By Shelly Frome
There’s a wise old saying that fiction isn’t
written, it’s rewritten. Even after revising draft after draft until the
narrative seems to flow effortlessly, in truth you’ve probably just reached the
eighty percent mark. From there, if a publisher feels your work is good enough
but in need of a development editor to “really take it home” (make it marketable),
you’re in for at least an additional three revisions. In short, you’ve managed
to earn a B+ but only an A+ will do.
Take my recent foray into the world of
the traditional village mystery for example—a double transatlantic “cozy” involving
two sister villages located on both sides of “the pond”. Not at all the same
old, same old, like a Miss Marple, with its sedentary armchair detective, idyllic
sense of place that hasn’t existed for decades, and unpleasant victim or
victims leaving the reader free to focus solely on the puzzle. Nowadays, the sleuth
has to be someone to identify with, the sense of place provocative, the victim simpatico
and worthy of the quest for justice, etc. All of this in the light of leading
authors working today in this genre.
With all of this as a given, here is
where the first developmental phase comes in. Call it a spring forward/pull
back overview. As a prime example, we can cite New York Times bestselling
author Louise Penny’s Still Life. This first of a series starts off with the
demise of Miss Jane Neal, a seventy-six-year-old spinster, walking in the woods
on the outskirts of the remote village of Three Pines on the Quebec border
where she meets her untimely end. At this juncture, it seems that readers expect
to pull back and get to know Miss Jane, meet her friends and neighbors and
become acquainted with her various relationships, get familiar with this quaint
locale, learn the significance of Three Pines, Jane’s “Still Life” and it’s
double meaning during a telling scene, and so forth.
For my part, having been assigned an
editor from Australia, though my narrative had “pace and drive,” my consultant
insisted that the circumstances surrounding Emily, my intrepid tour guide’s
quest were only touched upon. The demise of Emily’s beloved mentor and father
figure was fine as a catalyst, but now was the time to pull back in terms of
the overview. Where are we? What is her quaint, Connecticut hometown village
like during the leaf-peeper season? What exactly led to her mentor’s dreadful
fall? How does she feel about the three siblings she’s about to guide across the
pond? In short, it appears that a cozy
writer can’t just get on with it.
The second pass, what this Aussie editor
calls “the nitty gritty,” is twice as picky. Anything and everything that might
give the reader pause must be dealt with. Why is Emily meeting Harriet (a
person of interest and Emil’s chief client) in Bath of all places? How did
Harriet’s testy note wind up in the rose garden in Penmead? What is Emily’s prior
experience venturing into the foggy, mist-sodden moors? And on and on it goes.
No doubt the third critical foray will
consist of dealing with the gaps I failed to adequately address as she checks
over how things stand and what more has to be done. I’ll just simply have to
wait and see. Needless to say, at this point I’m amazed at how fond I was of my
original final draft.
And I can’t help recalling a while back, when asked for the mark of success, a Doonesbury
political candidate said, “Like any endeavor, it’s all a matter of feeling good
about yourself.” Apparently, there’s a bit more to it than that.
_________________________________________________________________
Shelly Frome is the film columnist
for Southern Writers Magazine. He is also a member of Mystery
Writers of America, a professor of dramatic arts emeritus at the University of
Connecticut, a former professional actor, and a writer of crime novels and
books on theater and film. His fiction includes Sun Dance for
Andy Horn, Lilac Moon, Twilight of the Drifter and Tinseltown Riff.
Among his works of non-fiction are The Actors
Studio and texts on the art and craft of screenwriting and
writing for the stage. Murder Run,
his latest crime novel, was just released. He lives in Black Mountain,
North Carolina.
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