Lately, I’ve been having these conversations with myself. Sadly, I have to report that I’ve not been acquitting myself particularly well during these little talks. These chats tend to be on one topic: my book, and in conjunction with my book, my work ethic.
The conversations always start with the battle-ax sergeant major voice laying down the law with, let’s call her, the In Denial character. The sergeant. major has a litany of complaints and is loud of voice whenever she reels them off, from “If you think you’re done with this chapter, you’ve got another think coming” to the lack of time I spend working on my book. Her favorite line, and I hear it every day, is “If you don’t do it, who will?”
All this is directed at In Denial, whom, as you might imagine, is in complete denial about many things, including two major issues: word counts and use of the verb to be. There are plenty of grammatical no-nos “they” tell book writers to avoid under penalty of death, and the first one is overuse of the verb to be. To be is passive, and novels are no good if they’re passive.
You don’t want “The girls were sewing all afternoon.” What you want is “The girls sewed to their hearts’ content all afternoon.” Go with me here. See how the second one is more vibrant, more visual, more inclusive of you, the reader?
In Denial understands this, but she has a nasty habit of latching onto the one exception “they” tell you, which is, historical fiction can get away with some small amount of wases and weres; it comes with the territory. In Denial figures “some small amount” actually means “far more than is acceptable.” You can see why the battle-ax is starting to lose patience.
The other major conversation starter between these two is my book’s word count. In January, when I started to edit my book, it was 221,000 words. I am about two-thirds of the way through editing the book and am down to 197,000. My goal is to get it down to 188,000. The major problem with this goal, and the battle-ax reminds me of this daily, is “they” say a historical novel by a debut author should be no more than 100,000 words, 110 at the very most.
We can see the problem, right? 188K is nowhere near 100K. In Denial thinks that a prospective agent would see 188K and say, “That’s a number I can work with,” as in, “If Shannon can get it down to 150K, we have something we can work with.”
Fat chance of that ever happening. But In Denial remains hopeful. In June, the Historical Novel Society is hosting a conference, and one of the sessions is titled “Big Is Good” or something like that. The author leading the session has written some monster novels and seen them published. In Denial rationalizes that if that successful author can do it, I can do it too. And her books aren’t 188K or 221K; they’re more like a whopping 400K. My book is like a grade one reader by comparison. In Denial is thrilled.
Gotta go. The battle-ax is calling.
This morning’s listen is Frank Zappa at his best …
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