PHONING IT IN

by James Lincoln Warren

I read a novel last week by a best-selling mystery writer, which I found myself not liking very much. In keeping with my invariable practice of not criticizing living writers, since I begrudge no writer his success, I will withhold the author’s name, but the problem with the book is amply illustrated by the title of this week’s Scribbler.

Not even the ring tone was original. I wrote about my take on the book to a friend and realized I couldn’t even remember its title without reading it on the front cover. You can’t get much more forgettable than that.

What’s a writer to do when things get stale? Especially wildly successful things?

There are two common solutions, both inadequate as far as I’m concerned.

First, you can phone it in, like this book. This means writing your last story over again but changing the names. Telling the same story all over again isn’t necessarily a bad thing. My friend claimed that James Lee Burke, who is surely a giant in the genre and one of the best-loved men in the crime fiction community, has been doing it for years. But somehow a new James Lee Burke is always worth reading. Maybe it’s because you don’t really read JLB for the story, but for the power of the prose.

Allow me to analogize. (Really? Warren analogizing? He’s doing it again.)

The Gentle Reader may recall that I’m a big time classical music junkie. In late-19th century Germany and Austria, there was a famous rivalry between Richard Wagner and Johannes Brahms. This was slightly mitigated by the fact that Wagner never wrote symphonies and Brahms never wrote operas.

But one of Wagner’s disciples, Anton Bruckner, was every inch a symphonist. He wrote two symphonies, now numbered “No. 0” and “No. 00”, before actually offering up his “Symphony No. 1”. He then wrote eight more.

Brahms only wrote four symphonies. Brahms’ symphonies are each unique, very different from each other, every one a masterpiece. Bruckner’s symphonies, although all wonderful and epic and justifiably still played, have a certain undeniable uniformity.

One of my friends, who loved Bruckner, told me, “Brahms waited until he was forty to write his First Symphony, which was perfect, and then wrote three more perfect symphonies. Bruckner wrote his First Symphony at forty-two, and then rewrote it eight times.”

I mentioned this to another friend, an even fiercer Bruckner partisan, who bristled at the comment. “That’s not true! Bruckner did not write the same symphony nine times! He wrote the same symphony eleven times!”

Bruckner’s symphonies are all very complex and dense, and took a long time to write. Before Beethoven, composers were much more prolific and had no trouble recycling material when they got lazy. As one of Margaret’s professors, the late eminent Johnson Scholar Donald Greene, told her, “Life is too short for Vivaldi.”1

In fine, while there may be nothing wrong with trying to crack a problem from different angles, there is a problem when you crack the same problem the same way several times in a row.

But moving on. The second method is to apply out-of-the-box thinking. This also usually goes wildly wrong. For example, when one of my cats solves a problem out of the box, there’s usually some cleanup involved. (Now you know why I hate that expression “out of the box.” Take away one of the walls and the roof can fall down.) But I digress. (Really? Warren digressing? He’s doing it again.)

In Hollywood, this leads to the phenomenon known as jumping the shark, from an episode of Happy Days that attempted to resuscitate sagging ratings by having the Fonz perform a motorcycle stunt over a pool containing a man-eating fish. Aside from being excruciatingly dumb, this was not very consistent with the show’s originally nostalgic premise, and was accurately seen as the show’s death knell. More recently, we’ve had nuking the fridge, a direct reference to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, where Indiana Jones survives a nuclear blast by taking refuge in a lead-lined refrigerator. The refrigerator inexplicably is not reduced to atoms but is blown several miles from ground zero, with Indy tumbling inside without being reduced to purée of archaeologist. This sounds pretty ridiculous, and it is pretty ridiculous, but it was actually pretty consistent with Indiana Jones’s previous adventures. I mean, how exactly did Indy stow away on the outside of a German submarine in Raiders of the Lost Ark without drowning? Just a little over the top.

I don’t think I’m as good as James Lee Burke, so if I ever start to phone it in or jump the shark, will you, my Gentle Readers, stop me before I kill again?

Phoning it in is like phone sex. Phony.

So I guess if I ever do go stale and have to change things up, I probably shouldn’t switch to romance.

1. I might add that among other Things the World Does Not Need are more recordings of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, and Gustav Holst’s The Planets, all of which I love, but give it a rest. [↩]

The THING in the NORTH WOODS

by Leigh Lundin

The forest was dark that night, winds whipping through the trees, battering the eaves. The temperature plummeted below freezing into negative numbers, but the house was warm and dark, a cocoon in the scattered reaches of the state park.

The sound in the corner of the house part rattled, part hissed, an angry bit of both. The ferrets, Sid and Felix, afraid of nothing, arched their backs and glared, giving off ehn-ehn-ehn sounds. The lynx-like cat, Debit, possessed all the intelligence of a table leg, but she was smart enough to evacuate the bedroom.

Panicked, my significant elbowed me. "What is that?"

The noise came again like a throaty, warning roar. She ducked under the covers. "K-k-k-kill it or something."

At these times, feminist rules of engagement evaporate like breath in the cold outdoors:

The party of the female part may immediately suspend rules of gender equity so that the party of the male part shall utmost protect party of the female part against invasions, incursions, monsters, and all things big, potentially lethal and vewwy, vewwy scary.

I slipped out of bed.

The noise came again, menacing. At first, I thought the sound came from outside, from the other side of the wall. My famed hunting skills kicked in as I noiselessly slunk toward the invader in bare feet. I discovered the cat hadn’t merely evacuated the bedroom, she’d evacuated in the bedroom.

The noise now a snarl. I realized it wasn’t outside, but behind the dresser… or in the dresser.

Squirrel? They were noisy. Rat? They were nasty. We once let a fox in the house, but the fox didn’t make that sound. We sometimes found snakes, and I wondered if a rattler made it inside.

"A bear or wolf would have to be mighty, mighty small," I said.

"Could be mighty, mighty and small," came from beneath the covers.

Badger? They were fearless. Skunk? Potential rabies carrier. Wolverine? They had evil reputations.

When I opened the bottom drawer of the dresser, the noise picked up pace and volume. I couldn’t see anything hiding in its depths.

Closed the drawer. I tried the middle one. My significant "eeked", making me jump. The noise was louder, uglier, but I couldn’t see anything in the drawer. I slid it shut.

I reached for the top drawer and…

A Word from our Sponsor

Friday, Steve wrote about animals in the attic or bats in the belfry and he managed to work in a lesson about novel writing. I’ll speak a moment about suspense.

Usually, we associate suspense with thrillers and horror flicks, wondering if or who or when someone gets snuffed. Many other situations apply. Suspense kicks in as we worry if the poor minority school for the blind will prevail over the evil land developers, if Rocky will win the fight or the girl, or if the Black Stallion will win the race.

When we care about characters, we become susceptible to suspense. In Elizabeth Peter’s Egyptology stories, I became concerned when Amelia Peabody’s son Ramses appeared cowardly. While reading Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason’s The Rule of Four, I called the girlfriend who’d recommended the book to ask if it was going to turn out the way I wanted. Watching The Night of the Living Dead, I wanted the black kid to make it. But did he?

Without caring, there is no suspense.

After posting my comment to Steve’s article, I received this message:

This is krooool and unusual punishment for one with my quiziosity! I want to know, I want to know, I want to know (bouncing up and down) – please, please do tell (she begged, imploringly). As one of my kids once said ‘The suspension’s killing me.’

And now, back to our story…

The hissing rattle sound grew louder, barely pausing. The first two drawers were empty. I reached for the top drawer and found…

A sort of toy. A special sort of toy. Battery powered. For adults, see. Forgotten for months.

In the interim, the electrical contacts oxidized and it managed to, well, (How do I put this?) turn itself on.

After that, lots of relief, lots of nervous laughing, lots of joking. Thankful the danger was past.

And that is the point of suspense.

DROVE MY CHEVY TO THE LEVEE BUT THE LEVEE WAS DRY

by John M. Floyd

Since I love music as well as fiction, I found myself thinking the other day about folks who have successfully managed to combine the two. And since whatever crazy thought enters my head usually turns into column fodder, that’s my topic for today: songs that tell a story.

Some of the earliest that I can remember are “The Legend of Tom Dooley” (The Kingston Trio), “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” (Bill Hayes), “The Battle of New Orleans” (Johnny Horton), etc. That kind of song isn’t usually my cup of tea, because I’ve never cared much for lyrics — I’m more interested in the music. (That’s probably the reason I so love instrumentals and soundtracks.) But these songs made me pay attention to the words. A good tune and a good storyline; what more could a listener ask?

Here are 25 more songs — most of them from the years of my misguided youth — that tell stories:

“El Paso,” Marty Robbins

“Ode to Billy Joe,” Bobbie Gentry

“Taxi,” Harry Chapin

“Polly Vaughn,” Peter, Paul, and Mary

“Honey,” Bobby Goldsboro

“The Ballad of Thunder Road,” Robert Mitchum

“Rocky Raccoon,” the Beatles

“Old Rivers,” Walter Brennan

“Sink the Bismark,” Johnny Horton

“Leader of the Pack,” The Shangri-Las

“Billy, Don’t Be a Hero,” Bo Donaldson

“The Boxer,” Simon and Garfunkel

“Swamp Witch,” Jim Stafford

“Big Bad John,” Jimmy Dean

“American Pie,” Don McLean

“The Last Farewell,” Roger Whittaker

“Hurricane,” Bob Dylan

“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” Gordon Lightfoot

“A Boy Named Sue,” Johnny Cash

“Puff the Magic Dragon,” Peter, Paul, and Mary

“Alice’s Restaurant,” Arlo Guthrie

“Cat’s in the Cradle,” Harry Chapin

“Ballad of the Alamo,” Marty Robbins

“Dead Man’s Curve,” Jan and Dean

“In the Ghetto,” Elvis Presley

There are of course many, many more of these song/stories. Some of them (“Taxi,” “Ballad of the Alamo,” “Big Bad John,” “The Last Farewell”) never fail to give me chillbumps when I hear them, and a few (“Honey,” “Polly Vaughn,” “Cat’s in the Cradle”) still bring tears to my eyes. All of them bring back great memories. I would welcome finding out about others you might remember.

Who knows, maybe one day someone will put our stories to music . . .

UP A TREE

by Steven Steinbock

Last week I had some dental surgery. As a followup I was given a prescription for a pain killer. I usually am fine with ibuprofen (Advil or Motrin) and those non-prescription drugs took care of the pain and swelling until Sunday night when I was feeling extra achy and decided to take one of the Vicodin tablets. I know Vicodin mainly from television as the object of Dr. Gregory House’s addiction. I guess I hadn’t had Vicodin before. I don’t think I’m likely to have it again in the future. I bring this up only to establish my state of mind when I started hearing sounds coming from inside my walls at 2 a.m.

I thought it was the pitter-patter of feet that roused1 me from my numb slumber. At first I thought it was one of the boys getting up to use the bathroom. I fell back into my narcotic haze. I heard it again and shifted my head so I could peer down the hallway, and I fell back asleep in that position. The next time I heard it, I grabbed a flashlight and climbed out of bed to see who it was. Out in the hallway, not a creature was stirring. I returned to bed.

Around 3:30 in the morning I heard it again. And again, with flashlight in hand, feeling like a character from a Carolyn Wells novel, I crept down the hall to find the source of the noise. I stood there, still as a statue. Then I heard it again, this time coming from inside my room.

At this point I began entertaining the possibility that I was hallucinating. I walked back into the room fully prepared to meet a white rabbit or to fall through a looking-glass.

Instead, I heard the sound coming from inside my bathroom. I went in and began checking in the cabinets for intruders. Then I heard it again. It seemed to be coming from outside the bathroom this time. At that moment I accepted two facts: that there was a very real varmint scurrying inside my wall, and that the unpleasant telescoping sensation in my head and limbs was the result of a narcotic hallucination. (I was experiencing, as it were, morphine morphing). I went back to bed and tried to forget about it all.

Squirrels living inside walls is a serious matter, and not a simple one to solve. I was able to confirm that I had a real squirrel and not just a hallucination. I was also able to postulate that the squirrel was able to get in and out, and wasn’t trapped.

Most of the reading I did on squirrel control was pretty extreme. Cut open your wall. Trap or snare the squirrel. Drive him fifteen miles out of town. Let him go. The part I didn’t like is the Cut open your wall part. That wall is custom painted on one side, and marble-tiled on the other.

I read up on sonic pest repellants, little plug-in devices that emit a high frequency noise that is inaudible to dogs, cats, or humans, but that drives insects and rodents running to the hills. Most of what I read said that they were useless, and that even if they did annoy squirrels, the sound waves would be blocked by walls.

But I’d much rather try a twelve dollar experiment and know that if failed than to cut a thousand dollar hole in a wall knowing that I hadn’t tried the easier path first.

So on the morning after three nights of a scurrying uninvited tenant, I bought a set of sonic repellants. I plugged one in on each side of the bathroom wall and waited for night. So far I’ve had two squirrel-free nights. It might be a coincidence, but I’m not complaining. They may come back. I’ll deal with it then.

While all this was going on, I was facing the final stretch of my novel. My characters were just about to enter into the big climactic scene, and I was feeling overwhelmed. I had a general idea of what had to happen, but within that I had a number of choices about locations, methods, and participants. I was also afraid of what I’d do to get my protagonist out of the series of difficult situations once I’ve put him there. And that got me thinking about the squirrel.

What are the lessons to be learned from my squirrel experience? I came up with two. Never chase a squirrel on pain killers – unless it’s the squirrel who’s taking the pain killers.

And . . . You can’t know what works until you’ve tried something. In other words, don’t think about getting your guy down from the tree until you’ve chased him up it and have hurled a few rocks in his direction.2

1. In order to avoid a lengthy grammatical digression, I’m mentioning a word about word-choice here. I had originally typed awakened and awoke in various forms and various conjugations until I gave it up and settled on the less ambiguous roused. It struck me that one of those verbs was transitive, but I couldn’t decide which one. I dug a little and found some prattle about one being an archaic form and more prattle about metaphoric usage (i.e. “awakened feelings”). But it would seem that the transitive/intransitive nature of the verbs for ending sleep are muddled by complex etymologies. I’ll rely on our resident grammar cop to wake me to the truth. [↩]
2. Does anybody know who first came up with the “Chase your protagonist up a tree” analogy? I’ve seen it attributed to Syd Field a few times. But most of the time, people attribute it to that generic “someone.” [↩]

TO EVERYTHING THERE IS AN END

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

This has been a year of endings. Good-bye “24”, “LOST” and “Law and Order.” I’ve said so long to many favorite characters, but I wasn’t prepared for this last one.

I’ve been in a state of mourning for about nine months now though the official death knell wasn’t until Friday, September 17, 2010.

Born on April 2, 1956, the 54-year-old soap opera As the World Turns has stopped turning. The announcement of the cancellation was made in December 2009 in the midst of a ghost story following police officer Jack Snyder’s accidental shooting and killing of his brother, Brad.

This program had been a part of my life as long as I can remember. Originally, it was broadcast during lunch time in our area and was only thirty minutes long. What I remember most is my dad getting suckered into watching the program with mom while he was home for lunch. Dad always said he didn’t like it, but I remember him doing a good job of pretending because I bought the idea he liked it just fine.

Years later, my fireman father-in-law admitted they watched the soaps at work during their lunch, too. My father-in-law and I often discussed plot twists. Once my husband walked in on a conversation and thought we were discussing the lives of mutual friends. He was amused to find out these people only lived on screen. Actually, they lived in our imagination as much as on screen. We often spoke of the What If’s? and the What Might Happen? of the program.

These are fictitious characters who became a part of our lives. The characters were often replaced with different actors without warning. Once when a new actor playing the part of the “bad boy” who’d been forced to leave town now entered stage, the matriarch said something like, “Look at you! You look like a new man!” We all snickered at the not-so-subtle inside joke between writers and fans.

Back in the days of live telecasts, once during a mild scuffle between two men vying for the love of a beautiful actress, one hunk lost his toupee. The camera quickly shifted to another set, but in our home, we burst into laughter. I won’t forget that scene or the startled expressions of all the actors.

As the World Turns meant time spent with my mom, sisters and later, my in-laws. My daughter in a New York school thousands of miles away and I discussed the storylines and characters long-distance. It made us both forget how far apart we were and remember our closeness.

When I lived on Okinawa, I begged my family for “news” of what was happening on the show. It was as comforting to me as hearing news from home in a handwritten letter to a soldier.

The live organ music accompanying the programs was traded in for an orchestral score, and a few years later, the theme song changed to another, then another, and another. Society moved forward and slowly, the soap did, too. Though I don’t remember mention of the Vietnam war until long after the war was over, suddenly a long-lost daughter (played by Ming Na) appeared. Obviously, Thomas Christopher Hughes did a stint in the war and had a fling with a woman who never told him about his love child. Funny, I don’t recall his two-year disappearance from the homestead or any news of his either being drafted or enlisting—a moot point in a soap opera.

A special news break interruption during ATWT reported the news of John F. Kennedy being shot. My mom remembers this as the first break into a program by a newsroom. I guess before that none of the news was Breaking News until the regular broadcast times.

As a writer, I learned a lot from soap operas:

• If a man and woman immediately hate each other, they will eventually fall in love, though they may not stay in love.
• Star-crossed lovers are more exciting than those who have no problems.
• If someone is killed, they usually deserve it.
• If a character dies, it doesn’t mean they are really dead, whether or not a body that looked like them was buried.
• A murder happens only after multiple suspects, all with a reason and probable opportunity to commit such murder, are submitted to the audience as viable.
• Often whoever is charged with the murder is found guilty and sent to jail, where they will meet up with someone who also was wrongly accused of a crime. When the real murderer is discovered and the person in jail is vindicated (a word I learned from watching soaps), they will take the friend from jail home with them and help them make a new start.
• Finding someone to arrest, conducting a trial, and having the jury come to a decision was evidently a longer undertaking in earlier decades than in more recent years.
• Only once do I remember a doctor being portrayed as an inadequate doctor. Sure, soap opera doctors may be cruel and manipulating, but they were always the best in their field. (The awful doctor was Rick Ryan, who escaped to another country and was never heard of or discussed by the residents again in Oakdale, Illinois, again.)
• Children mature dramatically fast in Soap Opera Land. They also can become lawyers or doctors within months of making a career decision. Doctors may be specialists in several areas without additional training, from heart surgery to placing embryos into a woman who’s having trouble conceiving.
• I learned pacing of multiple plot lines in a story. One plot was always in the forefront, another winding down, and another building up to take center stage. This kept the audience interested as one family can’t support all the drama all the time, even in soaps.
• Whoever the bad person is, he/she will still have one really good friend to confide in and who is always of the opposite sex, but they will never see each other as anything but friends.

There are some actors I will always refer by their ATWT character name first, and real name second. Julianne Moore is forever Frannie/Sabrina (twins separated at birth), Meg Ryan is Betsy Stewart (sweet, innocent ingénue), and Parker Posey will forever be the girl who stretched out the name, “Hutch” into three syllables on the banks of Snyder Pond.

It’s like an entire town disappeared right before my eyes. I will never see any of them again. I won’t know what happens when Carly and Jack have their baby or if Parker will be as good a cop as his dad. I won’t know if John and Lucinda will stay together, although they are perfectly suited to each other. I don’t know if Susan will ever find someone she can trust and who will love her as much as she needs to be loved.

I learned so much about writing and what keeps an audience interested enough to last 54 years through all sorts of changes in society. I know it’s old-fashioned and not cool to say I watched this soap opera. I don’t care. I will miss the Memorial Day picnics and the Thanksgiving prayers and the New Year’s Eve parties and the underhanded politics and elections in Oakdale. I miss the bad girls through the ages: Lisa, Barbara and Lucinda. I miss Craig’s antics and Holden and Lily’s long-standing on-again/off-again love affair.

Adieu, ATWT. You were always there and now you are gone forever. I miss you and thank you for every day that the world turned on my television screen.

KEEPING IT UNREAL

by Rob Lopresti

A few months ago I was driving around on Saturday morning. listening to This American Life on NPR. The show always features three or four essays or reports on some theme. That week the subject was true crime.

At some point, as a narrator was discussing a murder that occurred in his family when he was a child, I asked my wife “Do you mind if I change the station?”

My wife, who likes the show more than I do, said “Please do.”

Because neither of us had any desire to hear about true crime.

Truth and consequences

Years ago I read an article whose author (name long forgotten, alas) had interviewed the owner of a mystery bookshop for a radio show. The interviewer had decided to explore the question of why mystery readers are interested in true crime. The bookstore owner promptly replied that people who read mystery fiction are not the same people who read true crime. The astounded interviewer had to do some hasty tap-dancing because most of her follow-up questions had been invalidated.

As you can guess, this was no surprise to me. I don’t generally read true crime. This is especially true since so much of it seems to be about serial killers and I don’t even like to read fiction about them. (Silence of the Lambs excepted.)

But why is it that fictional crime is such a pleasure for many of us who have no desire to read about the real stuff? Is it just because nobody really gets hurt? Because we assume (not always correctly) that the creator of the fictional universe will make sure the good guys win? These aren’t rhetorical questions; I’d like to know what you think. And, by the way, what are your favorite true crime books?

In the mean while . . .

Here are a few true crime books I did enjoy. I will talk about the McClure books in more detail one of these Wednesdays.

Barthel, Joan – A Death in Canaan

Fletcher, Connie- What Cops Know

Larson, Erik. Thunderstruck.

McClure, James. Cop World

McClure, James. Spike Island

Simon, David. Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets.

Wambaugh, Joseph. The Blooding.

Winchester, Simon – The Professor and the Madmen

DISCLAIMER: I don’t believe in rules. But I do believe in certain practical applications that make the craft of writing if not easier, possible. Having said, that here are some rules. Notice how some resemble a construction site. —MJH

RULES FOR EXCAVATING AND REVISING

by Melodie Johnson Howe

1. Ruthlessness: Do not a fall in love with your work. Scrutinize it as if it were a lover you’re really seeing for the first time. The passion is over. The lust has left. But the creature remains. Can you really live with a man whose sideburns meet under his lower lip? No. Changes must be made.

2. Renovate: Okay, you put the bathroom in the kitchen. You had a good reason at the time (probably artistic, even daring), but now your characters have to walk around or through the bathroom to get on with their story. (Maybe it was an artistic scatological reason.) “But I need the bathroom”, you say. “It’s important to the plot, besides being a major clue.” Fine. Put the bathroom where it belongs down the hallway or off the master bedroom. The reader will find it because it is logically placed. And because it is, the reader will be surprised that it’s more than just a loo. But don’t forget the toilet paper. Verisimilitude is very important.

3. Redecorate: When did you begin your draft? A year ago? Six months ago? How well did you know you characters then? You decorated their rooms but does that décor really fit them now? At the beginning of your novel you gave your antihero an expensive but cold modern leather sofa. But somewhere in the middle of your draft you decided to turn him into a slob. Does the sleek sofa reflect him now? Look around his rooms. Does a slob live there? Or does a meticulous man?

4. Reflect: You have your character going down the dark basement stairs. We all know that danger awaits her there. So why does she do it? “Because I have to get my character in the basement,” you say. Not a good enough reason. This is where you should pause to reflect. Don’t think about all the exterior forces that have propelled her to this moment. The readers should know these at this point in the story; if not you have more revisions to do. Focus on the interior of your character. Go back and check out those sub-plots you created for her, that gave life to her. The answer is there. And if it isn’t, you need to put it there. For instance, maybe she once committed an act of cowardice that harmed someone she loved and this has brought her to the top of the stairs. Confronting the danger is her moment to atone. Or maybe she has lost everything important to her in her search for the killer, including her own sense of self-worth. Maybe she doesn’t care if she dies down in that basement. Reflect and dig deep. Then let your character have her moment. Make the connection to her past before she plunges into the darkness. “But it will break the tension,” you say. Breaking and prolonging are not the same thing, especially if your readers can understand why this usually intelligent capable woman is rushing to what could be her death.

5. Re-arrange: You started out with a great opening scene, but then the book slows. “Yes,” you say. “It’s because I‘ve re-read this draft so many times, no wonder it seems slow.” Sorry, but that’s not a reason. It’s slow because it’s slow. So what do you do? Re-arrange your chapters. “But it won’t make sense.” Yes it will. But you have to be brave enough to demolish and rebuild. Let’s say the dead body appears in chapter five. If you put it in chapter three it will pick up the pace of your book and force your characters into action. “But what about Chapter Four? I have important information in there.” Reduce that information to its most significant elements and weave them into Chapter Two using dialogue and narrative. Then Chapter Five can become Chapter Three. Remember that at this point you’re not just a writer, but a carpenter. Your job is to find the problem, knock down the beams that don’t hold anything up, reconnect the wiring, and hammer down the nails. There are times you may also need a bulldozer when revising.

6. Revelation: Revelation happens when you least expect it. Be ready for it and trust it when it does. I have a scene in my book where Diana Poole needs to look into her dead husband’s home office. The reader must see this room. In essence we’re back at the top of the basement stairs but in a less dramatic fashion. She peers into the room, feels great loss, and then closes the door. Then I had revised and condensed the previous chapters bringing into focus the death of Diana’s husband and the recent death of her mother, Nora Poole. Now the revised version is she stares at husband’s empty desk chair and says to the man who is not there. “Nora died.” Then she closes the door. Her aloneness is complete and her word words foreshadow discoveries to come. I was elated. I was beside myself with joy. The builder/excavator and the writer had come together at that moment.