Writing Doesn't She (known to me now as DSLN) was a nice break from writing Uncharted. The latter was more speculative and definitely more of a suspense novel, so DLSN was more character driven and reality-based. Both books required in depth character development, and I had to keep in mind that Jen, Gerald, Joella and the boys were going to be around for THREE books, not just one. You may have noticed that I left a few strings hanging, dropped a few hints, that will be brought up in books two and three.
Writing DSLN brought back many home-improvement memories for me . . . . I'm an inveterate home improvement person, and I think I've undertaken a major remodeling of every house we've lived in--except this one (no room to remodel here!). So living "under construction" like Jen does is definitely something I've known from experience.
In any case, the writing wasn't too hard. I did have this book with me when I attended my second Don Maass intensive, and while I was there I was still trying to work out who lives and who dies. I had originally thought that XX would die, but Don suggested that XXX die as well. I said, "Oh, no, that's too many dead bodies," and Don laughingly said that he didn't think you could have too many dead bodies in a book about a funeral home.
Still, I couldn't kill off XX. (Sometimes you have to go with your gut). And I can't say more without ruining the book!
Tomorrow: the editing.
~~Angie
3 comments:
But you have two more books to kill people off so you don't want to do it too fast or book three will be about 60 pages lone!
Just saw that Felix is now a category 5! If you want to high-tail it out of Florida you can come to St Louis!
But Felix is heading for Mexico, right? (Come to think of it, in THE ELEVATOR, he comes at Tampa from Mexico . . . hmmm.)
And Kathy, the beauty of being a novelist is that we share a slogan with Doritos. "Eat all you want--we'll make more." :-) I can always invent more people to kill off . . . and do! :-)
Angie
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