When I
wrote my first mystery novel, The McHenry Inheritance, I probably had about two pages of notes on the plot and the
characters before I started. The rest of it, or so I believed at the time, was
in my head.
The final
product, in my humble opinion, was not bad at all. It was certainly good enough
to publish, and the response has been encouraging, but at some level I feel I
could have done better. Barry Bingham, former publisher of the Louisville Courier-Journal, used to say
that a daily dissatisfaction with the product is at the heart of every great
newspaper, and something like that applies to writers of every stripe.
Taken to an
extreme, that’s an attitude that can lead to writer’s block, substance abuse or
worse. Perfection is always out of reach, and at some point the writer has to
let the project go to press and move on. Still, as John Wooden used to say
about basketball (and life): “You should never let what you can’t do keep you
from doing what you can do.”
Planning Much More Carefully
I’m now
starting out on the second Quill Gordon mystery, which has a working title of Wash Her Guilt Away, taken from an
Oliver Goldsmith poem. It’s a sequel to the first book only in the sense that
it features the same main character and takes place after the action in the
first book.
Once again
Gordon will be going on a fishing trip and finding himself caught up in a
murder and the subsequent investigation. But the locale will be different, as
will all the other characters. I’ve even given Gordon a new sidekick, with a different
personality than the first one. If there are more books beyond the second one,
my plan at the moment is to rotate Gordon’s buddies based on which one fits the
given story better.
After
letting go of The McHenry Inheritance,
I decided that in the next book I wanted to work on improving the characters,
the plot and the dialogue. Primarily, I want to ratchet up the level of
complexity in those three areas. Thinking it over, and stealing some writing
tips I encountered since doing the first book, I decided to plan the next one
more carefully before I started writing.
The Big Orange Notebook
So I went
out and made a tax-deductible investment of $3.25 in a lined notebook, 14.8 by
21 centimeters, manufactured by Rhodia of France. I’ve created a page or two
for each chapter and character, plus additional sections for such things as
place names and miscellaneous notes. Since November I’ve been filling those
pages with longhand scribblings, done with several different Pilot Varsity
fountain pens.
Back in
November, in a burst of creative energy, I wrote the first draft of the first
third of the first chapter on two successive nights. More than anything else,
that was to establish, for myself, a sense of style and mood. Since then the
actual writing has been on hold until I have my notes in order for every
section of the notebook.
I’ve been
writing down what happens when, what I want to show in each character, along
with specific incidents, details and snatches of dialogue. And I think it’s
helping. In the course of writing it down, connections are made and new ideas
come up. It feels as if the book is becoming richer in my mind before I
actually write it. The book that gets published will be the final proof of
whether this approach worked, and if so, how well, but it’s good to feel I’m
starting on the right foot.
