Once I decided to write a mystery novel, I worked through a number of ideas. With those ideas still spinning in my head, I got paper and pen and wrote a brief outline. After the outline, I filled in a couple of possible scenarios, with victim and murderer. That accomplished, I came to a standstill, wondering what to do next.
For a few months I did nothing, thinking about my story every now and again. Finally, I decided I would either do something about the book or forget it entirely. I didn’t want to forget it so I set aside a weekend to go away and be by myself with nothing but my laptop, paper and pens. Before I set out, I went to the bookstore and bought three books on how to write a mystery.
What happened that weekend still surprises me. I settled down to read some of the books on mystery writing. They inspired me. A chapter in one of the books dealt with the beginning sentence. The beginning. That was where I would start. I set aside my fears and plunged in. A few hours later, I had my first few paragraphs written. They were OK. Actually I thought they were more than OK so I pushed on.
Here is where the surprises come in. The first surprise is that I didn’t expect to love my first paragraph. That paragraph is the most satisfying thing I have ever written. It told me that I might actually end up writing a novel. The second unbelievable turn of events was that the novel I was writing had NOTHING at all to do with the outline I had so carefully crafted. The protagonist was 25 years younger than the original and the setting was completely different. Once I started writing, the story took over.
Now that I had a good opening, I should have stopped and read a little more. But, I was on a roll. Once I started writing, it didn’t seem like it was very hard to do at all. Not until I re-read what I had written did I realize I was wrong. I was perplexed. Everything after the first few paragraphs was awful. It was all interesting stuff but it seemed to drag. What could be wrong? When I got back to my reference books (by that time there were considerably more than three), I discovered one of the problems.
April 7, 2010 at 8:19 pm |
It is amazing what distance will do. It can have the opposite effect also. I gave up on text for months, began a writing group, and then realized much of it was very good. It was only my beginning that wasn’t working. Distance makes the writing grow stronger.