Tag: Stieg Larsson

Now, To Build Some Texture In My Novel’s Characters


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a small — but growing — library of books I’m supposed to be reading that I want to use to flesh out the characters in my novel. I’m trying to stabilize the first six chapters and finally reading all these books I’ve bought is a part of that.

One thing I really want to make sure I do is make my heroine as different from Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander as possible. While my heroine is greatly influenced by Salander, they’re very, very different in their backgrounds and goals in life.

And even if they were all that similar, my interpretation of the “Girl Who…” trope is so different from his and (and my writing just not as good as) that the two books are pretty much just in the same genre and that’s it.

Otherwise, they’re completely different.

The key issue is my heroine is meant to be far more accessible that Salander. My writing just isn’t as dark. Or, put another way: things may change pretty dramatically between the first and second draft — but for the time being, my novel is very much its own thing.

Anyway. I really need to do some reading.

Trying to stabilize six chapters.

Being Methodical With The #Novel


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I had a something go wrong with my printer last night and as part of the process of fixing that problem, I stumbled across a way to be far more methodical about the writing of the novel.

It’s uncertain if I can use this new method for the whole thing, but I’m hoping it will allow me to get out of the infinite revision loop I found myself in. The only way to do that it seems is to print everything out and be really careful in my editing before I “lock it down” and go to the next few chapters.

I have given myself a pretty tight deadline to write the first draft, so this method simply may not be something I can use for all of it. I’m well aware that my writing ability is no where near as tight as Gillian Flynn and barely in the same ballpark as Stieg Larsson.

But it feels pretty great to actually not only be moving forward to knowing I’m a lot closer to locking down canon so the “just write” part of my mind can be placated.

The Influence Of Stieg Larsson On My Novel


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If you were to have asked me a decade ago what novel I saw myself writing, I would have said some sort of scifi novel. But here I am, working on a thriller in the style of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I, of course, am actually using his The Girl Who Played With Fire as my “textbook.”

The only reason why this happened is I love The Girl Who Played With Fire so much that I can read it over and over and over and over and over and over and not get bored. The ironic thing is I haven’t even read it all the way through that much. I just read the first 50-100 pages a lot as part of my “study.” Larsson, in some ways, was far more ambitious in his structure than I am.

My novel is going to be a lot more straightforward in its structure. I just don’t know squat about police procedurals and was never that good a journalist, either. So I just have to try to fake it. This is going to be a far more journalistic oriented novel than The Girl Who Played With Fire.

Anyway, I keep being paranoid that the Larsson estate is looking at this blog in alarm for this or that reason. If you are — cool it guys, you have nothing to worry about. While my heroine is meant to be an American Lisbeth Salander, that’s where the similarities stop. I will, however, give myself credit – I’ve come up with a pretty good heroine, if I do say so myself.

I’m sure something will happen to make my dreams of writing a break out thriller moot, but I’m digging the endorphin rush of allowing myself to be delusional for an extended amount of time.

#Writing A #Novel Is Hard Work


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are really beginning to stabilize with the rebooted novel. But at the same time, it’s beginning to sink in the amount of hard work I’m going to have to put into it. I’m really looking very closely at how Stieg Larsson did The Girl Who Played With Fire. And, yet, at the same time, my story and his story share only a genre. Otherwise, the intention of the two novels could not be more different.

I just don’t get how he got away with so much exposition and backstory upfront. I don’t have that luxury. I can’t really follow his work too close to the specifics of scenes structure and so forth because I need to get to the point a lot quicker than he did in that novel. And my novel is a first novel in a potential series, while The Girl Who Played With Fire is the second.

But I definitely with this rebooted version of my novel understand that if you have a big universe like I do, that you don’t just throw it at the audience in one big shot. You have to methodically begin to roll out your universe in a way that keeps them reading.

As I keep saying, I have no idea what I’m doing, so in my insecurity I’m using The Girl Who Played With Fire as my “textbook.” I hope things will go a lot faster with writing from now on. But I have to be dogged in my drive to finish this work up as quickly as possible.

My lingering fear is the result of the upcoming election — whatever it may be — will cause the conceit of the novel to seem quaint. But you can’t edit a blank page, as they say.

The Big Reboot


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Well, I’m moving forward with taking the novel to the next level. It’s just a matter of doing a lot of hard work really quick. I also realized I need to study Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played With Fire” more, too. He really deals with the mechanics of structure that I can use to figure a lot of things out.

But I have a short amount of time. I can’t keep rewriting this thing forever. I need to move forward faster. So, it’s time to buckle down and start working. I still want to have something, anything, done by no later than Thanksgiving. I’d prefer it be Election Day, but that just doesn’t seem to be possible right now.

I really need to do something like go to NYC to clear my mind. I hope to do that this weekend. Maybe. It might be a bridge too far, but we’ll see. But I have a lot of great ideas as to how to make the first act far, far better.

A Struggle With POV #AmWriting & Trying To Use The Snow Man by Jo Nesbø As An Additional Textbook



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I read in one of my many books that you’re only supposed to have six POV characters in a pop novel. Using The Girl Who Played With Fire as my textbook suggests this is not always the case.

So, I’m going to break the rule.

Stieg Larsson must have closer to 10 POVs in that novel and it’s quite readable. In fact, I think of it is a textbook example of how to write a great pop novel. Hence my use of it as, well, my textbook. But I must admit that I’m going to study The Snow Man by Jo Nesbø as well because I need to go outside my comfort one. I need to study someone else’s work, too.

Anyway, the main reason why I’m breaking the POV rule is my female romantic lead. I really want to show my hero from her POV for the purposes of character and relationship building. It is interesting how different the novel is in the abstract of development and the concrete of actually writing it. I definitely understand why they tell you not to show your first draft to anyone. I’m writing some pretty shitty copy right now, but it’s definitely helping to figure out what works and what doesn’t work.

I’m in a unique situation when it comes to how much time I have to develop and write this novel. I’m not taking it for granted. I’m trying to get a finished first draft done as quickly as possible, it’s just a huge amount of work and, as such, it slows things down.

Mission:Impossible — Fallout, My #Novel & Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As a way of training my mind not to be so silly while writing this novel, I’ve started to listen to soundtracks to “serious” movies. I listen to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo OST and Gone Girl’s OST. But the soundtrack I listen to that makes me nod my head and say, “That’s what I want” is the one to Mission: Impossible — Fallout.

That’s what I want from this novel. While I love, love, love the Millennium series, they’re also slow as hell at times (the first book) or confusing as hell (the third book.) I really like how accessible and fast paced the Mission:Impossible movie obviously is from its soundtrack.

I have a number of scenes — especially in the second book — that are sit up in your seat exciting. Just thinking about being able to write them is enough to get me through the first book. The planned second book as two scenes that will knock your socks off if they ever were filmed.

Now, of course, that’s a ways down the road. But it’s what keeps me going. It’s what keeps my mind focused. I really need to stay focused. I need to keep my head down and read, read, read then write, write, write.

No one believes in me. This is all on me. This novel’s strengths will be mine, as will its weaknesses.

Let’s rock.

My Novel’s Heroine Is Shaping Up To Be A Combination of James Bond and Lisbeth Salander



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The more I think about it, the more I may have fire in a bottle with this novel. It’s not perfect — it’s just the outline of the first draft at this point — but I do think that about two years worth of development may, at last, be about to come to fruition.

I’ve come up with a heroine with a very, very unique background who is also something of a would-be spy (of sorts.) I really believe in this story, but I also know my limitations. It’s more likely than not that this whole thing is going to be an colossal disaster. And if it’s not a colossal disaster, someone is going to steal a creative march on me, making the whole thing moot.

But I guess I can enjoy what I’ve thought up while I can. It will be interesting to see what will happen to the outline when I finally start to write again.In the past, at least, I’ve started writing and the whole thing has gone haywire and I have to start all over again.

Hopefully, however, this time, at least, that won’t happen. Hopefully, my dream of coming up with an American answer to Stieg Larsson’s original Millennium series will at least come within shouting distance of being true. And, yet, given my age and background, lulz, who am I fooling?

At least I have no one to tell me “no.” As such, I can daydream in a vacuum far, far beyond what I might do otherwise. Generally, everyone wants to tell me I suck, so if I don’t have people telling me I suck, then maybe I might be able to produce the type of novel I know I have in me.

One major problem with all of this, of course, is how difficult it is to come up with a “female James Bond.” By definition, it’s very easy to slide into the “Sexxy Slutty Assassin” trope if you try to do that. But while Lisbeth Salander is a vigilante with Asperger’s, my heroine is far, far more accessible. And, in a sense, the two books I’m working on serve as her spy “origin story.”

But, who knows. Everyone thinks I suck.

‘Just Write’ #AmWriting

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, after about a year or more of development, I finally feel comfortable enough with the story I’ve been developing to “just write.” Do I win a prize? Am I cool now?

Anyway, things are not 100% set in stone, but I’m feeling pretty good. It’s taking me making every mistake possible to get here, but I’m finally now about to make a serious attempt at “just writing” a professional-grade first draft of a novel. It’s meant to be the first book in a two book story that might lead to an actual series if people like the characters.

The story is very much meant to be an American answer to Stieg Larsson’s original trilogy of work. But not in a derivative or hackneyed fashion. It’s pretty much meant to be an allegory of the entire Trump Era explored in the guise of a techno-spy thriller with elements of a police procedural. The first draft is going to suck so very, very bad. But all this hard work I’ve put into development at least allows me to feel confident enough to finish two drafts before showing it to anyone.

Whatever problems the novel has now comes from simply my innate inability to replicate the *structure* of The Girl Who Played With Fire because, well, lulz, I didn’t feel like doing all the hard work to follow it beat-for-beat. I really love that book, but not THAT much. I may eventually do such a next-level mapping out of that book’s structure out of sheer desperation, but for the time being, I’m content enough with what I’ve developed not to feel compelled to do that.

I have several other tracks I’m working on, too. I’ve got the second book in the story to work on (the first book ends in a cliffhanger) and I’ve got a first-person scifi-pandemic novel to map out as well as a scifi screenplay. I only am interested in the last two because I want the option of working on something creative should I need to catch my breath on the main “track.”

So, wish me luck. Sometime in the next few days, I’m going to “just write” as several people conspicuously told me to do 18 months ago. And those people can still suck it.

The Dream Of Being Joshua To Stieg Larsson’s Moses

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I am fully prepared to die of consumption — or a Stieg Larsson-style heart attack — just as the novel I’m developing is sold — if it ever is. But there’s a little part of me that thinks maybe I’ll at least get to be Tom Clancy in the end. He was a bit older when he sold his first novel and lived long enough to enjoy some of the success generated by it. But it’s Larsson to whom I feel a real kindship on a number of different levels and maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to live the dream he was never able to.

I have been developing this concept for about a year now and it’s time to put up or shut up. So, I’m giving myself until Jan. 1st, 2020. I have to accept that whatever I draft I finish by my deadline of about April 2020 is NOT going to be a second draft. It’s a first draft and, as such, something I can’t really share with a lot of people.

The major problem I’ve faced for a year is I came up with the plot really fast and was so ill prepared to give it the structure necessary to support. I spent a year pretty much just running in place as I came across existential problem after existential problem. If I had a wife or a girlfriend — or, hell, just a friend — they would have either told me the whole thing was way beyond my ambition or would have at least been my “reader” to speed up the process. But as it was, I had no one to tell me “no.” I dove full steam ahead into a project that I simply was not prepared to complete with the skillset that I had at the time.

Now, a year later, I finally understand some pretty basic elements of the story. That it’s taken so long to get to this point is really, really embarrassing. Now, at least, if I do manage to finish this novel, I’m not going to embarrass myself. The only difference between this novel and Gone Girl, or maybe Sharp Objects, to be more realistic, is my native writing ability. And Gillian Flynn’s background is such that Verified Liberals on Twitter instantly give her a lot more credit than they ever will me, the middle aged white man hayseed rube crackpot failure dreamer loser in the rural part of a purple flyover state.

Anyway, I can only hold this particular pity party for so long. If nothing else, relative my native writing ability this specific debut novel might be seen as my Reservoir Dogs-Sharp Objects to my second novel’s Pulp Fiction-Gone Girl. Or, maybe, just maybe, it’ll enjoy the I’ll get to enjoy its success. Maybe I’ll, for once, get to enter the promise land of commercial and artistic success, a place that not even Larsson lived to see.