On Thursday, I got my editorial revisions for SSG2 (title redacted, ’cause I’m tricky like that). In a stunning coincidence, it’s exactly the same length as the letter my editor sent for SSG. It’s also a thing of beauty, and a joy for-evah! My editor, whom I love and adore and rarely, if ever, want to smack (except for that note about page 159), is quite the talented creature. Cute, too. And she shines a flashlight onto all the edges of my manuscript that are sticking up and looking rough and patchy. I’ve been smoothing out and sewing up for a couple of days now, which is right around the time when I’ve done all the ‘easy’ stuff and am trying to procrastinate my way out of the hard stuff.
And for that, I blog. I was thinking today, as I perused my gorgeous editorial letter (which I cherish and revere), that I’ve been doing more coloring since becoming a writer than I have since kindergarten. First, there’s my whole color-coded plot board. And then there’s the editorial letter (of which I am quite smitten), which I have attacked with a set of multi-colored highlighters. I have this whole highlighting code worked out that would probably scare you all. I wanted to take a picture of my editorial letter (which I respect and admire) all marked up, but I can’t figure out a way to do so in which I’d preserve the marking and color style but obscure the letters. And the letters must remain obscured. Spoilage, you know.
Anyhow, now you all think I’m an anal freakazoid. I’m really not. I’m actually a slob. But I’ve found that it helps when it comes to revising to break the editorial letter (which I appreciate and esteem) down into lists of easy stuff to do, hard stuff to do, and stuff you don’t want to do and are going to argue about with your editor, no matter how cute and smart and wonderful she is. Plus, doing all the easy stuff first makes you think you’ve made real progress, and if there’s hard stuff coming, at least it’s reduced to a page or two of hard stuff, rather than 10 pages of all kinds of stuff.
And of course, “easy” is relative. So far from this editorial letter (which I tolerate and obey), I’ve made a few plot-sweeping structural changes with relative ease, whereas I’ve been messing around for three days on a line that should take about two seconds to fix, but requires some delicacy. You see, the character is lying. Now, when you are writing first person POV, and another character is lying, but your POV character doesn’t know it, it’s a little tricky to get that across. Especially since, in this case, the lie is about ten times as believable as the truth. Especially since, in this case, even the liar isn’t fully aware of the lie. Denial, baby. Ain’t just a river in Egypt.
But a lot of characters lie to Amy in this book. And a lot of lies that were told in the last book are now revealed for the lies they were. So being able to suss out the lies is pretty important. In general, it’s made me think about what the choice to write in first POV means. I think 1st person POV creates a layer of trust in the reader that may not be there in third person. You readers of romance know what I’m talking about. It’s the whole, “Oh, he’s the most infuriating man, she thought. She wouldn’t marry him if he was the last man on earth!” kind of thing. I feel like you wave her off in third, but if, if first person, she says that some guy bugs the crap outta her, you’re going to believe her. And if she doesn’t act suspicious about someone’s behavior, then that behavior may not be viewed as suspicious. (This is why unreliable narrators are so difficult to write well.)
There are certain tricks that directors use to signal a lying character. Not meeting eyes, halting speech, emphatic repetition… all of these are usually a huge red flag to the viewer that the person is lying. The same could be said for the reader. However, if the person is relating the event says, “She wouldn’t meet my eyes,” and that person is as with it as Amy, she probably knows just as well as the reader that the person is lying. So, in order to get it across to the reader but not the POV character, you have to mask it. If the liar becomes suddenly very busy with tying their shoe or something, then the reader can be all, “oh, they’re refusing to look at Amy,” while Amy can be spending her time wondering why they didn’t just double-knot their laces.
And, with any luck, the truth will get across. The original draft had the halting in it, but that apparently was not enough to signal the lie lie lie. Possibly because the character was out of breath and it came across as panting. I may have this character’s jeans spontaneously combust. That ought to do it, don’t you think?
This insight into a writer’s editorial process was brought to you by the letters K and B and the number 13.
September 26th, 2006 at 8:37 am
>>This insight into a writer’s editorial process was brought to you by the letters K and B and the number 13. < <
You frickin’ CRACK me up!!!!!
= )
September 26th, 2006 at 9:02 am
I had an interesting thought that I thought I would share; sometimes the best way to lie is to tell the truth - that is if everyone expects a lie.
September 26th, 2006 at 9:03 am
Definitely a coffee-spewing moment.
Diana, I highlight editorial letters, too. I also do the easy stuff first, then move into the harder, hardest, stet. Then again, I also do color-coded plot boards…and I’m the most disorganized woman on the planet.
Back in the day when I was teaching high school lit, I always taught my students to be increasingly suspicious of the first person narrator, because they lie, to the reader and to themselves. I think that may be why I had so much trouble getting into first-person narration in genre lit–I didn’t want to worry about whether that person was lying to me. But I got over it.
September 26th, 2006 at 10:24 am
>>I think 1st person POV creates a layer of trust in the reader that may not be there in third person. < <
Read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie for more on the case of the unreliable (first person) narrator…
(warning: link contains spoilers)
September 26th, 2006 at 10:31 am
Diana, I can totally identify with your love of your editor and of your editorial letter. I also confess that when I got my copy edits (different from the editorial letter, for those who are wondering–it’s the red marks on your manuscript saying “take out this comma” and “does it really rain in the desert in July?”) that I wanted to both marry and kill them.
So yes, maybe this is craziness, but it’s good to be crazy with others.
September 26th, 2006 at 10:32 am
Marry and kill my copy edits, that is. Not the actual editors.
September 26th, 2006 at 10:52 am
I agree, Sir John. I’m a big fan of that kind of dialogue twist. One of my favorite examples is when Caroline Bingley tells Elizabeth Bennet to watch out for that Wickham character in Pride and Prejudice. Obviously, since Caroline is a snobby shrew and Elizabeth likes Wickham, she is inclined to disbelieve her.
I also like characters speaking the truth, in general, and definitely speaking *up* whenever possible, as advocated by Emma Gads in a recent blog post. Usually, unless thre’s a very good reason for the character to remain silent, they’ll blurt out what they are thinking. Amy, in particular, does this a lot.
And yet, some characters must lie.
Ah, Roger Ackroyd. A classic, Gina! I’ve done the unreliable narrator bit (for a novella I wrote for a class in college) and it’s DAMN hard. harder even, I think, than doing the “sympathy for the devil” first POV route (cf. Lolita or Darkly Dreaming Dexter), which is no picnic, either.
Amy is a very reliable narrator. She may not always see things PERFECTLY clearly (what 21 year old does?), but she’s very honest with you about what she sees, and even, occasionally, about the fact that she knows someone else may see it differently. I think because of the intimacy of the style of the SSG stories ( She tells you all about her sex life, etc. straight off the bat) you are inclined even more than usual to seew hat she sees. If someone is lying to her, they are lying to you, too.
Or maybe I’m just being all rose-colored about it. But this is what I think about during revisions. FYI.
September 26th, 2006 at 11:43 am
Hehehe. You Seseme Street nut.
“doing all the easy stuff first makes you think you’ve made real progress, and if there’s hard stuff coming, at least it’s reduced to a page or two of hard stuff, rather than 10 pages of all kinds of stuff.”
This is also how I approach house-cleaning. Now I have a way to explain this to the hubs. Thanks!
September 26th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
You’re taking the opposite approach to the “EAT THAT FROG” book, which advises that if you have to eat a bunch of gross frogs, you might as well start in on the biggest one first.
But there’s something to be said to cleaning up all those little frogs and working your way up to the big one…
Okay, to gross even for me.
September 26th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
Very funny post, Diana! lol Should have covered my keyboard before I started reading.
I’ve never had to deal with giving a hint that a character is lying, but I can see how difficult that would be. That’s something to think about.
Good luck with your edits!
September 26th, 2006 at 5:21 pm
My vote is for the combusting pants. I think you said something about that before, Diana, that when you don’t know how to end a chapter, you blow something up. At least I think it was you… Wow, tipping the reader off to the lie without tipping Amy off. That’s a toughie. Although one thing I heard is that liars don’t always avoid eye contact, they actually make more eye contact in order to better convey the “truth” of their lie.
Ahh, sesame street. I need to start Tivoing that for my little weenie. But I’m kind of bummed that Cookie Monster doesn’t eat cookies anymore.
September 26th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
Love the Sesame Street reference…or wait, is it from The Electric Company?
Okay, whatever, it was funny as hell.
How come I’m only able to see the brillance of the Ed Letter once the edits are implemented, completely finished and I’ve bitched and moaned with each change?
Wait, don’t answer that. It may not reflect well on me.