I once saw a documentary about
dog sledding in the Arctic. The show had (I think) three teams racing
to the Pole using broadly the same kind of technology that the
Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen once used.
The Norwegian team won the race
(obviously: they were Norwegian), but the TV show focused mostly on the
exploits and struggles of the British team, all of whom were strong and
committed - but who had no experience of the arctic. Or huskies. Or dog
sleds. Or the arduous cross-country skiing involved. Or indeed,
anything actually relevant to arctic travel.
I’m thinking about that
documentary because (drum roll, cymbals, and your choice of other
percussive instruments) I AM ONCE AGAIN WRITING A FIONA GRIFFITHS
NOVEL.
I’ve been so busy with all
things Jericho for the past year or two, I just haven’t written much.
I’ve had a half-written novel on my laptop all this time and not had
the time or clarity of thought to drive it forwards. But now I actually
do. And I’m 50,000 words into a novel that’ll be about twice that
length when cooked, which means …
I am about halfway towards the
North Pole ...
Any map I once had has long ago
been shredded by ice and wind …
I’ve no damn idea how long this
journey is likely to take …
And I would quite like to go
home, curl up in front of a log fire, and see how many crumpets I can
eat.
The simple fact is that there is
something unnerving about being a long way into a book but also a long
way from that blessed THE END. Most first drafts just are a bit shite.
That’s not an original observation, I recognise, but it is one that
intrudes quite forcefully at about the 50,000 word mark.
As it happens, I’m free of a lot
of standard author-angst. I know I put sentences together quite nicely.
I know my characterisation works. If I write a scene that lacks colour,
I know how to revive it swiftly and effectively. I know that I have the
tools to identify and fix most problems.
But still.
In my head, I can’t help but
compare this current draft to all the perfected drafts of previous
novels that have now been published. And this book is, at the moment,
just plain worse than all of them. Hurtling forwards into that arctic
gloom seems like the only thing to do - but also a rather pointless
one. It feels like a somewhat painful way of making a big dull thing
instead of a small dull one.
But this is where we have to
separate brain and instinct.
My instinct just says: “Go home.
Eat crumpets.”
My brain says, “No, look, don’t
you remember that you felt roughly this way with ALL your books? Or
perhaps not every single one of them, but certainly most, and every
single time you went on to fix the issues.”
And my brain’s right. I even
know that my basic premise is fine. (Secure psychiatric hospital on the
west coast of Wales. Stuffed full of veterans with Special Forces
experience. Lots of shenanigans. Perfect for my character and my
readership.) So really, I just need to bash out a draft, list the
issues with that draft, then start fixing them.
And that’s right. That’s the
right advice. That’s what I’m going to do.
But.
Two plump little buts to offer
you.
But the first.
The first but is simply that
this midpoint anxiety often generates little flashes of insights. As I
was worrying about my book, I realised that I hadn’t properly made
characters of the key doctors at the hospital. But since the
shenanigans needed to involve them, they had to feature properly in the
early part of the book. And I need to do that in classic Agatha
Christie style - where readers all suspect the irascible Italian, only
to discover that the avuncular parrot-keeper is the baddie.
If I fix that issue in the book
now, my first draft will be that little bit closer to target and,
overall, I’ll save myself work.
If I had closed my mind to the
worry, I wouldn’t have had that insight. My journey to the pole would
have been longer and frozener that it needed to have been. So worry’s
good. It’s creative.
But the second.
The second but is more vicious
than the first. It’s a yawning crevasse camouflaged by the tiniest
bridge of snow. And it’s this:
Sometimes you really are writing
a terrible book. Sometimes, it’s not simply that your execution of the
idea is standard first-draft bad, it’s that the idea itself is beyond
saving.
This is where I have a layer of
shelter not available to most of you. I know that I have a readership
for another Fiona Griffiths tale. I know this idea basically works for
this genre and this detective. I know that I have publishers contracted
to take the book I’ll give them (as well as a larger audience that
comes to me via self-publishing.)
But it’s not always like that.
Not even for an author with a significant publishing history.
The fact is that most writers,
most of the time, have to ask, “Is this just a hideous mistake?”
Sometimes the answer is yes, in which case the solution isn’t simply
more labour, it’s the hard decision to abort proceedings.
In that documentary I mentioned,
the British team suffered with frostbite and wounds that needed
antibiotics. But antibiotics hadn’t been available to Amundsen et al,
so they weren’t available to the team.
Continue or give up?
It was a real question. As I
remember it, one member of the team thought he could continue despite a
nasty looking wound, and he was right. Another one - an international
oarsman with a couple of Olympic golds - just took the view that his
job was to continue marching, no matter what. Because his view was
overly inflexible, he became detached from his team and would have been
exceptionally vulnerable had he encountered a concealed crevasse, or
picked up an ankle injury, or gone off route, or anything of that sort.
He survived, but he might not have done. He made the wrong call.
And you?
I don’t know. I don’t know your
book.
But I will say that you must
have an idea that works. That’s why I get so loud about the importance
of a strong elevator pitch. That’s why it’s important to bake that
elevator pitch right into the very essence of the novel.
If you do that, if you have a
powerful idea and your book truly delivers on that idea, you need to
hurtle on to the Pole. Yes, you’ll have a draft with a whole frozen ocean
of problems, but those things are fixable and you’ll get the job done.
But if your idea is unworkable,
then abort, abort, abort. Throw away your wooden skis. Discard that
pemmican. Find yourself a helicopter ride back to somewhere civilised.
Get home, light a fire, eat crumpets, start again.
For me now, I’m confident in my
idea. It really is just a word count challenge to complete the draft.
Mush, mush, my lovable husky
friends. That thing there, through the murk? That’s the Pole, that is.
Onwards!
Till soon
Harry
|
No comments:
Post a Comment