Second, we’re going to discuss Chad tomorrow, so I’m not ignoring your disapproval.  He has to stay, so we can figure that out on Monday.

And now the next point: We have two protagonists, which normally I’m against, but for our collaborations it’s essential.  That is, this is not a book about Anna who meets Nate, or Nate who meets Anna, this is a book about Anna and Nate, equally.  Trickier, but since Bob writes Nate, I don’t dwell on it.

One of the things I loved about the idea of cutting that first scene (one of several things) is that Chapter Two, in Nate’s PoV, is about him at work.  And the careers these two people have are crucial not only to their characters but to the plot and setting of the book.  So starting with them both at work is obvious, except I didn’t see it until you all said, “You know that first bit in the pool house?  Cut that.”

Then there’s the contrast in characters.  The old “He’s firefighter and she’s an arsonist” never worked for me because I think that no matter how different people are on the surface, they have to have the same values to connect at a deep level.  But differences are good, they can pull each other toward a healthy middle ground.  Surface differences, same values.

So I have Anna, trying to stay in her lane because her mother raised to be a good girl because she comes from a large criminal family.  Lovely people, just shifty as hell.  So she never takes chances, always follows orders, is helpful and cooperative at all times.  AKA: Boring as hell.

And then there’s Nate, happy-go-lucky, funny, laid-back, reluctant to take on responsibility, hates paperwork, very good at taking orders, very sure of who he is and what he wants.  AKA: Fun.

You see my problem.  I’m writing the dud.

Okay, they’re both going to have huge character arcs, but Anna has to be as interesting as Nate from the start or why would he connect with her?  (Well, she offers him sex, so yeah, but there’s more book after the one night stand.)

Usually, I can do this with inner dialogue; what she thinks and what she says are two different things that gradually arc together until she’s saying it out loud.  But there’s only so much you can accomplish with voice alone.  And Anna cannot be a drag in the first chapter, especially since coming up right behind her is Nate being charming as hell.

So how do I characterize her?

The dog is important.  The fact that she chooses the dog is huge for me.  Then there’s the people she meets, the way she treats them.  She doesn’t like Janice, but she’s nice to her.  She has a good friend in Gracie and they trust each other, root for each other.   The way the protagonist acts around people (and dogs) does a lot to characterize. She’s even polite to Chad.  I think the fact that she’s a teacher and loves it tells you more about her.  Later on she interacts with kids, but for right now the teacher thing is enough.  So she’s a nice person who loves her job and is good at it.

Not enough. So how does she handle conflict because every scene should have conflict.  And because she’s a get-along girl, she doesn’t.  She caves.  She needs to cave in the beginning because when everything goes to hell (that’s coming right up), she finally has to cowgirl up and get out of the truck, so to speak.  But we’re establishing baseline here, so she has to cave.  Also I need to get her to Atlantic City so she can meet Nate.

And that’s all I’ve got in this beginning, plus her voice, which is pretty low key, which is not good because Nate’s voice is loud and active and charming as all hell.

So this is Bob’s fault for writing Nate too well.

Okay, no, it’s my fault because I cannot get Anna.  I believe I’ve mentioned this several times before on this blog.  Over the months.  Years.  And it’s late in the day for this; Bob gave me back a pretty much completed draft weeks ago, and I’ve been staring into the abyss ever since thinking, “Why is Anna such a drag?”

Argh.

I am now going to rewrite that opening with a Better Anna, and tomorrow I will post the rewrite (link at the bottom of this page) followed by Chapter Two, Nate, who needs no rewrite, the bastard.  Also tomorrow: Antagonists, or Why We Need Chad.

So here’s the situation on Day One:  Bob’s part of the book is done, mine is a mess.  In particular:

1.  This book starts too damn slow.  My fault.  I’m wordy.
2. My protagonist, Anna, is blah.
3. There’s too much going on in her life and I have to cut some of the subplots.  Unfortunately they’re all woven into the novel throughout.
4. My YEC is yucky.

Aside from that, not much is wrong.

So back to (1,) half of the plot of this book is the romance, of course, and it’s really crucial.  And the romance starts at about 30,000 words into the story.  Well, we had a lot of set-up to do.  The problem with set-up is that it’s stuff we want the reader to know, not stuff the reader wants to know.  So I started to hack.

Before, in Chapter One, Anna had a conflict with her mother, then in Chapter Three she had a conflict at work, then in Chapter Five she had to go to Atlantic City where she had a conflict with a business deal and then Chapter Seven, she saw Nate.

No, I don’t know what I was thinking.

So now, in Chapter One, Anna deals with her mother and the people at work, in Chapter Three, she takes care of the business problem and then goes downstairs to the casino, and in Chapter Five she sees Nate (who has Chapters Two and Four, in case you were wondering).

That’s 8911 words. Much better.  But unfortunately Chapter One is 3500 words, which is about 1000 over my upper limit for first scenes (later scenes need to be under 2000) because longer scenes screw with pacing.  That’s four pages too long.

So today’s job is to cut that scene.  And since you’re all just sitting around reading blog posts, I thought it would be right if you HELPED by pointing out the stuff that readers would skim.   So here’s Chapter One of Arresting Anna, aka the intro chapter that never ends.

ARRESTING ANNA, CHAPTER ONE

And if it’s August 6th when you are, Jodi Taylor’s sequel to Smallhope and Pennyroyal, A Family Affair, just dropped.  And that’s what I’ll be reading tonight.

So what good book did you read this week?

So I watched two old romcoms last night since movies are pretty much based on action.  One of them blew the romance, the other nailed it, and I realized that the reason was good old Aristotle again: It’s what the lovers did.

The movie that nailed it did it all the way through, arcing the romance through action, but especially in a scene in a restaurant.  They’re having lunch and arguing about business, but all the way through, he takes his ice out of his glass and puts in hers, she takes the garnish off his salad and puts it on hers, he takes the beets out of her salad and puts them in his, and when he misses one, she says, “Beet!  Beet!” which lets the viewer know that they’re not swiping from each other, they’re taking care of each other, that over the months they’ve been working with each other, they’ve come to really know each other.  I loved that scene the first time I saw it, and watching it again last night just sold it all over again.

The thing about the beets is that it’s not a romantic gesture.  It’s not serenading somebody (although that can work if it’s not a traditional serenade like John Cusack holding up that boom box or Heath Ledger escaping campus police while singing in a football stadium–it’s not bringing flowers and candy, it’s not going down on one knee, and it’s definitely not sex.  It’s throwaway moments that betray how the characters feel, straight from their lizard brains to their bodies, the stuff they so subconsciously because it’s what the other needs in the moment.  And for some reason, the smaller the action, the more it resonates.  Of course, they’d save each other from death, they’d probably save anybody from death.  But beets?  Beets are personal, a tiny detail most other people wouldn’t know, and if they did, wouldn’t think of acting on.

There are a hundred other scenes from other movies where one person just reacts to the other without saying anything or calling attention to it–John Cusack kicking broken glass out of Ione Skye’s way as they walk, Matthew Macfadyen’s famous hand flex—but getting that on paper is tough because it’s words describing actions, and the more words you use, the more you’re emphasizing what has to be a throwaway moment (that restaurant scene is not about the beets).  Fewer words, bigger impact.

So that one of the ten million details I’m working on now.

What do you think?

I dunno.

So of course I’m asking you, the people the newsletter will most likely be inflicted on.

Simplest: Here’s the book that just came out, here’s a description, here where to get it.

Middle: Here’s the book that just came out, here’s a description, here where to get it.  Here’s a short piece of conversation Bob and I had while writing it.  Here’s a picture of Johnny whose doppelgänger is featured in the book.  OR Book, Background, Small Detail from Book.

Large: Book, Background, Small Detail from Book plus writing advice, info about my life like my good friend Jim who had to stop twice while driving back from the dog park so I could open my door and throw up in the street, and all he said was, “Should we go to Urgent Care?”  That is a friend.

I personally feel that Large is TMI, but Simplest is too cold.

So here’s the question I buried in there: What do you want in a newsletter from me?

Oh, and I’m still working my way through the comments on GBT, but I’m making notes.  Thank you!

What authors do you think haven’t gotten enough attention for how good they are?  New authors or those who have been writing for a while, who do you think are writing under the radar?

I ask because all of my recommendations are pretty well known–Jodi Taylor, Mhari McFarlane, Martha Wells, Ben Aaronovitch, T. Kingfisher, and so on–and it’s always good to find new people who write great books.

Also, what did you read that was good this week?

From the NYT Good Times Newsletter:

“One more thing: Isabelle Buroker, a reader from San Francisco, writes with an intriguing idea for paying attention to the things that go right:

I wanted to share an affirmation that a friend started and has become contagious among our friend group. It goes: “Everything always works out for me always all the time.” When she first started saying it, I was a bit shocked; it felt hyperbolic and a bit too much. However, we quickly discovered it’s contagion.

We use it when little things throughout the day go right — when we get the last Lyft bike, or the rain waits until after we’ve practiced, or when we run for the bus and make it. Or for larger things like a boy liking us back, or my getting into just one medical school — and one of my top choices. What it really does is help us to notice all the things that really do go right for us each and every day!”

So what did you read this week and a day?