Holes ... part trois

In a fit of writing fury, I wrote the entire attack/retreat/escape scene today - 20+ pages. It actually turned out great for a rough draft.

However, Captain Charest was written into the attack scene in Muizon - 90 minutes away from Paris. The ending has him at the chateau and being killed there, as all really bad guys should be. So ... I simply tracked back through the story and eliminated his participation in the Muizon raid. After all, Les Police Nacionale's jurisdiction is the major French cities - not the countryside, sort of.

Never write anything cut in stone until you are done, finis! Like Steve Jobs said, if you are not willing to kill your cash cow, someone else will ... or something like that.

Lanval, the wanna-be boyfriend in the very sweet and innocent love triangle, is at police HQ, not at the chateau where he is the only who actually kills Charest. So, I wrote in a small scene where he overhears Charest (in Paris ... good thing I changed that) say he is kidnapping the lovely Ariele. He then finds where the maquis will meet before the attack and braves being killed himself to warn his rival, Richard. Brave guy ... he becomes in the eyes of Ariele the man he wants her to know. Important for the ending!

That leaves the venerable Paris security forces garrison. They need to be gone, but NOT at Muizon, one of the deceptions. I reverted back to Book 2's story and have them raiding the transport company (read the book!) to get them out of the way, leaving room for the maquis to attack ... EXCEPT, Charest leads the police force instead into the fray ... SO I wrote a scene where the communist maquis called the FTP ( a real group) join the attack to balance out the numbers and ensure they get guns and ammunition from the armory ... which is NOT the objective of Richard's attack.

Confused? Good. The point is, all these details can be changed as long as you have the courage in your own work to write an ending that makes no sense - then make it make sense. And then edit like crazy!

Read the book - it all makes sense now (I hope).

The value of a snippet in digging out of a hole

I have said a few times that I write in 'snippets'- small sections of a story that fit into the general idea but do not necessarily connect either in front (going forward) or from behind. Often, I free-write ideas and collect an entire folder of them just to see what sticks. I often write a snippet as a means of climbing out of one of my infamous story holes.

Here it is, again: 'He' goes for his gun, at that very moment there is an explosion, knocking him senseless. So 'she' fires twice at him ... where did 'she' get the gun? Then you realize that 'he' is supposed to be 90 miles away at the other attack site. When the young man who dreams only of her bursts into the room to save her ... 'the other he (him?)' is supposed to be at the police communications room 10 blocks away.

The first thing I did was write the scene - independently; meaning, not connected fore or aft to anything, yet. Captain Charest (the evil Captain Charest) charges into Colonel Reiniger's office and shoots him (a long story, from Book 2); Mme Bourait and Ariéle are in the office, and he turns, planning to shoot Mme Bourait and kidnap the beautiful Ariéle. The explosion - the resistance needs to blow up the communications capability of the chateau (district German HQ), so I simply move the comm office from the first floor (the open German HQ) to the secure second floor - offices of the Colonel and the 'Grand Foyer' - also from book 2. This gives me a good reason to have an explosion at the right moment.

The explosion knocks Ariéle and Mme Bourait down, and disables Captain Charest. Ariéle grabs the dead colonel's gun, laying on the floor.

Richard barges in (who is Richard? - gotta read the story), collects the dazed Mme Bourait, The Black Sun, and readies them to leave by the back door when ... Charest gets up and is going to shoot Richard, so Ariéle shoots him (not dead - important).

Lanval meets the desperate Charest in the hall (again, gotta read the story), and Charest thinks he is there to help him. He is going to shoot Richard by barging through the hallway back door into the garage, but Lanval (Police Corporal Lanval Morisot) kills him, unbeknownst to Richard or Ariéle, or obviously to the surprise of Captain Charest.

Whew! Problem is ... some of these players are NOT really in the chateau according to the story as it is written... more of the solution tomorrow.

Deconstructing a story

One of the few things guaranteed to fuel a sleepless night is a hole in a story. I am almost there, 3/4s away from finishing the first draft (brillilant, of course), the final dramatic scene clearly in mind. 'He' goes for his gun, at that very moment there is an explosion, knocking him senseless. So 'she' fires twice at him ... where did 'she' get the gun? Then you realize that 'he' is supposed to be 90 miles away at the other attack site. When the young man who dreams only of her bursts into the room to save her ... 'the other he (him?)' is supposed to be at the police communications room 10 blocks away.

This just happened to me, and I spent all last night tossing and turning - my wife will attest to it! My story had a hole and I plunged headlong into it.

I write in fits of brilliant inspiration. That's what I like to call it, anyway. I am an advocate of "free writing" then assembling and editing to put a story together. That style suites me better than outlining a story to the Nth degree first. But it leads me to these holes, and I have created some unique solutions to climbing back out.

Rather than bore you with a long-winded rant, I am going to publish a series of "holes" I created for myself in writing "The Black Sun" and discuss how I worked my way out of them. The first one will be my action scene above, but there are a lot of them in this book, and the manner and discipline needed to rectify the problem makes for some serious book editing illustrations - I hope these will be of help to others.

Next blog: How I get 'him' to the chateau, how 'she' gets a gun, and how 'the other him' can be in two places at the same time.

Audio books - a new adventure

I recently added an audio book version of NOCK on Wood to my catalog. This was my first foray into this new medium. My narrator, Gary Regal, is an experienced audiobook producer, and he did a great job on NOCK. Now we are working on The Juno Letters - Book 1. What this really means is he is working, and I am pronouncing the French for him when he has a question. I have the easier job.

I used a dialog form I first saw in the novel Shogun where Japanese dialog was slowly worked into the novel as the main character learned how to speak the language. By the time you finished, you actually had a rudimentary command of basic Japanese. Very clever. I used something similar in Juno - a French phrase in dialog, followed by the English. I think it works great in print.

But maybe not so great in audio. I found some other things that needed a different approach as well. It helps to be working with someone like Gary who has been through this.

I am sure you will like the finished product. Audible.com (ACX) is an Amazon company, and they make it very easy to switch between e-book and audio. I hope you will take a look at their catalog and try it out.

L.W. Hewitt The Juno Letters

Twitter is now closed

I have had ongoing issues with my Twitter account being hacked. I just deactivated the account - I cannot afford to have people all over the world think I am the source of spyware, viruses, porn links, and other misleading messages.

Too bad. I have had a great deal of success driving visitors to my site at The Juno Letters. It has allowed me to connect with people worldwide that share similar interests.

I spent 30 years in technology, and much of that time designing secure Internet sites. I don't understand why this service is so vulnerable, but there you go ...

I will be exploring other social media options in the near future ... for now you can contact me directly at my regular email address - larryh@hewittmbm.com.

Thanks for listening ...

L.W. Hewitt

On falling in love

When I was a young man, I fell in love a lot. On six month cycles, it seemed. I enjoyed falling in love, no matter how many times it took. It was not until I reached about 30 - the time when boys finally begin to percolate enough to grow up and become men - that I fell in love for real. I have been married to my love for over 33 magical years.

Now I am falling in love all over again - with my characters. These people have become part of my family. I cry when I write sad things about them, or in their moments of catharsis and closure. I cannot read my own work aloud with choking up in the emotional parts.

I see them when I travel: Marianne, who I remember most in the bakery in Pont-Aven, but also feel her suffering at the gates of Natzweiler; the irascible Antoine, stuffing Marcel Gireau and his family into the lockers of his boat and bluffing his way past the harbor master; the red-haired beauty, Josette, who gave me the now famous gold-plated ring on the lovers’ lock bridge; the sad Gela who finally could tell her story and find peace.

There is little Nia, holding onto her cherished hair brush for dear life; and of course, my favorite, Ariéle - a vulnerable young child, a fierce young woman, and finally a wise matriarch of a very unusual family.

They represent the best in what I see in the world - strength, competence, and hope. I love writing about them.

This has to be the best job in the world.

L.W. Hewitt The Juno Letters

A New Year ... and new challenges

I have enjoyed the start of this year. We have foster boys - teenagers (5 of them, I think) - and their odd comings and goings give me a chance to write in some great places. I spent several hours working on The Black Sun while at the White Pass ski lodge - a little duality going on there, which is appropriate to the story. Monday I spent several hours riding the Seattle-Bremerton ferry Hyak - something I used to do when in college back when they had to use oars to move the ferries. It's not quite as easy, because they make you get off the boat at each end now - back in the 70s you could just plop down with a typewriter (yes, Virginia, an actual Smith-Corona) and work away all day. Take a hint, WSDOT.

My schedule is starting to get back to normal, however, and I curled up next to the woodstove in my Oly Club office yesterday for the first time in a while. I am about half-way through The Black Sun, looking for ways to make it darker, and thinking about my marketing strategy for this upcoming year.

I am determined to figure out Facebook. I get an email that says "You Have Notifications" - whatever happened to "You have Mail?". When I click - nothing. And since when was "Like" a verb? Mind you, I am not a tech-ignorant fob. I spent most of my adult life running a technology company, and did some great and cutting edge things. But I must admit I don't get social media.

I remember when being a twit was NOT a good thing. Bear with me ... .