Slightly more than two years ago, I posted a Bonanza story entitled, “Fugue.” It was a lengthy story involving post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative fugues, romantic travails, and a very tense murder trial. Interestingly, I knew none of this when I began: all I had was the nightmare in the opening scene. It would be facile to say that the story wrote itself, but the truth is that in parts, it surprised me as much as it ultimately did some of the readers. (One reader told me later, “I didn’t see the Chinese aspect coming.” Neither did I until one of the witnesses mentioned seeing the Chinese girl on the street just before the murder. That the girl was Chinese became significant when the lawyer and the Cartwrights began to search for witnesses.)
In any event, it was a story that drew me in when I was writing it. Judging from the comments it’s received, it had a similar effect on the readers. And because I’d left it with an open question, it was clear that a sequel was going to be necessary.
So, a few months after I’d posted “Fugue,” I began the sequel. Actually, it was part three of the trilogy; “Fugue” was the second part, coming after “The Lady Lawyer.” I had some ideas, and I wrote a few scenes here and there. Some of the scenes were very strong and others . . . well, others got you from A to B and that’s pretty much all they did. So, I worked on it and tightened and edited, and I edited some more to avoid having to work on the biggest hole of all, the scenes leading up to the big climax which I’d written early on. But finally, even though I still didn’t know what it would say, I drafted the fill-in stuff.
And it wasn’t good.
Well, I told myself, I knew I’d have to edit. I sent it off to my cherished beta reader, hoping that She Whose Opinion I Trust would tell me that (a) it wasn’t that bad, and (b) the idea worked. Unfortunately, my beta reader is also honest. (This is one of the reasons that I ask her opinion.) And what I heard in her carefully-phrased questions was the truth that I already knew—it was bad, and it didn’t work.
So, I tried again. By this time, the story was close to 60,000 words long. The filled-in stuff was much better. This time, I was almost convinced that I had it.
Missed again.
The behemoth was in danger of crashing under its own weight when I realized what I needed to do. And so, this morning, I did it.
First, I got out Anne Lamott’s classic writing tome, Bird by Bird. Anyone who wants to come anywhere near to being a writer should run, not walk, to their nearest bookstore or library and snatch up a copy. (Although I am a major fan of libraries, I recommend that you purchase this book, because once you’ve realized how valuable it is, there is an excellent chance that you’re going to want to steal it from the library, and I’d prefer not to be responsible for your life of crime.) In the chapter entitled, “Plot Treatments,” she tells of how she wrote a book and her kind editor told her that it didn’t work. Then, she worked on it some more, and it still didn’t work. And then, she went over it one more time and basically re-did it, and this time, it worked.
So, this morning, I started over on the sequel to “Fugue.” The beginning is completely different—more action, less explanation. I don’t know how much of the prior version will make it into the rewrite. For all I know now, the story may be entirely new this time. All I know is that even before I heard back from my beta reader (who loved the first scene), I knew that the opening worked this time. It was alive. It created questions to draw a reader in. It revealed how the characters responded to a situation. I liked it.
Sometimes, you have to stick with something and see it through, no matter how flawed it is. But other times, starting over may be the best choice. It can be tough to know the difference, but it’s worth figuring it out.