Saturday, February 04, 2006

Progress Report


Blogspot seems to be burping today, so I'll try to post this again.Late last night, finished the 2.5 draft on THE ELEVATOR (I call it that because I got to the mid-point and started over). Sunday afternoon will be triage; Monday we'll begin the third round.Some pretty needy areas are staring out at me.

First, I need at least 20,000 more words. After writing so many 100,000 plus word books, I can't believe this one is coming in at only 57,000 so far, but okay. I know what needs to be added, including

More flashback scenes to deepen character, especially the character of Gina, my gnarliest woman in the elevator. I need to make sure we can see why she's so gnarly.
I have dozens of notes (Love that comment feature in Word!) to myself sprinkled throughout the manuscript--mainly to remind myself of things I need to keep consistent.

And the elevator mechanics. Randy Singer was kind enough to introduce me to Michael Garnier, an elevator expert. At first I was only going to ask Michael to read a completed draft, but once I began to ask him questions, I'm so glad I didn't wait! This book has to be credible (for the sake of my own self-respect, if nothing else), so I want to get the mechanics right. So Michael and some of his friends are checking out all the details. I've learned some fascinating (and frightening!) things about elevators.

(Aside: I was with Patty Hickman last week in Nashville. We were in an elevator that looked like it had a polished brass roof, but I jumped up and jiggled one of the tiles to show her where the escape hatch was. I think she was impressed. Too bad the hatch will only open from the OUTSIDE.)

And sensory details. Though I have stood at my window and watched a hurricane blow by, I wasn't in a skyscraper and the hurricane wasn't a category four. So I need to do some more research.

Ah, round three. I'm ready!

Angie

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