Solving Plot Problems

Most of my focus has been on revising a novel draft that I’ve despaired of, these past two years, since I completed my 75,000 or so words. [Worse than feared: 104,665, which is, for my chosen genre, a baggy monster of a book, and unpublishable as a first novel.]

I could see the plot and structural issues but had no idea how to solve them.

More fatally, my beta readers gently identified a key issue: my irresistibly charming leading man had so many red flags that they didn’t think even the most credulous of young women would fall for him.

The fact that I couldn’t see the red flags that I myself planted is a clear indication of why beta readers are so valuable. (And possibly an indicator of my rather worrying taste.)

So I’ve been walking and thinking, as well as reading academic articles about how sociopaths charm and beguile, because I need more subtlety and fewer overt indications of coercive control. My grad student-heroine will not be taken in by someone who immediately shifts from charm to bullying; he can’t go from sweet nothings to snapping at her. But to keep the plot moving, I’d telescoped this, and it needs fixing, if it’s to be convincing. Relationship dynamics don’t change all at once: the seeds are planted early, and then, over time, the relationship blossoms or withers.

And that sentence is why I’m not attempting to write romance.

Walking helps me think through writing conundrums. Trollope and Dickens both swore by the strategy.

And it’s a lovely time of year for walking, in Victoria, if one doesn’t mind colliding with the occasional film crew.

While the cherry trees and daffodils are in bloom, the Hallmark and co. people are working on holiday productions. There is some fake snow. There are lots of scenes of cozy interiors of coffee shops.

I had to sign a release to walk through one outdoor setup, and promise not to look in the windows, since they were shooting an interior.

In recompense, I was waved towards craft services, which had very good cookies and coffee.

Hollywood magic aside, the weather is changeable enough that we can have rain, sun, and hail within a few hours.

I’ve been using that as my inspiration for trying to write more weather-influenced scenes, and to think about the weather metaphors we use for moods and relationships.

My leading man needs to be initially more sunny in disposition than I’ve made him, and then he needs to reveal himself by degrees, and with more nuance, as his essential storminess emerges.

But it’s a challenge, because I don’t write male characters very well.

The fundamental error I made in my first draft was narration. I used one first-person narrator throughout, and her perspective is so privileged that all others are subordinated. I’m re-writing with two first-person narrators (twice as many writing issues! plus the challenge of writing distinguishable female voices). And I’m writing some scenes in third person. I don’t know if this will be an improvement, but it’s different.

Recommendations for mysteries/domestic thrillers that use two female first-person narrators are most welcome.

Mine are separated in age by two decades, and fleshing out details of early 1990s undergrad culture vs early 2010s grad school experience is helping me, although there’s the risk of mistaking surface details for more substantial representation. Still, it lets me use all of the research I’d conducted recently for a failed project and set some scenes at Oxford, c. 1991, which I’m having fun with, at least for the moment.

A reading list, because I’m getting loads of help with thinking this through from people who are more experienced, knowledgeable, and, well, published:

James Scott Bell, Plot & Structure

Lee Child, ed. How to Write a Mystery: A Handbook from Mystery Writers of America

Sherry Ellis & Laurie Lamson, Now Write!: Suspense, Crime, Thriller, and Other Mystery Fiction Exercises from Today’s Best Writers and Teachers

Hallie Ephron, Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel

Sue Grafton, Writing Mysteries

Jodie Renner, Writing a Killer Thriller

Huge thanks, too, to Sisters in Crime and Crime Writers of Canada: I’ve attended a half-dozen webinars over the past couple of months that have helped me keep pushing forward, including a terrific one by Amber Cowie on writing place.

Most of what I’ve learned comes from mystery-writing workshops with Gail Bowen and Sam Wiebe, who are brilliant teachers as well as extraordinary crime fiction authors. I need a brush-up, I think. Recommendations welcome.