Reply to comment

Once the realization of the previous post settled into my psyche, I began to have mental cows. 

Sure, most of the first 10 pages were backstory, but those pages were actually frontstory because they were what the character was actually thinking and feeling as the story began.  The experience and story of the first 10 pages were true to who the character was, they were true to her life, they were true to her past, they were true to her experience and to the unfoldment of her day.

You see, Sarah has been a real person to me since I began writing her story over three years ago.  She came to me as a whole person.  Yes, along the way I've discovered more about her, but the essence of who she is, her personality and her aliveness, hasn't changed a bit.

So, the whole process of writing her book for the last 3+ years, has been a process of recording her story and being true to the truth of who she is.  And in the last draft, I feel I succeeded marvelously.  Sure, it needs a touch-up here and there, some editing and tightening, but the essence of the truth of who Sarah is and her story is fully recorded in that draft.

Except that the majority of my readers couldn't get into it.  Some of them loved it from the first word.  But most couldn't get past the beginning.

Why not?

I've pondered that question since I finished the draft in Jan. 2008 and I sent it off to my beta readers.  Only a couple actually read the thing.  Why weren't the others getting into it?  What was so wrong with the beginning?

Then two days ago, I finally read it with new eyes... and realized the majority of the first few chapters are backstory... the death-bell for a novel.

But they are true to the character.

But they are backstory.

But they are true... backstory ... truth ... backstory..... truth ....

Then this voice spoke in my head in that voice-of-god voice that you know you really need to listen to:

IT'S AN F'N NOVEL!!  IT'S NOT REAL!  IT'S A FICTIONAL STORY! SARAH IS A FIGMENT OF YOUR IMAGINATION NOT A REAL PERSON!  IT'S A BOOK THAT YOU WANT TO SELL!  IF YOU WANT TO SELL IT, IT HAS TO BE A GOOD BOOK TO READ. IF YOU WANT IT TO BE A GOOD BOOK TO READ YOU NEED TO LET GO OF THIS BE-TRUE-TO-THE-CHARACTER CRAP AND FIX IT SO IT'S A GOOD BOOK TO READ.

Oh.

[long pause]

Um...

[another long pause]

Good God! do I feel stupid.

And then I got MAD!!  I have all these beta readers, they're supposed to be smart, they're supposed to tell me what's wrong with the book, so why didn't anybody bother to tell me what the problem was? Don't they know how much time I've wasted over this?  Why didn't they tell me, it could have saved me so much time!!!

But the mad didn't last long.  I realized that people might have told me, but I was so attached to "be-true-to-the-character" that I couldn't hear them.  I wasn't ready to hear them.  I wasn't ready to let go of my need to be-true-to-the-character.

The other thing I need to remember is that beta readers can only give me the symptoms of the problems, not the real problems.  Even the professional editor who kindly read the first chapters could only give me symptoms.  It's my job as author to set aside all my preconceptions of the story and put all those symptoms together to find out what is the actual problem. 

It was my failing that I wasn't ready to let go of my preconceptions enough to see the truth of the problem.

So... if any of my beta readers heard me cursing at you over the last few days, my apologies.

And... for the moment, the lesson is learned (although I'm sure this lesson will be visiting me again). 

Most of the first five chapters of the story will disappear, no matter if they are true to the character's truth or not, because it's a fictional story that I want to sell and I want people to read.  I'll layer in the external plot and pay more attention to that, because it's a fictional story that I want to sell and I want people to read.

Over the last two days I figured out how to do most of this... so it's now just a matter of finding the time to do it.

Repeat after me: it's a novel... it's a novel... it's a novel.

I still feel really stupid.