Moving on then

I've had a couple of interesting conversations over the past week which have caused me to sit back and think. The first was at the VWC end of year party. I was asked to explain what my WIP was about, having answered the inevitable (when amongst a group of writers) question,

'What are you writing at the moment?'

I said I was editing and redrafting a novel I had started some time before, in an attempt to make a silk purse out of what might or might not be a sow's ear. A few sage nods and sympathetic glances that conveyed that this particular journey was going to take me down a well-travelled path, led onto the next question.

'What's it about?'

Once again I stumbled. I thought I'd got it sussed. Other than a stuttering,

'Well, essentially it's a love story, but it's coming from a different angle.'

I fumbled and blustered and realised that I really didn't know what, if anything, I was trying to say with this book. I made the comment,

'I'm trying to work out if putting together these unlikely viewpoints is making an interesting contrast or if they're just not sitting together.'

I also said something about trying to marry up smoked salmon and marmalade. Hmm.

The voice of the old writing is different from the voice of the new. I can't get them to gel. That is probably because the original was written before I learned any technique or crafting. It's like looking at a 16-year old donning make up and high heels in order to hit the town with a group of 20-year olds. The gaucheness bellows through the slap and the outfit. I think if I'm ever going to tell this particular story, I would need to scrap the lot and start again. One of the first things you learn as a writer - you have to kill your darlings. There are some great bits of dialogue in the old version. I love them, but they're written by an author who doesn't exist any more. No-one is ever likely to read the context around:

'You don't read, Alex. You buy Heat magazine and look at the pictures,' or

'Can I interest you in two female children? Both only slightly soiled.'

Sigh. I really liked those lines. They're going back in the drawer from whence they came. A sow's ear indeed.

When one door closes, however, you often find you have the key to another clasped in your hot little hand. I have had the idea for something new bubbling away for a few months now. I wrote a brief character outline for the four main protagonists this week, one of whom is going to be an unreliable narrator. It's a brilliant technique if it's done well. I thought I would need to study a few UNs to see how it's done. Gillespie & I by Jane Harris is a great example, but I read that for entertainment and therefore was sort of ignoring the scaffolding. I'd have to read it again with a different hat on. I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull it off. I then had a (very lovely) catch up with Paula, who I've known since we were very small children. In amongst the lamentations on the effects of ageing and weight gain on the body (the wind-creating effects of one particular diet's snack bars had the other coffee drinkers staring at us as we laughed in a very unrestrained manner), Paula made a remark that I've since realised was an absolute godsend. I was describing a family member and their view of how their life had panned out. I had already expressed the opinion that they were in denial over their own responsibility in a number of situations, but that I thought it was true that someone else had certainly had a significant influence. Paula looked at me quizzically and raised her eyebrows. She's done that before and said she remembers a situation differently.

'That's not how you saw it, is it?'

She gave me her version and I realised, I don't have to read up on UNs. I have one clasped close in the bosom of my own family. And I have to say, they are a master practitioner.

I then started thinking that, in our own way, we are all UNs. It goes along with my theory that there is never one truth in any situation, because every participant and observer will remember the situation through the filter of their own strengths and weaknesses and life experience and for the after effects on their own life. There is an unreliable narrator in all of us. Maybe if we recognised that, we might start to understand one another better.

Glancing Askance Whilst Dancing

I've been dithering. I've been aware of this fact for a few weeks now, but have put it down to life taking over: sudden decision to move house; head-hunted for a new job - that's another story, the upshot of which is that I'm staying put for now, although changing working hours; children returning from University and up-ending my daily routine - think I've mentioned previously the effect of the return of the students; various birthday celebrations; acquisition of kitten who is a great time waster and last but not least mother having knee op. Yes, yes, life goes on and some of those really can't be held as reasonable excuses for not writing, but it all boils down to the fact that I'm dancing around re-drafting the second half of the novel not actually writing it. I've even started a third edit on the first half, so as to avoid the re-write of the second.

It occurred to me this morning, as I carried on avoiding the second half re-write, even though it was lurking in the corner of my mind jeering at me that I just wasn't writer enough to tackle it, that this is because I think it's turning my hero into someone I don't want him to be. He's softer in the first version. And making him more emotionally shut down and stand-offish goes against his occupation, which requires him to be open and caring and empathetic. It therefore leaves me with the same problem that I had before, which is needing to create a bigger crisis. I need more of a Nemesis or Oblivion, less of a local fun-fair tea cups ride.

That said, it does still mean that the second half needs serious re-writing, just not the complete jettisoning of the original. So, back to the drawing board, then.

Anyone who says that writing a book is easy obviously hasn't tried it.