Kill Your Partner’s Darlings

r-avatarEvery writer has heard the advice Kill Your Darlings. The theory is that the good of the story is paramount, and takes priority over all. No matter how deeply you love and adore a scene, a character, a turn of phrase, if it doesn’t better the story it gets the axe. It’s good advice, but often difficult to follow.

A writing partner can make the process easier, and also more difficult.

Killing your own darlings is a heartbreaking process; killing someone else’s is less so. When you have a scene that you know needs trimming, but you can’t bear to do the work yourself, your coauthor should step in with more objectivity and kill the darlings that need to be killed.

The problems arise when your collaborator is particularly bloodthirsty. When the red ink flows like blood it can be traumatic. Not only do you mourn your dead darlings, you can sometimes feel personally attacked. If someone in your critique group, or a professional editor, suggests striking something you particularly love, you can console yourself with the knowledge that they are idiots and obviously don’t understand your vision. When it’s your partner…

Right after Thanksgiving we finished the read through of the music novel. It had been resting for a long time, so we found we could see it with relatively clear eyes. We saw  a novel with love handles. It really is too long, just like our critiquers said. Right now there are certain love handles that we like and aren’t ready to lop off. We’re exploring ways to restructure the novel so that they’re less noticeable. We’re also making plans to whittle them down. If they do some crunches and wear Spanx, nobody will notice, right?

While we wrestle with the fate of those darlings, there is one section that we both agree needs serious work. Kent wrote most of it, and he has very bravely handed it to Jen, even though she’s holding a butcher knife and has a mad glint in her eye.

Let’s hope she uses the knife more like a scalpel than a cleaver, and that when it’s her turn to hand her darlings over to the slaughterhouse she’s able to trust Kent to do the same.

 

Sacre Coeur Was Yet Another Cathedral

  • k-avatarpuffed up like a toad
  • no mere statue
  • You had two. They were thick
  • “Stand back, you imbecile!”
  • the 200 year brawl
  • yet another cathedral

Sacre Coeur was yet another cathedral trammeled in the 200 year brawl between transubstantiationalist rebels and the materialist establishment.

“Stand back, you imbecile!” bellowed Mordecai, chief pyrotechnician of the rebellion. “Out of the way so I can take down that minotaur.”

“You had two. They were thick. It’s my turn,” groused Stephanie, a talented psionic.

Both were struck speechless when the icon St Gridiron, which it seemed was no mere statue, puffed up like a toad.

“But this would be blasphemy to the materialists!” cried Mordecai.

In a grating voice St Gridiron explained, “They have formed an alliance with the couch-potato legions.”

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As Winifred Sat Nervously in the Examination Room

  • by jenwearing a neatly trimmed beard
  • like most parents
  • Apparently you know Mr Scroggins
  • almost eerily quiet
  • a secret I can’t discuss
  • license plate number of the truck
  • a product of artificial insemination
  • almost as tall as the diving platform

As Winifred sat nervously in the examination room, her mind was filled by the license plate number of the truck driven by her abductors – XYZ 3499 – over and over in a loop.

The entire facility she now found herself in was almost eerily quiet, even though it was fully staffed with medical and military personnel.

A bald man wearing a neatly trimmed beard entered the room without knocking. Following was a tall man Winifred recognized immediately. The bald man saw her look of surprise and said, “Apparently you know Mr Scroggins.”

“It’s hard not to notice him around town,” said Winifred. “He’s almost as tall as the diving platform at the YMCA.”

Both men chuckled.

“You may well wonder why we’ve brought you here,” said Mr Scroggins.

Winifred nodded.

“Like most parents in this situation, yours did not want you to know you are a product of artificial insemination.”

Winifred gasped. It was surprising news, but did help explain a comment her mother had once made: “I have a secret I can’t discuss with you or your father.”

The bald man interrupted her memory. “Your mother thought she was inseminated with the sperm of a Nobel Laureate. Unfortunately this was not the case…”

He let the ominous sentence hang there and Winifred’s imagination raced.

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Revisions, Revisited

r-avatarNow that we’re done with our latest first draft, and mostly recovered from the bacchanal honoring that milestone, we’re getting set to make revisions on our previous novel. It’s also at the first-draft stage.

We have a methodical approach to this, as we do for nearly everything. The first step is a read-through. We are making some notes and discussing the story along the way, but the primary goal right now is just to get to know the material again. It’s been “resting” for quite some time while we worked on other projects, which is a good thing. The time enables us to get some critical distance.

The next step will be to paw through all the comment copies. Critique group feedback is invaluable, and we have a sizable heap of it. We’ll look for patterns, things that are raised by multiple readers. We’ll also indulge in a frightful amount of second-guessing and interpretation. Using what we learn from all this feedback, combined with our own to-do list generated during the read-through, we’ll move into planning the actual edits.

In this case, we expect to need some substantial structure-level changes. Therefore, it’s even more important to be systematic in dealing with things. If our process has its steps in the wrong sequence, we’ll end up wasting effort on things that will only get cut later anyway, or worse yet, tangle ourselves up in inconsistencies.

It’ll probably be a while before we reach a point where we can split things up. There’s a time for divide-and-conquer, and there’s a time for double-teaming the work. This is an example of the latter. Much like the very early stages of story development, we’ll be doing a lot of analysis and making decisions together about what is needed. It’s one of the most intense and rewarding aspects of writing with a partner.

“Recalling Her Pantaloons”

  • k-avatarher pantaloons, her cherry-coloured stockings
  • find myself craving the famous borscht
  • I think she died in the bombardment
  • you’d rather gossip than fuck!
  • padded with brown velvet
  • Those bastards are better off

“Recalling her pantaloons, her cherry-coloured stockings padded with brown velvet, I find myself craving the famous borscht served in the capitol before it was razed. I think she died in the bombardment. Many did. Those bastards are better off than we are, when you look at what the revolution had done to architecture.”

“My sister was right when she said you’d rather gossip than fuck!”

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Devlin du Mauvais Addressed the Lecture Hall

  • by jenwe will use the celebrated diagonal method
  • “just another human being”
  • blur the distinction
  • Jeepers creepers!
  • there is nevertheless always some intangible abstract quality
  • Indeed, the brains of anteaters

Devlin du Mauvais addressed the lecture hall full of nubile coeds and continued his thought, “There is nevertheless always some intangible abstract quality that allows a demon to tell exactly what it is dealing with. ‘Just another human being’ it will think, its amorality allowing it to blur the distinctions we humans make amongst ourselves. Demons care not whether we see ourselves as good or worthy of salvation. Indeed, the brains of anteaters hold more interest for them than do the minds of humankind.”

Jeepers creepers! thought Edna Calfdimple from the doorway where she lurked, eavesdropping. He’s so handsome! I have to take this class next semester.

Dr du Mauvais dismissed the class, and Edna lurked until all the students left, hoping to pluck up the courage to speak to the dashing professor. But before that happened, a trio of sultry raven-haired women entered the lecture hall and surrounded Dr du Mauvais with their identicalness, cooing and touching him.

“Tonight darling brother,” they said in unison, “we will use the celebrated diagonal method.”

Edna blushed furiously and fled.

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It Takes Two to Tango

r-avatarGood news everyone!

We are thisclose to putting our current first draft to bed. The text of the story itself has been done for a couple weeks, and we’ve even started to get feedback on it from our critique group. So far so awesome.

The only thing we have left to write are some supplementary materials, which we talked about a little bit last week. Kent has been reveling in this opportunity to explore the original story spark that morphed so completely to become our finished novel. His excitement is contagious, and Jen has joined in to a limited extent. We anticipate needing less than 1000 more words and the whole thing will be done.

And then we get to celebrate!

Celebrating your milestones is an important part of the writing process. You need to reward yourself for a job well done, and it’s much more fun to do that with a partner. And we don’t even mean that in a salacious way — we mean with your writing partner. Sure, your spouse or your buddy can lift a glass with you to toast the completion of your new story, but they probably don’t have a full understanding of how satisfied you feel, how proud you are, or just how difficult the road there was. When you have a coauthor, that person is with you every step of the way. You’ve had each other’s backs through the whole long slog, now you can let loose together and get freaky!

Just how freaky do Jen and Kent plan to get? Well, there are some movies that have been clogging up the TiVo for a while. Plus this Day of the Doctor thing is happening. And next week is Thanksgiving.

I hope you’re not scandalized.

Next up, after our Authors Gone Wild break: plotting out the new story idea, followed by extensive edits of a previous novel that’s been waiting patiently on the back burner.

Stefano Shifted his Considerable Bulk

  • k-avatarcoughed and reached for his rum
  • gave a big, guttural grunt of pleasure
  • I’m not a machine
  • I can’t even offer you a drink
  • fat arms curved around his daughters
  • and then a stream of bubbles

Stefano shifted his considerable bulk in the murky hot tub, gave a big, guttural grunt of pleasure, and then a stream of bubbles paraded to the surface.

“Your request tugs at my heart,” he grumbled distractedly, his fat arms curved around his daughters, each girl almost as rotund, and hirsute, as their father. “I understand your plight. I’m not a machine.”

He then coughed and reached for his rum while we fidgeted and dreaded the inevitable refusal of our boon. Stefano upended the bottle into his mouth, swallowing greedily.

“But there’s nothing I can do,” he drawled, before extracting the last of the fluid from the bottle. “I can’t even offer you a drink.”

And so, my brothers and I resigned ourselves to performing our trapeze act without a net.

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The Almighty Cornelius MacDermott

  • by jenat or about midnight
  • remembered the area as being that swampy
  • the almighty Cornelius MacDermott
  • the place was an inferno
  • the gumption of a sunflower

The Almighty Cornelius MacDermott, President for Life of the Mid-Atlantic chapter of the Sunflower Society, made his way through the mire under cover of darkness. He was to meet his blackmailer at or about midnight in the abandoned sawmill. He hoped he would be on time. He hadn’t remembered the area as being that swampy, and the going was slow.

Once he located the old mill, the Almighty Cornelius MacDermott scouted the surrounding area until he spotted a mud-splattered ATV parked behind a gorse bush. His blackmailer was already here. Good.

The Almighty Cornelius MacDermott crept up and peered between some loose boards on the mill, confirming that his blackmailer was inside. Then he quickly spread the accelerant and lit the match.

In no time, the place was an inferno. The Almighty Cornelius MacDermott waited patiently outside for the screaming to start, and then to stop, ensuring that his blackmailer did not escape.

Let no man say that the Almighty Cornelius MacDermott lacked the gumption of a Sunflower Soldier, he thought as he began the long slog back to his car.

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Fictional Fiction

r-avatarJen and Kent work hard to blend their writing styles into a seamless Rune Skelley voice. Rune Skelley, though, is not content with a single voice.

Each of our books has called for the inclusion of writings by authors in the story’s fictional universe, and we’ve had a marvelous time differentiating those voices. The fictional authors have writing styles that don’t sound like Rune Skelley. Neither do they sound like Jen, or Kent. Or like our other fictional authors.

As we’ve mentioned, our current novel started out as an idea born of Kent’s fevered imaginings, an idea that didn’t really speak to Jen. We found a way to work around that, and now Kent gets his reward for compromising.

In the story world, there is an author whose novels embody Kent’s original idea, and now Kent has free rein to bring that idea to life. He is encouraged to dive as deep into the hard scifi well as he wants. And since we’re only going to be including excerpts from our fictional author, he doesn’t have to worry overmuch about plot.

Lest it sound like Jen never gets to do the fun part, she already came up with the titles for all ten of our latest made-up author’s novels (and one short story). That “idea that didn’t really speak to Jen” seems to have been whispering in her ear over the past couple of days. Having the names of all the books that will provide the excerpts gives Kent inspiration for the story lines and themes they contain. It’s a neat example of the symbiosis in Rune Skelley’s writing process.