Deeanne Gist - www.deeannegist.com - Inspirational Romance Author

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Don't Read This Unless You've Finished BRIDE

We've been discussing some of the snags authors run into while writing. Earlier this week, we talked about characters having a mind of their own. Today, I want to look at the actual events in the novel:

"Do you know exactly what is going to happen and when it's going to happen, or do events occur in the middle of your writing that you weren't expecting?"

Again, the answer is yes and no. Yes, I--personally--plot out the entire novel from start to finish before I actually write the novel. (Though I've heard some authors write by the seat of their pants. They just sit down and start with the prologue, end with the epilogue and do no planning in between. I would never be able to do that.) My plots, though, are similar to outlines. I have Roman Numeral I with Points A, B, and C, etc. So, I know what needs to happen. What I don't know is how my characters are going to get from one point to the next.

So, that's the "no" part of that answer. (No, I don't know exactly what is going to happen.) I'll give you an example from Bride, but *WARNING, WARNING* if you have not read the book, this is definitely going to spoil it for you--so skip the rest of this post and we'll see you tomorrow. If you have read the book, you'll understand my illustration:

I knew when I was plotting the book that there would be a massacre at the end. I knew that someone needed to die. (I hate it when I read books where some big catastrophe happens and no one of consequence--to the reader--is immediately effected.) Once I knew I was going to kill someone off, I asked myself who would have the most emotional punch? Killing off the hero or heroine in a romance is not an option. After that, the obvious answer was: Sally. Drew's greatest fear was losing his loved ones, especially the babies. If we lost Sally and then Drew proved to the reader that he still loved God and was devastated, but not defeated, then we'd show the reader how far he had grown since the beginning of the book.

So, killing off Sally was one of my outline points. What took me by surprise, was Mary. I never, ever planned to kill her off. But when it came time to write that scene, I realized that somebody needed to be watching Sally when the Indians arrived. I didn't want Constance to be there. So, I sent her to the creek and left Sally with Mary.

Ends up, Mary was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and we lost her when we lost Sally. I was just as surprised as you.

Now, when BHP got a hold of the manuscript, they refused to let me kill off Sally. They felt it made the ending too dark and the reader would never be able to recover. Killing off Mary was bad enough, but Sally? No way.

I disagreed, and I kicked and screamed a little, but the boss won out. So, you can thank BHP for Sally's good health. Mary, however, I refused to revive. Otherwise, we'd have this huge massacre that devastated the entire colony and yet the O'Connors would walk away unscathed. I refused to budge.

And truly, they worked so hard at making me revive Sally that I don't think they were up to the task of convincing me to revive Mary. (Not that I'm hard to work with, or anything, it's just that I do have standards.)

So ... there's an inside peek to the workings of this author. Comments? From readers or other authors?

Next: Snags authors run into when writing historicals.

posted by Deeanne at 10:50 AM

7 Comments:

Barb said...: So life and death are in the editor's hands too, huh? Not sure why it's more humane to kill off a decent, God-fearing woman than a boisterous 4 year old?! Maybe you just caught your editor on the wrong day? Did they see the outline before the manuscript, or don't they require that? Publishing houses might be amazed at what us readers can "recover from." 'Course if you had been willing to "revive" Mary, then Josh wouldn't need therapy at this point. Hmmm....
Deeanne said...: The publisher does want to see my outline, but they brought *Bride* after it was already written. With *Lady* and each subsequent book, I submit a synopsis for approval.

Actually, it's been a long standing rule not to kill the babies or the animals in a romance. I just thought that in this case I could get away with it. (In Lady, I tried to kill the dog, but that got nixed, too. So, I completely wrote the dog out of the manuscript. Showed them, huh?!) :-)
Barb said...: So you'll do anybody in--cute little kids, noble women, loyal dogs? Which brings us to the question of: Why?! What's the advantage of doing in a character? Besides the emotional trauma for the reader that might keep us glued to the story!
Deeanne said...: Every book needs a "death" of some kind toward the latter third of the novel. Whether it be a physical death, emotional death or the death of a dream, a death of an idol, something.

Then, the character gets to prove what they're made of. Do they cave in and wallow in the disilllusionment or do they pick themselves up by their bootstraps and go on?

I have nothing against babies, dogs or loyal women. That's just how novel writing works. And like I said, it doesn't have to be an actual being that "dies."
Barb said...: Hmmm--all these new aspects of fiction that I never thought of. My brain is spinning! I'll hafta keep all this stuff in mind as I read novels from now on--try to see 'em from the mechanical perspective! :o0
Jezreel said...: I'm one of those "fly by the seat of the pants" writers right now. I'd LOVE to try an outline - which I think I'm going to do on the novel I'm working on, just to keep me going. Who knows, maybe it'll catch on me...

I thought both Mary & Sally were going to die in Bride.
Deeanne said...: "I thought both Mary and Sally were going to die in Bride."

That's because I needed Constance & Drew to be alone during the scene in the river (so Sally needed to stay dead a while) and because Drew's ephiphany was based on him thinking Sally had died.

I essentially had to rewrite the entire end of the book because in the original version Drew had "released" Sally in the forest at the same time he "released" Mary. So, I needed a raft for Sally to be on during the river scene so that D & C could still have their ephiphany. Everytime that raft appears in the book is due to me going back and plugging it in.