Inside the Cutting Room

I’m in the process of tightening my work-in-progress, essentially streamlining a draft of a novel in a way that, in Edgar Allan Poe’s words, “plays fair with the reader.” I’m cutting to the chase, taking a 90,000-word mystery and possibly chopping 20,000 words in the name of clarity and precision or, as Elmore Leonard would say, ridding the book of “the parts the reader skips.”

I’ve always been an edit-as-you-go type, so this is a new experience. Other writers speak of the rough draft as throwing a lump of clay on the wheel and then molding it. I’m a little too type-A for that. However, this time around, I have no choice: the clay is spinning, and I’m using the wire to take inches off.

It’s been interesting and educational. One character, who played only a minor role in the first draft, is now a leading figure, working with our sleuth. Another, who teamed with the antagonist, is gone completely, a move to clarify the plot. If I were an outliner, perhaps this is all taken care of in the cutting room. But I’m not. And it wasn’t. So I’m learning as I go.

One concern was length. Can the book be too short? Some of my favorites (I’m thinking John D MacDonald, Ross Macdonald, and early Robert B. Parker) fall in the 200-page range, somewhere near 60,000 words. A typical thriller is 100,000 words; while mysteries are often shorter, and this book is a mystery.

Part of this means fighting is myself. The book is set at a boarding school, which is good and bad. It’s good because, I’ve taught at boarding schools for nearly two decades, and, well, I can describe “the parts the reader skips” in endless ways that fascinate probably only me. If you want to know what 350 teenagers eating a family-style meal sounds like, I’m your guy. But you don’t care, and you shouldn’t. You just want a good story, one that’s compelling, one you can’t put down. And I don’t blame you.

A lot of this comes back to something I think all writers face: sacrificing our self-gratification for the good of the story. Every writer has his or her own family-style meal for 350 teenagers that the reader doesn’t need to know about. If we write what we know –– and we should –– this means finding the balance and avoiding that tempting trap.

In the coming weeks, I’ll face difficult decisions and hopefully have the willpower to leave more lines and scenes on the cutting-room floor.

Follow Your Heroes

Once in a while, I get asked to speak to young people about writing as a profession. When the time comes to offer career advice, I ask them, Who are your heroes? Why are they your heroes and why can't you be a hero like them?

I ask those questions because when I look back on my life and see the direction it's taken, I realize that my way forward is along the path illuminated by other writers. Reading about inventors and moguls was hit or miss, so I was never destined to be a business tycoon. However, the biographies of literary greats like Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and F Scott Fitzgerald spoke to me. I understood their struggles. A favorite source of inspiration was The Red Hot Typewriter, a biography of John D MacDonald, and my takeaway was his blue-collar approach to his craft. He wrote every working day from 8-Noon, 1-4, and during his career he published over forty novels. In 1964, he published five! Using a typewriter! No whining about writer's block from him.

Another hero, though he's excoriated by the literary world, is Harold Robbins because of his steadfast application at putting words on paper and spinning bestselling yarns. And there's Anita Loos, a screenwriter who defied conventions to become a pivotal force in the movie business and invented that Hollywood staple, the romantic comedy.

Not all worked out for my heroes. It's no spoiler if I tell you that the lives of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Robbins went off the rails during their later years. On the other hand, while literary critics like to talk about the burdens of artistic genius and its toll on the writer's psyche, Burroughs, MacDonald, and Loos kept pecking away at the keys well into their sunset years.

What brought these thoughts to mind is that I'm close to finishing one project, the next and long overdue installment of my Felix Gomez series. Now I have to decide what next to dig into. Those of you who've written a book know what it's like to stand on the ready line for another long march. No matter my approach, it takes a year to eighteen months to write the first draft. I've tried schemes, like Chris Fox's 5,000 words-per-hour method, to shorten my turn around time, but when I do that my result is a pile of mush that needs serious editing so I gain little. I wish I had the focus of Cindi Myers who can crank out four-to-six novels a year. People who've attended a writing retreat with her say she easily produces 15 thousand words in a weekend. And it's quality work since since she's won numerous awards to include a Colorado Book Award. Another slayer of the word count is Kevin J Anderson who's hammered out more than fifty bestselling novels. I've been at WordFire parties and when the rest of us are about to start yet another late-night cocktail, Kevin says he's got to go write. That's dedication.

My heroes.

Now Playing

The remake of The Beguiled looked lush and mysterious. I like the actors in the film. However, I am unlikely to see it in the theater. I saw the original with Clint Eastwood in the role of the wounded Yankee soldier. Although it would be an interesting exercise to read the novel -- which I never got around to doing -- and then see the remake, I'm sure I won't. I'll wait to watch this version one winter evening while curled up on the sofa.

I love movies, but these days -- with limited time -- when I go to the theater to see a movie, I want a film that won't play as well on my television at home. Last weekend, a couple of friends and I saw Wonder Woman.
Special effects like that require a big screen.  And there are some movies that simply deserve to be experienced in the theater because they are quiet and thoughtful.

But getting back to remakes -- I don't think I would ever go to see a remake of To Kill a Mockingbird. I regretted seeing the remake of Psycho. But this in not to say either couldn't be done well. I'm just protective of movies I love. That list includes Double Indemnity.

On the other hand, there is Scarface. I have the fascinating experience of introducing undergrads in my Crime and Mass Media course to classic crime films. When I say Scarface, they say "Al Pacino". They are always surprised to learn that there was a 1932 film. First, we watch clips from the 1932 version, set during Prohibition. Then we turn to the 1983 film set during the Mariel boatlift.  The city is now Miami, not Chicago. Cocaine fuels Tony's rise to the top. The Hollywood Production Code has been replaced by the movie rating system, and the movie is hyper-violent.

Or, Cape Fear -- based on a John D. MacDonald novel -- first version starring Gregory Peck as a lawyer whose family is under siege by Robert Mitchum, one of the scariest actors around. Then the remark with Nick Nolte in the role of the attorney, but now with a dysfunctional family, a wife with whom he is in conflict, an adolescent daughter who is easy prey for Robert De Niro. Gregory Peck manages to defeat his enemy without killing him. Nolte, on the other hand, has to kill De Niro, who for a moment seems to be as hard to stop as a slasher in a serial killer movie. Remember that scene in Fatal Attraction, when Glenn Close pops back up in the bathtub?

I think remakes are worth seeing when the filmmaker goes in a different direction and offers commentary for a new audience. But I am bothered by the fact that modern audiences may have less context for movie watching than theater audiences used to bring to the experience. Of course, movies are intended to be fun. But they do also offer a window into our society. And we may misinterpret if we don't know what came before.

I'm looking forward to losing myself in a few more movies before school begins again. And I'm going to be spending some quality time with TCM.

Any thoughts about remakes? What summer movies on your "must see" list?