Tag: Mare of Easttown

The Trick Is To Keep Breathing

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m now formally sketching out again the “bad guys closing in” portion of this latest first draft attempt. And the thing I’ve noticed is the last time I did this I crammed a lot of big events right next to each other.

Olivia Munn is what I imagine the heroine of this first novel looking like..

The thing I’ve slowly getting the hang of is how you have to let your novel’s structure breathe a little bit. You need an ebb and flow to how things roll out so you have a big event, then a few scenes that reduce tension some and then repeat.

I’m still at a loss, in some respects, as to what makes up the investigation of the murder this novel is about. Thankfully, to date I’ve just had to distract myself and I’ve figured out how to move things along. I may have a lot — maybe a huge number — of faults, but usually when I find myself in a creative corner I’m able to weasel my way out of it and think of some new direction, some new angle to take that lets me keep going pretty quickly.

Actually, imagine Olivia Munn looking a little closer to this. Similar, but not exactly.

Really, at this point, the only issue I have is how many times I’ve done this. I’ve written and rewritten this first novel a number of times. But at least each new attempt has been significantly better than the one before. The key issue now is to try to wrap things up on a second draft by spring 2023 so I can turn around and begin querying during the autumn 2023 querying season.

One thing I’m still concerned about is this novel, while interesting, doesn’t have some of the jolting events that your usual modern thriller has. It’s just not scary (or brutal) in the way that the audience for such a genre pop novel might expect.

But I believe I can fix that particular issue in the second draft. The point of the first draft is just to get the story down pat so you can turn around, rewrite it and fix all the issues. I really have to stop daydreaming and just drifting towards my goal, however.

I need to be a lot more focused.

‘Old Brown Shoe’ — Of ‘Mare of Easttown’ and Stieg Larsson’s ‘Millennium Series’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things, at the moment, are going really well with this first draft of this first novel in a projected six novel project. The fact that I’m turning 50 soon is really weighing on my mind. I have to put up or shut up. There is still a lot I don’t know about how to write the best possible novel I can, but things feel like they’ve stabilized some.

These six novels are heavily influenced by both the TV show Mare of Easttown and Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series. That’s the vibe I’m going for, at least. If you like those two creative works, then I hope to write six novels that you will feel are very similar, like an old brown shoe for your mind.

The influence of Mare of Easttown on these six novels is the protagonist for the first few novels is much like Mare, even if her job is totally different. The two women are about the same age and have similar things happening in their lives. Family is really important for both of them and they find themselves in very unusual circumstances because of issues out of their control.

My homage to Mare and her connection to my homage to Lisbeth Salander serves as the motional heart of these novels. I like the idea that we get to see over the course of a number of novels the events that lead up to why my American, POC homage to Salander ends up the way she does. All of this is happening, oddly enough, because Trump was a lazy idiot and wasn’t able to successfully steal the 2020 election.

It was in early 2021 that it occured to me that not only I had a massive backstory that I would like to actually show the audience, but that all the ranting I was trying to do about Trumplandia in two books set in late 2019 and early 2020 would be kind of quaint and out of date if Trump wasn’t president.

So, I not only started from the very beginning of the story — in early 1995 — I created a Mare of Easttown-type character to serve as the protagonist for the first three novels in a six novel project.

The plan is, over the course of six novels and 25 depicted years, you will get to see not just how a very strange situation occurred somewhere — the original allegory for Trumplandia that I thought up — but the ebb and flow of the lives of a series of characters during that timeframe.

So, in a sense, a lot of the development for this first novel was a lot easier because I had characters in 2019 – 2020 and simply thought about what they would be doing 25 years earlier. Despite this, it’s still be a real struggle to get to where I am now.

The learning curve for developing and writing just this first novel has been very, very significant. But I think I’m getting close, at least, to where I want to be. I just need to put up or shut up. I need to wrap the second draft of this first novel up by spring 2023 so I can try to query it as part of the fall 2023 querying season.

Confessions of a CIS White Male Writing From A Female POV

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m trying to populate this first novel with as many provocative characters as I can. I really want the main characters to be well thought out. And, to do so, I’m doing some fancy footwork. I’m really, really leaning into what I remember about the kooky characters associated with ROKon Magazine in Seoul way back when. Including me!

The protagonist of the first three novels is meant to be something akin to a journalistic equivalent to Mare of Easttown. At least, that’s kind of bar I’m setting for myself. I want my protagonist to be as rich and well developed as Mare of Easttown. That’s the dream.

I’ve also recently figured out the dynamic between two characters — just going to use what happened between Annie Shapiro and me back in the bad old days of ROKon Magazine — and this sets up something of a conundrum. I’m well aware that for many within the “woke cancel culture mob” by definition, a CIS white male writing from a female point of view is a mortal sin, never to be forgiven. Ok, I get it. But, what’s worse, is I really want to make this particular character problematic. She, in a sense, is the person to prompts a six novel series and, as such, she really needs to be interesting.

I fucking hate the woke cancel culture mob…when it tells me what I can’t write as a man.

But my definition of “interesting” could be another person’s definition of, “you’re a CIS white male, just shut the fuck up.” I mean, if Fleabag had been written by a man, would the reaction have been the same? If Mare of Easttown is who I’m striving to be like with my protagonist, then it’s Fleabag that I’m striving for in this very important other character.

I want her to be endearing, and yet so be so problematic that you, the reader, are ambivalent about her and you care about her, but when Something Bad happens to her, you don’t quite know what to make of it. Of course, I’m not nearly the write I need to be to pull off such a feat. But if you for the moon, you just might fall into the stars, as the hackney saying goes.

My greatest fear is I’m going to write from a female POV and write something so absurd that all the female members of the audience throw the book across the room in disgust. I’m trying to be as conservative as possible when it comes to elements of the female experience that I can’t reverse engineer (which is most of it) but the more I push into making my would-be Fleabag character as problematic, the more I have to touch on sex, etc. The very things that CIS white middle age authors like me aren’t supposed to broach when writing from a female POV. (Which we’re not supposed to do in the first place.)

The late Annie Shapiro was my personal Fleabag.

But no one ever got anywhere in this world without taking a risk, as my father says. So, lulz, once more into the breach. I’m going to write what I can — even thought I don’t have a wife or a girlfriend to be my “reader” — and hopefully, I won’t embarrass myself too much.

Of Marketing These Five Thrillers


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m just daydreaming here, but I often find myself thinking about the marketing of these five novels and how that should change the novels themselves. One issue is, as it stands, the Olivia Munn-type character is the protagonist of only two of the novels. Then her son is the protagonist for two novels and then my Lisbeth Salander-type person is the hero of the last book.

This works, at least from a creative standpoint because I see the first three novels as a trilogy and the last two novels as the beginning a new series based around my personal interpolation of the Lisbeth Salander trope.

And, yet, at the heart of these five novels is the relationship between the Olivia Munn-type character and my Lisbeth Salander type character. But I sometimes find myself struggling with how all of this would be marketed. People want a character they know they’re going to come back to once they grow familiar with it and I wonder how marketing would deal with the shift in focus over the course of the series.

I personally think I’m overthinking things. The point is to tell a series of great stories that have an overall theme to them. I can’t get too worked up about the marketing of the stories if I do a good to great job telling the individual stories. And it’s not like people’s favorite character — if she becomes one — will be missing. She’ll still be there, it’s just the focus will be on her son, and, then, later a fucked up woman about Lisbeth Salander’s age in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Imagine Olivia Munn playing this type of character (to some extent) and that would be the protagonist two novels in this series and the series’ overall heart.

And, I want to be clear, my interpolation of the Lisbeth Salander trope is a variation on a theme. The two characters are dramatically different, to the point that, again, only for marketing purposes might their similarities be enough to highlight.

Anyway, I have a long ways to go before I have to worry about such things in real terms. I have to fucking finish an actual first draft, for Christ’s sake. But every time I get closer to a serious first draft, I get closer to not embarrassing myself.

It’s just taken much, much, much longer than I expected because apparently my storying telling ability sucked a lot more than I realized when I began this process a few years ago.

These Five Novels Will Have A Lot of Heart


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve been doing a lot of writing today and I’m very pleased with what I’ve managed to come up with. These first few novels, as I keep saying, will have a lot to owe to Mare of Easttown. Even I am taken aback by how female-friendly from an audience perspective these novels may be. Or not. What the fuck do I know. I’m a middle aged white CIS male who should be neither seen nor heard.

But here we are, with me being my usual bonkers crank self, pontificating on shit I shouldn’t.

I’m working on the assumption that if I should actually manage to write the “break out” novel — which, in itself would be a miracle — that I will be canceled at some point soon after because my well documented views don’t always follow the media narrative. I believe what I believe and if you don’t like it, then fuck you. Wink.

But, like I said, I am pleased with how much heart these novels have. How much they at least try to accommodate the needs of the female audience. One thing I’m taken aback by is how this first novel is far, far more Mare of Easttown than the book that started all of this, The Girl Who Played With Fire.

At the moment, it really won’t be until the last two novels I’m working on, when we start what will hopefully be an open-ended thriller series, that the direct homage to Stieg Larsson’s work becomes obvious. But I have to make clear — I’m simply not as dark a write, by nature, as Larsson. I have used The Girl Who Played With Fire as my “textbook,” but it’s a real struggle for me to be as dark and serious as Larsson in, say, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Anyway. I’m going to throw myself into writing, reading and development this weekend. That, at least, is the plan.

Fuck this fucking storytelling “test.”

Wow. I’m Actually Working On A Second Draft Of This First Book


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For the first time for this massive project I’ve been working on for about four years now, I’m finally — finally — working on a solid second draft. I think a number of things have contributed to this being possible.

The man, the myth, the late Stieg Larsson.

The first is I’ve made this second draft as tight as possible chronologically. Second, this story is far more Mare of Easttown than it is The Girl Who Played With Fire, so I’m dealing with something I’m pretty good at — detailing the human condition — rather than having to live up to the potboiler expectations of Stieg Larsson.

But things are moving fast. I have a pretty stable first chapter now and am going to work on the second chapter today. My first draft was stable enough and good enough (in my opinion) that revisions are going pretty smooth. Unlike previous versions of this process, things haven’t fallen apart the moment I review what I’ve written.

Really leaning into making this first novel a homage to Mare of Easttown.

So, I think I’m well on my way to start querying as part of the fall querying season of 2022. And, as I’ve said, if it gets pushed into the spring season, then I will have several other books in this series finished and I can try to sell them as a series.

Hopefully, however, I won’t drop dead of a widowmaker heart attack like Stieg Larsson. Go, me!

‘Mare Of Easttown,’ Stieg Larsson & The 5 Novel Project I’m Developing & Writing


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I can still remember exactly how it came about that I started the process of going from writing two books to now five books. These first two books were meant to be a direct homage to the Millennium series that Stieg Larsson wrote before his tragic death of a heart attack. I was lying on the couch, thinking about both the novels and the fact that Trump turned out to be so fucking lazy and stupid that he could not even do the most basic of autocratic things to stay in power.

I rolled over in my mind the strange little town that I come up with — which was meant to be something of a thinly vailed allegory for Trumplandia, when it occurred to me that I had this huge backstory as to how a small Southern town might endup in such a bizarre situation.

I thought about how Trump was no longer president and how the context of the two books would change. Then it occurred to me, why not tell the very compelling story of the two major events that led up to the opening of the then first book in the series.

So, a bit later, I sat down and began to sketch out the plot for these two prequels and I was very pleased. What I did not realize was how hard it was going to be to finish even a first draft of the first book. Along the way, I saw Mare Of Easttown and it occurred to me that THAT was the vibe I wanted for the first prequel. (Which readers would not immediately know was actually a prequal because my intent is to sell the novels in chronical order.)

Then, even later, it occurred to me to split the first book in two, so now I have five novels to work on.

But back to the first book. In the back of my mind, I keep thinking about how great Mare of Easttown is and how I want to write a novel that is as good as that show was. I really enjoy developing and writing female characters because I find them so much more of a challenge and also I’m irritated that people like Olivia Wilde and Jessica Chastain apparently think men, by definition, can’t write well developed female characters. Or, at least, it’s a lot more difficult for them.

Anyway, I’m finally working on the second draft of the first novel. I hope to wrangle me a literary agent by the end of 2022 (or, at least the fall querying season.) But I’m also working on the other four books as I work on this first book. So, it’s at least theoretically possible that I will have additional novels in the series complete when I try to find a literary agent.

I’m have a lot of fun now because I am really into the groove of things now. I have figured out how *I* develop and write novels.

I Have My Eye On You, Mr. Bond



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I saw the latest James Bond film, “No Time To Die,” today, and for once I didn’t walk out of a movie. There were a few time I rolled my eyes and a few times when I checked my watch. But, overall, it was a great movie and highly recommend it.

They definitely updated the character some by giving him some heart. I’m a life-long Bond fan and some of the additions to the character were long, long over due.

But having said that, I will also note that I got a significant amount of inspiration from watching the movie. The four book thriller series already has a lot of Bond-like touches to it and I realized something important about the Bond franchise when I watched No Time To Die.

My series about an a American, female James Bond-type person was missing something and I didn’t even realize it. But now that’s fixed and the series, once done, will be a mixture of James Bond, Stieg Larsson’s stuff and Mare of Easttown, if that makes any sense.

I will note in closing that it’s a testament to how much cultural self-confidence Americans have that No Time To Die would pick us so much and we just don’t care. It’s a lulz.

Of Stieg Larsson, Mare Of Easttown & The Thriller Series I’m Writing


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The original reason why I started working on a novel of any sort was my pure, white hot rage against the Trump Administration. I had no idea what I was doing, but I had a lot of energy and decided to work on a scifi novel that would talk about the major themes of the era.

It soon became clear that my ambitions were simply too huge and I would never have the resources to finish what I had come up with. Flash forward three years and I’m in a very different situation. While I’ve again come up with a massive creative project, this time I’ve got a handle on what it all means. And, much to my own shock, it’s not a massive sci-fi series that I’m working on, but rather a thriller series.

The fictional baby in question as a fictional adult.

This happened in large part because there was always one book that I was able to read over and over again and that was Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played With Fire. At first, the book I was writing was very much Stieg Larsson fanfiction.

And the, gradually, everything changed. The story was fused with an array of other themes, ideas, inspirations and it was not fanfiction, but it’s own unique story. What was one book was split into two with a cliff hanger connecting the two books.

Then the one thing I totally never expected to happen, happened: Trump was not able to steal the 2020 election.

That’s when I did an assessment of where I was and realized that with Trump out of office, I needed to do something radical. So, looking around, I realized there was a obvious fix — go backwards and time and develop two novels from the massive backstory that I had come up with for the two novels I was working on.

At first, I thought this was going to be a breeze. I had two solid plots in my mind and things were going really fast. Then, however, it soon enough became clear that I have a huge ego and am very demanding of myself. This is when I saw Mare of Easttown and was both shocked and inspired by what I saw. It was so good, that I realized I needed to up my game.

Mare of Easttown

And, so, here were are.

This first book now is being written with my impression of Mare of Easttown in the forefront of my mind. So, this first book is very different than one might think from someone who has studied one of Stieg Larsson’s books and used it as something of an informal novel writing text book.

But I’m feeling pretty good. I have shifted the focus of the novel from the abstract of owning a newspaper to the very concrete crisis of possession of a baby. The issue is I have a lot of thinking to do. I have to flesh out an element of this story that I didn’t even realize needed to understood better.

Yet, thankfully, at least I know which direction to go at last.

Mulling ‘Mare of Easttown’ & Its Influence On The First Novel In The 4 Novel Series I’m Writing


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something about the strong character development of Mare of Easttown lingers in my mind as I work on this first novel in the series I’m developing and writing. I have a hunch why — it’s a story about family in a small, tightknit community.

Given that this first novel is more about character than some sort of fast paced thriller, I find myself dwelling upon what made Mare of Easttown so compelling. If I can just crack the nut of creating, not just characters but people, then I will at least not embarrass myself.

Anyway. At this point, it’s all about focus. No one believes in me, but me. I don’t have anyone to tell me “no,” so I can do whatever the fuck I want. I can’t even get relatives to help me out with this project. They give me lip service support, but sometimes, I wonder if they even believe me when I say I’m hard at work on this.

If I had someone, anyone, in my life who cared about me, I might not have even started this thing because they would have told me to “just write a short story” and I would have gotten mad.