Sunday, March 8, 2015

The Importance of The Right Setting


I’m doing rewrites on a book at the moment, but not the sort of rewrites I’ve done in the past. I would have thought that by now I should be well-versed in this kind of thing, having written twelve books, but this is a new one on me.

I’m not changing the story, as such. That’s not to say, when the book reaches the editing stage, there won’t BE story changes that need to be made, but at it stands I’m reasonably happy with it. It flows, twists and turns, and it makes sense - in as far as a thriller set against a backdrop of the supernatural CAN make sense. I’ve invented a world with certain rules and the inhabitants of this world follow those rules.

Just as, in a vampire story, the Creatures of the Night cannot roam the countryside in daylight, eat garlic bread, or cross the threshold without being invited in. The jury’s still out on the whole ‘sparkling’ debate.



This is not a vampire novel, by the way.



The reason I’m doing the rewrites is because I realised I needed to change the setting of the first half of the book. The storyline originally kicks off in a hazily-described London, with a cast of characters who are all Brits.



Then, as the story evolves, the cast travels to rural Japan where the second half of the book takes place. The plot dictated this setting very firmly. I’d go so far as to say it wouldn’t work anywhere else.



Although I’ve written the book in third person and it is more of an ensemble piece than previous books, it still features a strong female main protagonist, Jude, and I spend a good deal of time inside her head. I really needed to keep her as a Brit so her thought processes and speech patterns came more naturally to me.

Another of the cast is an academic type, Christopher, and he’s another character I can’t see as anything other than a rather stuffy and pedantic Brit but of great intellect and highly developed powers of reasoning.

The other players are far more flexible in their backgrounds. By that I don’t mean they are not fully-formed - I hope! But rather that their attitudes have been shaped by their upbringing and the strata of society in which they find themselves - the student who dropped out of his studies to look after his disturbed twin sister. The determined law enforcement officer who suspects her gay relationship is thwarting her career.

A couple of my early test readers commented about the lack of detailed description in the early scenes, and I now realise it’s because they really cry out to be somewhere else.

Somewhere like New York, for example, where there are plenty of deserted parks for me to set the initial part of the story and the bustle of the city is good camouflage for whatever evils might be lurking beneath.



And the national law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI, give me far better scope for a character to keep tabs on crimes happening around the country.

So, at the moment I’m working through the typescript and shifting scenes, rewriting backstory and altering dialogue where necessary. And as I’m doing it the story is starting to gain some life as well as efficiency.

I cannot deny that it’s a lot of work for something that might, or might not, appeal to - or even be noticed by - readers.

But it feels better to me. More complete, more grounded in a certain amount of reality, however strange that sounds. So, I’ll keep going to the end and see what happens. This is my first foray into the world of the supernatural, and as well as having no vampires, a final word to reassure - or disappoint you - there are no werewolves or zombies either.



This week’s Word of the Week is Stygian which means excessively dark or gloomy, having its roots in the Greek stygios and relating to the River Styx, the main river of Hades, the underworld, in Greek mythology, which the dead had to cross, hence the practice of putting a coin in the mouth of the dead as fare to Charon, the boatman.



20 comments:

  1. Hey, Jude, sure sounds like a winner to me. But so does Christopher. And I see elements of their creator in both...only the good qualities though:). Too bad no vampires, werewolves or zombies, though perhaps you could toss in a few tax collectors.

    As for the word, you made me smile. I just today sent in the completed, edited version of my new book and a primary character is named Kharon...after the very same boatman. Talk about coincidence.

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    1. Got the Beatles reference. And Kharon? How spooky is that?

      As for the no vampires, werewolves or zombies, I hope I've found something far more scary ...

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  2. Sounds great, Zoe! We've had to excise two characters from a book on one occasion. They occurred in the first chapter and then intermittently throughout the whole book. Our editor said: "What are they there for? They don't do anything believable." After we had finished spluttering we knew she was right. But we've never changed the setting of a book. Yet. Hmm...

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    1. Yeah, I've taken characters out, or amalgamated a couple who didn't seem to have enough to do on their own, but this is a first for me, too.

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  3. Sounds like fun, Zoë. Good thing there's no vamps, weres nor zombies, that genre has been over-done to death (kind of like what happened to the horror genre when Stephen King came on the scene). When one or two authors are wildly successful doing something 'different', every other gander and goose piles on until the post has been driven firmly into the underworld, rather than doing their OWN thing that is different and original, which (of course) is what makes something wildly successful in the first place (well, that, and being REALLY well done, of course :-). I look forward to your brilliance! (As opposed to my feelings about Jeff, who's currently on my dung-list, the little poop. He's just lucky he had a good excuse, or I might have had to take "corrective measures." Stygian, indeed...)

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    1. Hmm, now you've got me worried about how well I've done this. Argh! I've had the idea for this story in mind for years, but it's only recently I've actually had the opportunity to write it. Ah well, time will tell ...

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    2. Never fear, never doubt, full steam within and charge through the ionosphere. (No, it doesn't make any sense to me either, but it sort of made sense in a self-referential way... :-) Remember, there's really only 6 or 7 stories, it's all in the details!

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    3. Nope, that's a new one on me, too!

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  4. I don't know why I need to know Zoe, but are you changing their hair dos as well?

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    1. What an interesting question... Hadn't thought about it other than in description. Is US hair very different to Brit hair?

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    2. Absolutely. If you don't have British hair, you can't do that stiff-upper-lip thing. Sheesh, I'd think YOU would know THAT!

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    3. As long as British hair isn't thought of the same as British teeth ...

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  5. Can you foray in the world of the supernatural without at least one character having a haircut like your first pic?

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    1. Strangely enough, now I think about it, I do mention the brother who's looking after his disturbed twin sister having to take clippers to his hair because the first time she went weird on him she pulled it out in handfuls ....

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  6. Zoe, if they are coming to NYC, I stand by to photograph locations. There is a restaurant in the forthcoming Kubu that I visited as a research stand-in. I'll be glad to do the same for you

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    1. LOL, might take you up on that, Annamaria, but on the other hand, visiting places for the research is half the fun of this job, isn't it?

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  7. I love that you noticed the need for a change, and had the guts to go ahead and make it, rather than simply saying "oh, well, Britain is good enough..." - it's that kind of courage that separates a fabulous story from one that's just "okay."

    Looking forward to seeing what supernatural means in your (fictional) world!!

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    1. Thanks, Susan. My heart hit my boots when I realised and accepted that I really needed to make the changes, but I can see it will make the story stronger, so it needs to be done.

      And I'm looking forward to see what others make of it, too!

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  8. Good luck. It's hard work but well worth it. I admire your work ethic.

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  9. Thank you, Elisabeth. My work ethic tuts and groans on a regular basis but I try to keep it under control :)

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