When I started my new novel about a retired assassin who finds herself without a clue about how to make friends, I wrote 10,000 words of back story for each of the four women in the book. I wrote almost 200 pages of alternating point-of-view before I acknowledged this wasn’t working and switched to a single POV. It was a first draft, and all the garbage was permissible. That’s what my second draft is for: fixing the overall arc of the story, deleting the stuff that doesn’t work, and dumping the prose of which I am proud but doesn’t serve the story (also known as killing your darlings).
I also knew I had started the story in the wrong place. This happens to me with every novel I write, and it catches me off guard every time. I toil and stress and whine about the novel. I fight the temptation to walk away from the novel, give up, and get a job.
But my assassin, Katya Noskov, was relentless. She wrapped her bony fingers around my creative soul and squeezed. I needed to get her out onto the page. And so, I re-wrote the start of the book. Katya wanted everyone to know her retirement was not her fault. She made the choice, reluctantly, to set aside her weapons and try to live a normal life.
But first, I had to tell readers about her final job, the one that went wrong. I was genuinely surprised by how much fun I had creating the scene. My fingers flew across the keyboard as I wrote. The whole scene was gruesome, with gore everywhere. I channelled my inner killer, the one raised on Stephen King and Dean Koontz, Michael Myers and Freddie Kruger. I was 15 again, fearless and fascinated with horror and bloodshed.
It was as liberating as it was alarming. I had no idea I had this beast lurking inside. When the chapter was done, I felt alive and ready to tackle the rest of the draft. I knew that in the third draft, I would have to tone down the murderous scene in order to prevent offending readers. But another idea was niggling at me: maybe in the fall, I would take a course about writing horror.
Taking courses is how I grow as a writer. I gravitate toward courses outside my genre. I took a psychological thriller writing course to get myself out of a slump. It worked, and I learned I would never write a book like Gone Girl. A one-day workshop showed me how to sharpen my dialogue. An afternoon of various classes had me scribbling notes, bleeding a pen dry, and rushing back to my writing desk to apply the things I learned.
Writing without restrictions reveals all kinds of things. I encourage anyone to spend some time free-writing, even if you don’t think of yourself as a writer. Sit down at your laptop or desktop, or pick up a pen and a journal and just let whatever is in your brain pour out. You will find good things come out. And yes, even the murderous, revengeful rampage is good.
xo Dana
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I love iguanas
Instead of sharing what I’m reading this week, I’d like to share some iguana photos. I love these creatures. So chill, so ancient and so eff you I own this rock. I stop whatever I am doing to crouch down and snap a photo. Here’s a few of my favourites.
Katya sounds fascinating! I can't wait to meet her. :-)