Month: September 2023

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There is a chance that I’ve finally cracked the nut as to how to make this novel novel an Old Brown Shoe to fans of Stieg Larsson’s original Millennium Series. Maybe. It’s possible.

I imagine my heroine looking like a younger version of Nicole Scherzinger.

My gut tells me that I’m at least within shouting distance of that goal. I’m reading “The Girl Who Played With Fire” AGAIN because my computer is on the fritz and I have no choice. It could be it dies altogether pretty soon and I will have to pivot to reading for a few weeks until I can scrounge up the money to buy a new computer.

That seems to be a very real possibility at this point.

The key to my goal is to ratchet up the suspense and drama by leaning into those scenes from a POV different than my heroine’s. Showing events that she’s not present to experience allows me to have it both ways, in a sense. I get to develop my heroine’s character while at the same time showing building tension and danger in the first act as we progress towards The Bad Event that pushes us into the “fun and games” part of the novel — the first half of the second act.

I have often thought this very same thing in the past, only to have it all collapse on me to the point where I say, “Fuck it, let’s just get to the story as soon as possible.”

But maybe — hopefully? — this time will be different.

I’m feeling pretty confident about this third version, with my only major fear at the moment being I will overshoot my goal of about 100,000 words to the point that an editor will want me to slice about 20,000 words — or, the exact number of words I went into this third draft wanting to add.

Ugh.

Anyway. We’ll see. Wish me luck.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Well, not only is my fucking computer on its last legs, I’m at a loss as to word count for this novel. Because of my computer problems, I’ve decided read a lot for the next two weeks while I wait to buy a replacement computer and, as such, I’m yet again reading Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played With Fire.”

This go round, I’m trying to get a sense of some of the finer points of what makes the novel my “textbook.” If I can produce a novel as great as The Girl Who Played With Fire, I will be ecstatic. It’s exactly the vibe I want for this novel and I want my novel to be an Old Brown Shoe for anyone who’s read it.

And, yet, the more I read it, the more I realize not only how much work I have ahead of me, but the issue of word count. The novel — while rather wordy — is really, really good. And I keep trying to figure out why Larsson did this or that thing as part of his storytelling vision.

It definitely looks as though I may match him in word count for the third draft o the novel — which is a bad thing. I’m trying to keep the thing down to about 100,000 words, but I’ve totally reworked the beginning of the novel to the point that the Big Bad Event that is the whole point of the novel doesn’t happen until roughly 50,000 words into the story.

My vision is that by the time the Big Bad Event happens, you will have invested enough into the world and the characters I’ve created that the rest of the novel will zoom by, just like with much of Larsson’s work.

But there is a lot I just don’t know — just like I’m on edge about my computer. It definitely looks like it could have a catastrophic crash at any moment and I won’t have anything to write on until early October. Ugh.

And there is also the issue of making the novel a lot darker. I need to make my villains not only more evil, but also give them a lot more rationale for being the way they are. I have a few ideas as to how to do it, but it’s not going to come easy.

I’m just not a dark and twisted guy and it’s really hard work for me to think up evil people. Oh well. That’s why they pay me the big bucks, I guess.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For far too long, I struggle to understand the fucking structure of my “texbook,” Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played With Fire.” It just did not make any sense. I tried to figure out basic things like the midpoint switch and…I simply could not find it.

Well, I recently discovered that the novel that we know of in english as “The Girl Who Played With Fire” was actually ONE novel, cut into two. This makes a lot more sense because now it is clear that the cliffhanger at the end of the novel is actually the midpoint of a far larger novel.

The thing about the novels about Lisbeth Salander that Larsson wrote is they would have greatly benefit from a grim reaper of an editor. With “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” you could probably have compressed or revised that novel down to about to a tight 100,000 words and it would have been just as big — if not bigger a success as it was.

Meanwhile, the massive novel that “The Girl Who Played With Fire” is the first half of, probably could have just been one novel, if an editor with a scythe had cut and cut and cut the novel down to what was essential to tell the story.

As it is, all of Larsson’s novels are bloated and became a success despite themselves.

Anyway, now watch me rewrite my own novel is it balloons into a tome significantly over 100,000 words. UGH.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about working on a novel for as long as I have is every once in a while, I remember something I came to understand before and realize that “Dugh, I already know that.”

In the past, what would happen is I would write out a lot of new scenes then come to a point where it all came crashing down because I just didn’t see the point in writing so much when it seemed to make more sense to just get into the story as soon as possible.

So this third draft is something of a test. I have greatly expanded the beginning of the novel and it will be interesting to see if I can avoid my usual, “Fuck it, just start the novel when the juicy stuff begins” routine. I THINK there is a good chance that I can avoid that — I have allotted myself about 20,000 extra words and so I have a lot of leeway to flesh things out.

At least, that’s what I hope will happen.

My fear is I will just overheat and grow so tired from thinking so much about how to space events out that I just yet again throw my hands up and start just about where I was starting the novel in the second draft.

I THINK, MAYBE, I can avoid that fate this time. I think it’s at least possible that I can actually delve into character enough with these extra scenes that by the point things start to take off, readers will be taken in by the character I’ve created to the point that they will want to finish the fucking novel.

Of course, there is a real risk that just as I’m querying this goddamn thing the world will collapse because of the fucking Fourth Turning.

We’ll see, I guess.