Tag: The Girl Who Played With Fire

‘Kill Your Darlings’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have managed to cut down my new first act of the new version of the thriller novel I’ve been working on for years to about 44 scenes or so. I’ve attempted to make the first act as simple as possible. I’m attempting to streamline things to the point that I don’t overwhelm readers with a lot of information.

All of this has reduced the word count down to something a little bit more manageable.

The novel is now going to be a far more a traditional murder-in-a-small-town type of affair. There is a lot more of a point to the novel, I think. Previously, the novel was something of a character study that didn’t seem to have much of a point to it.

I haven’t yet gotten to the part of the new version of the novel that is the second draft of the novel. Things may slow down dramatically at that point as I try to figure out how to essentially write a third draft to the novel.

But the key thing is — I now have a first act. Before, I just started the novel at a point in the story where there was a lot of information thrown at the reader. Now, there is an entire act before the murder happens, which is what I wanted.

This is similar to what happens in The Girl Who Played With Fire. I like that structure style for some reason. I like the idea of there being a whole act that leads up to the murder instead of just opening with a body being discovered or it happening in the first few chapters.

‘A New Hope’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. In the name of not throwing too much at the reader at one time — and to made the first act more manageable, I’ve decided to yet again change the beginning of the novel in a dramatic fashion.

Now, a lot of things are either alluded to or happen “off camera” so things are smoother and not so overwhelming. But I do think I’m probably going to have to do a lot more rewriting than I would prefer.

And, all the same problems that this novel has relative to modern expectations still exist — I change POVs within chapters, etc. But my hope is that people who remember Stieg Larsson’s work will read it and say, “Oh, I get it, this is just like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.”

That’s the hope, at least.

And this remains a passion project. I really, really need to piviot some of my free time to the other, more traditionally marketable novels I’m working on. But there comes a point when I just have to shrug and say, “Either you like this passion project and want to read it, or you don’t.”

I have my vision for the passion project and I’m sticking to it, come what may.

Now The Word Count Problem Is Back

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The novel that my novel is meant to be an homage to, The Girl Who Played With Fire, is, as I recall, about 160,000 words. That is way, way too long for my novel for a number of reasons, the biggest being it would be my first novel.

And, yet, here I am — it definitely looks like I could blow past the 100,000 sweetspot of a first novel in a pretty big way.

I don’t know yet because I haven’t gotten that far in the process — I work in terms of scenes, not word count, so I don’t get around to finding out how many words something I’ve worked on is until pretty late in the process.

I have been very careful in the other projects I have been working on to do everything in my power to get them in at about 100,000 words.

Despite all that, I still am fixated on this passion project to the detriment of the other novels I should be working on. So, all this time I should be using on a scifi novel of about 100,000 words, I’m using on a thriller that could be close to 160,000 words.

Yikes!

But, like I said, I don’t know yet. It could be that the novel — which is probably going to be more than 100,000 words no matter what — could come in at something closer to 120,000 or maybe 140,000.

I’m really enjoying myself, though, with this passion project. Once I get into the second act, I think things are going to slow down a great deal ’cause I’m going to be working with the second draft material. I probably am going to have to root around in that second draft material a lot to have it synch up with all the changes I made between the second and third draft of the novel.

I Really Need A Backup Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As it stands, I’m going through the latest version of my passion project at a nice little clip. So fast that it’s at least possible that I will finish this fourth draft soon enough to query in about a year.

That is, of course, unless the Singularity happens and or Trump’s stupidity causes the country to collapse into chaos.

But as all of this is happening, I continue to realize I probably need a backup novel that is a bit more marketable and maybe doesn’t have stripper elements to it. I have a number of scifi novels done to varying degrees and pretty much all I need to do is just sit down and burrow through an outline and finish something, anything — at least a first draft.

And, yet, the call of the passion project thriller is just too strong most of the time.

I really want this homage to Stieg Larsson to be my first novel. And, yet, I know I probably can write a really good scifi novel if I just get over myself and focus. It’s all very difficult for various reasons.

I think what I may do is edit the first act of the thriller then with that as a place to pause, I will piviot to one or several of the other novels and use that distraction to clear my head.

‘True North’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The one book that has been my guiding light, my true north throughout the years and years I’ve been working no this thriller is The Girl Who Played With Fire. I’ve studied it every which way.

It took me forever to figure out its structure and, in fact, it wasn’t until I learned it was mean to be one huge novel with its successor that I understood what what was going on. (The two novels are connected by a cliffhanger.)

I bring this up because I’ve printed out the first act of the novel so I can edit it and it’s kind of long at about 63 scenes. (I have no idea how many words it is, I go by scenes, not word count.) But The Girl Who Played With Fire’s first act — if you include a longish prelude-like part is about 70 scenes, so I don’t feel so bad about it. And I’m still at a point in the process when if I somehow get an editor they could probably figure out how to cut a lot from the first act.

Once I read over the first act, then I’m going into the first half of the second half and that’s where I have to begin to bring in the second draft of what was supposed to be the second novel in the series. I’ve decided to make the first book in the series a more traditional murder-in-a-small town novel as opposed to something that is clearly just setting up a bigger universe.

I still have A LOT of work to do, but I’m feeling pretty confident that I will be in a position to query the novel in about a year, maybe. Of course, my life could totally be turn upside down by this or that unexpected event — and I’m going to be really old to try to get a first novel published — but, lulz.

There is also the issue of the name. I have pretty accessible name I want to use, but it’s so generic that I’m SURE someone else has already published a novel by that name. I have a more unique name, but it’s not as accessible and at least one person has rolled their eyes when I told them what it is.

I just don’t know on that front. I think for the time being I’m going to assume I’m using the less accessible name unless I get an agent and they tell me it just won’t sell.

January 20th Is My Writing ‘D-Day’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As we grow closer to malignant ding-dong Trump being sworn in again, I realize my anger — which generates creativity — is growing. As such, I think once Trump is back in office I will be forced out of my creative neutral.

Four years ago, I made a strategic decision — I was going to tell the origin story of my heroine. Little did I know that this would cause what was going to be a trilogy into a six novel project.

But now that Trump is back, I really want to throw myself back into the novel I paused four years ago. And, yet, I also want to tell all those stories that lead up to the last two novels in the series.

Ugh.

As such, I think I’m probably going to throw myself into the whole thing. My fear is that if I don’t game out the entirety of the series from ground zero that inconsistencies will arise that I can’t overcome.

Anyway. I definitely feel my creative juices beginning to flow again out of my white hot anger over ding-dong Trump being president again.

An Aggressive Creative Drift

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems as though I’m going to continue to drift like always towards my goal of being a published author, but maybe in a little bit more aggressive manner. It seems as though I’m going to bounce around the six thriller novels I have planned so I can maybe have some sense of what’s been established in the universe as the novels progress.

Or something. Something like that.

And this doesn’t even begin to address how I have a scifi novel I’m also working on. Actually, it’s a few scifi novels.

I suppose, in a way, I’m trying to make the best of my tendency to not be very focused. But I’ll be happy as long as I am heading in the right direction of getting something, anything actually finished to the point that I can pitch it to a literary agent.

Of course, the issue of me just being too fucking weird could be a problem on that front. It’s enough to make me think about creating an whole identity out of whole cloth, like, I don’t know, a trans undocumented immigrant or something.

But, sadly?, I just don’t have the energy to do such a thing. Just accepted me — or not — for who I am. I just can’t continue to mope so aggressively as I have for months now.

Fuck It — We’ll Do It Live (Wink): Of My Decision To Throw Myself Back Into Writing An American ‘Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’ Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really want to write an homage to Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series books. But there are some structural problems that I could never have known about when I originally began work on this idea a number of years ago.

Apparently, people want single-POV narrators who fit the gender of the author. And they definitely don’t want POVs that bounce around within a chapter. And they want short chapters.

Ugh. It’s so frustrating.

I guess what I will do is work on both the scifi novel I’ve begun and this thriller. The scifi novel will be very much written with an eye towards marketability, while the thriller will, as always, be a passion project.

But the key issue is moving forward creatively. I can’t just keep staring out into space for the rest of my life. And I need to really lay off the booze. It’s time to go as sober as possible and let energy drinks be my lone vice for the time being.

One reason why I’ve picked the fourth novel in the projected six novel project I’ve envisioned is I have already gamed the novel out some, especially the beginning. So, all I have to do is “just write.”

And, yet, I also need to, I think, go back to the drawing board about certain elements of writing. I need to reread some books on character and plotting so I nail down some elements of the story before I even begin.

Also, I’m going to try to lean into using AI to be something of a “literary consultant” in the sense that it can guide me towards what I want to do with the story.

But, as always, the key thing is I’m not going to live forever. I really need to hurry up and get something, anything done.

Zendaya — Call Your Agent…Eventually? Redux

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I was flipping through Tik-Tok today and saw a still from the Hollywood version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movie. That got me to thinking — I still want to write a novel like that.

So, I sat down at my computer and did some quick thinking. I realize that there is a way for me to get what I want immediately — rather than going back to the novel that has left me so burnt out (for the time being) I can start work on the fourth novel in the series that allows me to dive directly into an American Girl With The Dragon Tattoo-type situation.

There is one problem — I still haven’t really nailed down what happened in the first three novels. But I think as long as I’m moving forward, then at least I’m being productive.

In my imagination, MY “Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” looks a lot like Zendaya. Though by the time I actually fucking finish the damn novel and have it published, she may have been aged out of the role.

But they do say that “black don’t crack” and she continues to play really young characters so…lulz? Regardless, in general, my version, my American version of the “Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” looks a lot like Zendaya in my imagination.

There are plenty of young women in Hollywood who look like Zendaya floating around, so if I somehow win the lottery and sell this novel –when I’m old as fuck — there will probably be any number of women able to play the role.

I wish I was 25 years younger — I would skip the middle step and just write a screenplay — after I moved to Hollywood, of course. 🙂

On Writing

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So. But for how my “readers” balked at the amount of sex in the third draft of the novel I’ve been working on, I would be about to query it. But, alas, I apparently was too much of a hornytoad and, so, here we are with me rewriting things AGAIN.

And, the more I work on this novel again, the more I realize there was some structural problems that I can address now. The novel has a darker tone now because I give my heroine a reason for doing some of the more….controversial…things she does: she’s an alcoholic.

I’ve come to believe that because of weird hangups so many people have about booze and sex that the only way to justify my heroine doing some of the things she does is to throw up my literary hands and say, “Ok, well she’s a drunk, ok!”

This is the general phenotype of the older heroine I have for a number of the novels before the heroine that will populate a new series is an adult.

And, I’m taking this opportunity to really rework and pair back some of the sexy time in the novel. I want this to be as mainstream a novel as possible. So, lulz, can’t have as much sex as I did before. It’s kind of annoying.

Of course, there is another element to this novel that makes it a vanity project — it’s about a woman’s obsession with owning a community newspaper. It’s kind of an origin story for two women who will be really important for six novels — at least.

The older heroine of many of the six novels I’m working on has a sleeve tattoo like Megan Fox sports here.

I’ve come up with a really interesting way to intertwine these two women’s lives over the course of 25 years. It’s just going to take a lot — A LOT — of work (and a number of years) to get it all worked out.

But the more I think about it, the more I realize how much I love all six of these novels and how much I am determined to write them all. You’d be surprised how snooty people with in the “writing community” can be when it comes to this dream — they think I’m nuts.

I’ll put a move on you…

They just can not, will not take a “long hair leaping gnome” like me seriously when it comes to such an ambitious project. This only causes me to dig in my heels more.

But, I will admit, I do have a few scifi novels that I want to work on, too. So, I think, in general, the point is — I need to use my time more wisely. I have to stop dicking around.