Backstory Part 2 of 4

Through the Humber College program, I was paired with Richard Scrimger, a writer of, among other works, young-adult fiction. (Check him out at www.scrimger.ca). He was very supportive and very (very) honest.

One of his first questions: “What does your character want?”

Ummm…

I just thought it was cool to have a character with super cells. And I imagined that she was running away from government doctors who wanted to use her… for something…

I totally understood what Richard was asking me. I got why he was asking. After all, I teach this very thing to my own students.

And yet…

I couldn’t figure out the answer. I had a great concept and a good character, but I couldn’t put it together into a cohesive whole.

I wrote outline after outline and plotted a dozen different scenarios, each one no doubt frustrating Richard more and more.

I finally came up with my three-sentence pitch:

Sixteen-year-old Lyra Harmon can’t die because she has “super cells”—cells that always heal themselves. When she learns her parents have contracted the fatal Hecate’s Plague, she sets out to save them because her body is key to finding a vaccine, since she’s the only person who survived the disease 10 years earlier. But a shadowy military unit tries to take her because it has other plans for her unkillable body.

Richard’s reply:

Pretty good!  You are on point.  I’d like a clearer sense of what ‘sets out to save them’ looks like, though.  Is she a scientist, warrior, computer hacker, spy? Does she work in a lab, battle a demon, break into the Pentagon, raise money selling chocolate bars? Lyra’s on her way to the city.  A journey.  Good. How does she hear about her parents’ illness?  Is she in an armed camp or a hospital or a safe sanatorium? And, in search of a vaccine.  Means what? Does the vaccine exist but in short supply? Is it ready but untested?  Does she plan to make one?  Is she a doctor? I mean, I wouldn’t know how to make a vaccine to save my life or my kids’ lives. Finally, is she the only supercell person on the planet? Just thinkin out loud.  

My reaction: Oh God, how the hell do I know?

A few more weeks, a few more futile attempts…

Finally:

Richard, you’re killing me! What do you think you’re trying to do… make me write a better book?! 

I’ve been thinking about your scenario comments and I’m basically considering rewriting the entire premise of the story (yet again!)

So here’s another crack at it. No idea whether it’s any good (guess that’s why they pay you the big bucks:) 

Sixteen-year-old Lyra Harmon can’t die. She’s the only person known to have “super cells”—cells that always heal themselves. That’s why the military believes she is the only one who can succeed in a special mission that will end the West’s bloody, long-running war with the East. But when Lyra learns her job is to assassinate the East’s dictator, she must decide if she can actually kill one person to save thousands.

I’d love for you to stroke my (tender, bruised) writer’s ego to remind me that it’s natural and normal to keep revising the idea of the story (as opposed to the story itself) by this point. 

Richard’s reply—something all us non-yet published writers need to remember:

You have a kick-ass story idea.  THAT is something not very many writers can boast. I have published a bunch of books with lousier central ideas than yours. You will publish more books, but they will not have this good a clear simple idea. BE THANKFUL for the good idea.

 It is totally normal to have to address the major motives.  I do this all the time.  I always have.  

My first kids book sold a shit ton of copies and made my reputation, but it needed serious rewrite.  My original draft had not 1, not 2, but 3 aliens (evil twins!!).  It was a love triangle.  My editor liked the book enough to buy it and then had me totally rewrite it with only 1 alien. The big idea was good but I needed to lose the scenes with the other Jupiterians.

Just last year I handed in Zomboy.  It is on a bunch of best-of lists now, but in its first draft the main guy Bob is a bit, well, dull.  My editor wanted me to make him more interesting. I changed his personality and then had to tweak EVERY scene he was in.  Guess how many scenes?  That’s right, all of them.

That made me feel better—for 10 minutes. Until I realized I still had to do all the work. So I went back to the drawing board.

Again.

And again.

Remember how I was going to have a full draft completed by the spring? We’re now February 2015.

I start over. From scratch.