly though, I just have to conceive of them as very different people so that I know that while X says this all the time, Y wouldn’t dream of it. It’s part of revising.

6 You used short stories to as a way of planning for your first novel. Do you still follow/recommend that approach?

I really don’t use short stories at all. I had to write them because I was in an MFA program. The ABC story was a class assignment, and then I fell in love with Quinn and wanted to know what happened to her when she grew up. I think that a lot of writers are born with the kind of story they’re comfortable with. My creative writing prof was great at short stories and novellas but couldn’t write a novel. Mostly, I just write the novels. So nope, I don’t recommend that approach.

7 How do you decide your major plot points?

I start with a character talking in my head and I do a lot of writing stuff down as other people join her and they banter and argue. No story, just a lot of people talking. And as I listen to them, I can see their relationships and I can see what they’re upset about, the places they’re vulnerable, and that’s when I try to isolate the conflict: what war is this woman fighting and how is it going to escalate? And from that I have to figure out who’s on the other side of the battle. That gives me protagonist and antagonist and conflict. I make sure they’re in a crucible, a conflict that neither can escape from, and then I figure out how they’d fight that war and escalate it. But mostly, I’m just writing down what I hear in my head and I order it later. I know a lot of people who outline first, and that’s good, too. For more about conflict, go to the Writing Romance website where I’ve broken this down into short posts. It’s a lot clearer there:

The Conflict Unit

8 When you have lots of different paths you want to go down in a story, how do you choose which to follow?

I follow my protagonist. I go inside her head and think, “What would she do now?” Your protagonist and antagonist determine what happens; they can only do what they’re capable of physically and emotionally, and they push each other to the next level of the conflict by fighting back in the best way they know how.

9 What advice do you have for creating believable characters? Do you decide how your characters will interact with each other before you write them or do you make it up as you write?

Keeping in mind that there is no one right way and this is just my way, I listen to my characters. I write pages of them just talking. And then I build them as I discover their speech patterns, their thoughts, their actions (actions are always the best clues), the way other people react to them. You have to listen to your characters as they swim up from your subconscious and then rewrite the raw first drafts to focus them. I think if I decided what they were going to do before I knew them, I’d kill the things that make them feel alive on the page. But lots of writers outline first and then put their characters through their paces. It really is your choice.

10 How do you deal with cliches when you encounter them in your writing?

My favorite thing to do with clichés and stereotypes is to turn them on their heads. Start out with a grim, brave, relentless, highly skilled spy and then make him helpless in the hands of his mother (Burn Notice). Start with a brilliant, beautiful, perfect med student who has the perfect job and the perfect boyfriend and make her a zombie (iZombie). If you don’t flip clichés and stereotypes, they flatten the story, and readers get bored, so there’s no point in using them. If you can flip them, people are surprised and become more invested in the story. I’m writing a story now about a no-nonsense cop who doesn’t believe in the supernatural, she’s a Scully for her twin brother who wants to believe. That’s been done. But then she finds out she’s not human. Okay, that I can have a good time with, and so, fingers crossed, can the reader.

11 What is your revision strategy?

That’s so nice, that you think I have a strategy. Basically, it’s write, think about it, rewrite, think about it, rewrite . . . . Once I’ve got a significant chunk of text, say 50-60,000 words, I look at structure and use that to shape the story: Structure Unit.

Then I send the polished draft out to beta readers who scribble all over it and send it back and I rewrite again. Then I send it to my editor who sends me an editing letter and I rewrite again. Then I get the copy edits and I rewrite again. Then they take it away from me and I get the published book and wish I could rewrite again. Okay, not really because by then it’s DONE, but it’s never perfect and I always find things I’d change.

12 How much do you write in a day?

Some days, not at all, some days eight or nine hours straight. Usually somewhere in between, although sometimes I have to walk away from a book for a week or two just to be able to see it clearly.

13 How do you deal with writers’ block?

Okay, you’re talking to a writer who hasn’t published in six years, so clearly I don’t deal with it. I think it’s fear that shuts us down mostly, plus the imposter syndrome: I’m a fraud, I’ve lost whatever I’ve had and I probably never had it, the first twenty books were flukes. The biggest thing for overcoming writer’s block is trip over a story that won’t let you go so that you have no choice but to write it just to get those damn voices out of your head. A good book for this is Ralph Keye’s The Courage To Write, mainly because by the time you’ve finished it, you know that almost every writer ever in print has felt that way, too.

14 Is it possible to be an author but still have a regular job, too?

It’s not only possible, for most authors it’s essential. There’s not as much money in publishing as most people think, so the majority of writers keep a day job. In a lot of ways, it’s a good thing because you’re interacting with a lot of people and learning a lot more about the world which you can’t do in front of a computer.

15. What’s the most enjoyable thing for you in the writing process?

Moving into that world and discovering the story as I write. All kinds of things happen as I write and the story changes even as the words appear on the screen. I always have a fairly good idea of what the story is about when I begin, and that’s never what the story is about when I’m finished. It’s like reading a book I’ve never read before. It’s wonderful.

ETA: For those of you curious about the stories, there’s more here on the website: Crazy People

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Cherry Saturday 8-13-1016

This is National Catfish Month.

We already did Catfish Day (those fish have a great PR firm), so let’s focus on the catfish in your computer:

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Nothing to See Here . . .

It’s been glorious here in northern New Jersey where it’s pretty much always beautiful, but now is also balmy, if you can call temps in the 80s balmy, which I can because I have air conditioning. Also allergies, so I’m sneezing a lot.

I am also going down for the third time under the weight of the news. I hate Donald Trump, not just for the dire threat he poses the republic, but because he’s such a banal asshole. If I have to read about this jerk every day, the least he could do is be interesting instead of repeating stupid and dangerous. Stupid-and-dangerous was interesting for awhile, I grant you, but now he’s just churning his schtick. The problem with Donald Trump’s narrative is that he doesn’t ARC. His character path is a flat line. If you’re gonna be the center of a story, Don, you have to change. Sad!

My house is also still a dire mess. I’m following the “do something every day,” but the problem is that that’s a teaspoon and I need a backhoe. I’m trying to lure Krissie and Lani down here under the guise of a goddess weekend and then making them help me fill forty-six dumpsters with the things I can’t get rid of because I might NEED them someday. Lani is excellent at that to the point of ruthlessness: “Have you used that in the last fifteen minutes? No? It goes.” Krissie says, “Put it in a box, I’ll take it to Goodwill on my way home.” Between the two of them, I might be able to see my floor again.

And then there’s the book. I hit that “This is awful, I can’t write, the first twenty books were just a fluke” stage earlier this week, took a deep breath, and told myself to knock it off. So what if it’s awful? Just write the damn thing. I think part of it is that first acts are always a PITA because they’re set-up. You have to introduce all the characters and all the subplots and the setting and the sense of the world while establishing the main conflict in the first pages and moving the plot rapidly. I like Agatha Christie’s solution: Put a list of characters with their descriptions at the start of the story along with a map:”Here are the people, here is the place, now leave me alone, I’m gonna write a puzzle.” One good thing I did is set this on an island so I have a finite, focused setting for the main plot. One bad thing I did was to include the other world which means I have to keep thinking about the damn place. Also, people generally do not like my supernatural stuff as much, which is a shame because I’m kind of into supernatural right now. Where was I? Right, shut up and write the damn book, Crusie.

And then there’s the Olympics, which I do not watch, but I have been glancing at out of the corner of my eye. That diving pool that turned green because of the algae? The kayaker who hit a submerged couch? Who’s running these games, Trump? (Maybe. That couch was HUGE.) (Sorry.) On the other hand there’s Biles and Ledecky and Phelps, who is evidently some kind of mutant, plus the entire US gymnastics team, and that swimmer who pushed the refugee boat ashore, and . . . . Finally, something that makes me feel good about humanity again. Although that algae . . .

Yeah, this post is a waste of digital space. So I’ll give you something that Rozasharn already gave us in the comments, this website that posts pictures of real people with their heights and weights so you can see what somebody who’s 5’8 and weighs 150 actually looks like: The Photographic Height and Weight Chart. And thank you Rosasharn for the link. I was thinking I needed to lose more than I do: 150 looks pretty damn good on real, live people.

And speaking of politics (ARGH), I love that poster at the top of the page. It’s from the store on Clinton’s website, but the Hillary is pretty subtle up there so if you’re anti-Hillary, you could probably just use some white-out.

And now back to work. Or something. Maybe I’ll make pumpkin custard, that sounds good. And banana bread since my bananas are no longer the color of the Olympic diving pool. And brownies, brownies are always good. Also, the upcoming Cherry Saturday post has a picture of a poodle. That’ll be better than this one.

So what’s new with all of you?

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Cherry Saturday 8-6-2016

This is Romance Awareness Month.

Which you were probably aware of.

Or if you’d rather . . .

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They Are What They Wear: Character and Clothing

I’ve mentioned here before that I don’t like lavish description. Significant detail, that’s the ticket. Readers are going to latch onto anything you put in a story that seems significant to them, but if you bury the good stuff under a thousand details, they’re going to start skimming and miss it. Plus general description is not action, folks, so you’re slowing down your story if you stop to describe everything. Short significant detail given as part of the ongoing action is the way to go. (As always, your mileage may differ.) One place detail is particularly important for character building is clothing.

I’ve never cared for the books that list the protagonists’ clothing by labels; I figure that must mean the characters care about the labels, and I don’t. And I get really tired of the hero in well-worn jeans even though I have nothing against well-worn jeans; it’s just that they’re ALL wearing well-worn jeans, they probably all shop at the Well-Worn Jeans Store, and I’d like to see a little individuality. So mostly what I’m looking for when clothing pops up as a descriptor is some indication that this is something interesting about the character, especially if it has significance to the community. If the writer put it on the page, I figure, she must have had a plan.

That’s why I love Liz’s t-shirts in Lavender’s Blue, not just because they’re great t-shirts and I own most of them, but because her mother and aunt don’t like them, so every time she puts one on, it’s a rebellion. I love them because she uses them to construct a narrative about a better life, the life she made for herself after she left her hometown and started from scratch, using the shirts as postcards from the past. I love them because her idea of dressing up is putting a suit jacket over one of them, accepting a facade but making sure everybody knows it’s a facade because they can clearly see the T-shirt underneath. I love them because they’re comfortable, unpretentious, and funny, and that’s what I want Liz to be. Of course, I didn’t know all of that when I started writing Liz. I just knew she liked t-shirts.

Which brings us to Nita. Several of you have pointed out that my first drafts are almost all dialogue. Yep. But eventually I must force myself to flesh out the world in general and the protagonist in particular, and somewhere in there I have to notice what she’s wearing. In the early drafts, Nita had different jackets, finally ending up in a black hoodie. There are many reasons for this–it’s cold out, it’s the middle of the night, she just got out of bed, she’s sick and wants something soft and warm–but the big one is that Nita would wear a black hoodie. Not a red hoodie, not a jacket, nothing with a slogan or picture; Nita is practical and projects a no-nonsense persona. A black hoodie is the “said” of the clothing conversation: Nobody notices it’s there because they’re so used to seeing it everywhere. So Nita’s wearing a black hoodie. But the more I revise, the more detail shows up, and in the latest revision, as Nita gets out of the car, she’s wearing poodle pajamas under the hoodie.

Yes, I was surprised, too.

I remember thinking, “Nope, nope,” as I typed but I kept going because the scene was finally getting some shapte to it, and I can always cut poodle pajamas later. Except that people kept commenting on them because of course they would. Mort liked them, and Clint laughed at them, and Nick in the next scene files the pajamas away so he can make sense of them in the context of more information later. Those poodle pants were useful in characterizing others.

They looked like this:

That’s not what Nita looks like, but those are the pajamas.

So great, the pjs are helpful for characterizing others, but I didn’t see how they were going to be helpful characterizing Nita. So I had to cogitate. Beyond that, I had to become Nita: “What the hell am I doing in poodle pajamas?”

Well, she’s sick, and it’s past midnight so she was in bed, so she’d have been wearing pajamas when she got the call. But if it was an official call, she’d have gotten dressed. If she’d known it was a crime scene, she’d have gotten dressed. So she didn’t know it was a crime scene. Why would she just put a hoodie over her pjs and go out in the dark? The only possible reason is that Mort called her to come help him. No, not called, she’d have asked what was going on. So he texted her for help and then refused to pick up the phone. She’s annoyed, but it’s Mort, and then her new partner calls and leaps at the chance to drive her to pick up her brother who probably lost his keys. She puts the hoodie on for warmth figuring she won’t even have to get out of the car.

I kind of like that. The bit with Button is convoluted, but the rest of it is practical. She’s sick, the pjs are warm, she’s not getting out of the car, she doesn’t care what her new partner thinks because this is what you get when you get Nita, plus the hoodie is now oversize, maybe one of Mort’s, so its down past her hips. People are going to be looking at poodle-covered knees. Pink and turquoise poodles on a white background, so they’re going to be noticeable, even in the dark, but only about twenty-four inches of them. Subtle.

Okay, that’s why she’s wearing them at the crime scene. But why is she wearing them at all? And not just “why would this character wear poodle pajamas” but why the hell did the Girls send up poodle pajamas from the depth of my subconscious?

I decided she has poodle pajamas because either Mort or Keres gave them to her for her birthday the year before. Probably Keres. Nita loves dogs but doesn’t have one because her job keeps her away from home too much, and Keres knows her little sister well and thinks that underneath all that black she wears, she probably, secretly, subconsciously yearns for pink and turquoise. Plus Keres loves her a lot and would like to hug her but knows Nita isn’t good with affection, so it’s Keres’s way of holding her and keeping her warm. And Nita was surprised when she opened them, and was polite about them at the time, but now she loves them because they’re worn and comfortable and they feel like a hug from Keres, even if she doesn’t consciously think about it. None of that will be in the book, of course, but it’s interesting, if only because I had no idea Nita wanted to be hugged that much since she’d move away if anybody tried it.

Another piece of the puzzle fell into place when I finally got to Button’s reaction in her PoV scene: Button isn’t sure about the pj pants when she first sees them but if that’s how Nita rolls, then that’s fine. But then Nita walks into a crime scene in pajama pants and dominates the two alpha males who are trying to control things, then walks into a bar and faces down a thug and the Devil, all while wearing poodle pants. Nita is going to own any situation she’s in, regardless of her attire. The fact that she can do it in poodle pants just makes her even more awesome. Button considers getting poodle pants.

Okay, given all of that, the poodle pjs are a significant detail. (I was going to add bunny slippers, but that was a bridge too far.) But I don’t think they’re the most significant detail because other characters keep commenting on them. I think really strong significant detail is the stuff that nobody in the story notices, the stuff that’s dropped in, and then the story moves on and only the reader picks up the significance, a lot of the time subliminally. Which is why I love the over-sized black hoodie that’s too big for her and covers most of the poodle pjs and keeps her comfortable, a barrier between the outside world and her Inner Poodle. I think it is Mort’s, I think she stole it from him because it feels like he’s hugging her, that with the poodles and the hoodie, she’s wrapped in the family she loves and that loves her unconditionally albeit cautiously. The hoodie-with-poodles is Nita’s armor against the world, so Button’s got it backward: Nita’s strength isn’t that she can overcome the poodles, it’s that the poodles give her strength. She hasn’t completely smothered who she is. Her Inner Poodle can defeat anything. Imagine if she let it out to play . . .

Those poodles are staying.

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Drafting Nita Dodd

As we all know, it takes me forever to write a book. That’s because I don’t know what the story is until I see what I’ve written. And then I think about it. And then I write another draft to add what I’ve thought about. And then I look at the shape of it and realize that it has no shape, so I start thinking about antagonists. And other stuff comes up. And I rewrite it again. And then . . .

Well, you get the drift.

If you go here, you’ll find a page with links to three of the early drafts of the first scene of The Devil in Nita Dodd.

The first one is just getting something down on paper.

The second one is slowing down and adding some significant detail.

The third one is an attempt at antagonist-based structure. It fails, but it’s better than the first two.

That’s really the key to drafting. It doesn’t matter if the newest draft is good, it just has to be better than the last one. And then the next one has to be better than that one . . .

It’s a process.

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Today in Research

I have a tab across the top of my browser labeled “Nita” and it’s where I put the bookmarks for anything I find that I want to get back to later for the book. Of course, once it’s there, I forget about it, but I just put a new mark in there (for a real post that’s coming up tomorrow probably) and for once I stopped and looked at my research:

That’s not all of it, of course, but it is a reminder that I should probably put “I’M A WRITER, NOT A SATANIST, OKAY?” somewhere in there. Writers are like porn readers; we really need to make arrangements for somebody to come in and clear out our browser histories and bookmarks after we die or people will get the wrong impression.

I have other research, of course, including the map of Nantucket that came today to join the map of Mackinac that came yesterday, the multiple books on demons and angels, and the pajamas I just ordered, but I think the bookmark tab pretty much says it all.

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