The Deluge: Fictive

So… second installment is up. Anyone have any thoughts? Big question… if there were yet a next page to turn to, would you turn to it?

What looks or sounds amateurish? Is there anything in particular I did well? How was the snippet of dialogue?

Other concerns on my mind. Number one, writing is hard. I haven’t quite figured out the relationship between the plot and the premise. As I mentioned before, I feel good about the premise. But I sense a trap in letting the premise define the plot. I feel that doing so would weaken both. The plot is pretty darn sketchy in my noggin’. I know a lot of things that have to happen, but few are so specific that they cannot happen different ways to different people. They are generally big-picture events that will have to emerge in the context of detailed plot-lines, which really could use some development upstairs. This was the case with the deluge. I didn’t really need a flood right away, nor the planned related events that I haven’t written yet. It served purposes I could have managed any number of ways. The chief reason it came in when it did was to provide some narrative movement and create some tension, since so much contextual groundwork is still needed before any of the “big” plot-lines really get started. Its chief purpose is to keep y’all from getting too bored, too quick.

Another thing I worry about is humor. In certain real life contexts, I have a very zany sense of humor. Not the kind that works well in grown-up conversation. Blog readers know how I treat humor in the written word. If it isn’t a cheap pun or a throw-away line of sarcasm or irony, I’m usually better served not to try. That’s not too big a problem for writing narrative. But what to do about writing authentically about a person who is genuinely funny and who lightens real, grown-up conversations with real, grown-up humor? I’ve read authors who were aware enough of their own limitations to avoid trying to reproduce humor that they aren’t adept in producing in the first place. One strategy is to narrate it.. “Bob told one of his howlers and everyone laughed”. Bleh. Another is to make everyone humorless and avoid the problem. Which leads to a pretty dull result most times. A particularly poor idea is to distract the reader with a character who has a very poor sense of humor and embarrass that character by repeating their jokes when something of the sort is called for. I feel embarrassed for authors who do that. I guess the best authors are good conversationalists with well-formed, mature senses of humor. Short of renting a ghost-writer who fits the bill, any other solutions come to mind? Dare I produce the humorous dialogue I can dig out of myself and hope for the best?

My mind is actually spinning right now. I thought this would be a good time to compare my first half chapter (or should I call it my first short chapter?) with similar starts of other books in and out of the genre. But I think that is a tad premature. I don’t want to pass judgment on my goal of being better than Dan Brown until I get pretty thick into the development of both plot and premise. But, for those who have in mind some kind of reference point… I am curious. Moving way slower than what you are used to? Boring compared to the starts of books that require similar levels of contextual frame-work? Poor use of language? Good use of language? That last is pretty big to me. I know I’m not writing Hemingway novels here. I know I’m not a craftsman with words like Carroll. I’d be happy to exhibit skill with words that even approached pop-fiction writers like Grisham or Clancy. I’d settle begrudgingly for Dan Brown’s skill. But even if I am setting the bar low, it’s a goal that is very important to me. Next to drawing out the premise and digging into the general psyche with it – it’s probably the goal I’m most concerned with. I don’t want to come back and read this after a bout of amnesia and pity the author for his lack of mastery of the language. But, as I’ve said before – I can’t self-evaluate this stuff… so I need some feedback from you, and I need it honest. Even if it hurts my feelings. (Don’t worry too much on that score – I’m not proud, and I can take it well enough if I know you aren’t just trying to hurt my feelings because you hate me).

I said my head is spinning and it is. I just want to express a little more frustration with the knowledge/research problem. I feel like I need to know whether, in the aftermath of a flood like this in an otherwise desert region, our poor villagers need worry about an invasion of malarial mosquitos. And a million other similar details. Every time I go to Google to try and learn something that someone who had spent a week in Africa would carry as common knowledge, I feel like I’m cheating. The only saving grace is that I’m not writing Heart of Darkness – Africa figures in Deliverance of the Body (still only a working title!), but it isn’t supposed to be a portrayal of Africa. It’s about other things. Things that I do know. Places and people that I do know.

I know this: I need an editor. Or I need to get to some hard work on self-editing. I corrected a word from the first installment today – how it escaped my attention before I don’t know. But if you were scratching your head, those death curses were lifted just after a heartbeat and breathing had stopped. I found some other problems in installment one, but I haven’t worked on them yet. I also had to do a couple of quick revisions on installment two as soon as I re-read the published version of it. I believe there are more lurking.

About the next installment. It will be at least another week. I hope to hit a stride before long where I can add something two or three times per week. Not there yet, though. I actually do have to puzzle out which of several strands needs attention at this point. It’s more difficult than you might imagine deciding whether to further develop the flood scene in Chad, get back to Roger and April, or introduce something new. I feel it would be a mite jerky to jump to something new, but it will be hard for me to develop the others without more situational fodder for them to run on. So, I once again beg your patience. And your feedback.

Mainly your feedback.