Manuscript Readers Update Redux

Well, as it turns out, I won't have to wait a couple of weeks to see how the comments are coming along. As of today, about two-thirds of the folks to whom I shipped ms copies have reported in -- and a couple more who aren't finished yet offered their impressions of what they have read so far. That's a pretty quick turnaround, albeit was a short novel.

So. In the interests of disclosure, here's the almost-final progress report on the ms-in-progress, Champion of the Dead. What follows is not a general lesson in how to do a rewrite, but the way that I approached the second draft on this particular novel. Next time, it might be altogether different. One goes with the flow, and you never step in the same river twice ...

If you haven't finished reading it and don't want to know, consider this the

SPOILER ALERT:

Don't go any farther. Things will be revealed. If you have finished reading the ms, you may continue.

First, the two criteria again:

1) Did I tell the story I wanted to tell?

2) Did I tell it well?

Start with the first one: Yep, pretty much it was tale I had in mind. It started with the idea of wanting to do something with The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

The character of Sam Kane as spiritual warrior developed next. (And certainly if Zelazny fans didn't get a clue from Sam's name, they must have seen the Amber and Lord of Light signposts along the way, not to mention the thank you in the acknowledgments. I'm a stone Zelazny fan. He was the man. It shows here.

But, to be fair, I didn't swipe all that much from Roger, but from the same source material he swiped his from, so I don't feel too guilty about that. He stood much taller than I, Roger did, but he perched on the shoulders of a few giants, too ...

(I was tempted to put a horrendous pun in somewhere, ala "The fit hit the Shan," but thus far, I have resisted that. Thus far.)

The plot set-up was something I got from Hitchcock. Guy gets in the middle of something a lot bigger than he is, and runs around trying to keep from getting squashed. Cary Grant, in North by Northwest, was kinda-sorta my model for Kane in that regard. He stands up at the wrong time, and wham! off on an adventure.

The notion of Tinzen was part of it from the git-go, as was the last scene in the novel, which I wrote before I got more than a couple of chapters in. I revised it slightly to add a tweak, but that was early, too. One of the twists might be a surprise -- though there is a strongly-implied hint a couple people said they got -- and it was a gift to romantics.

I like happy endings. So sue me.

All my books have a love story at their heart. The only things really worth writing about are love and death. If you didn't smile and feel good when you read the last chapter, then you aren't a romantic. The other bit, I laid in, and gave at least three clues to it earlier, so if you missed that one, it's your fault.

What I tell you three times must be true.

It being the story I wanted to tell, I am keeping Tinzen as is. Two readers thought he might be overkill. Most readers liked the idea, a couple really liked it. I felt that I could stretch the notion a bit, and I wanted to do so. I flat-out love the idea of him eating Frosted Flakes and watching cooking shows on TV.

I'm not a Buddhist, but I have a statue of one in my courtyard ...

Stories in which Sam goes into the bardo farther afield and onto other adventures are for another book, or books, if I get to 'em. Chang is still out there. As is the Window of the Gods. The horror of vegetarianism, too. And the rewrite will have more hints that Sam isn't done yet, if you needed any more.

The gods in this book are less god-like than traditionally so; I did that on purpose, and I'm not the first, since every major religion has done pretty much the same thing ...

Now, the part where readers offer the most help -- how well did I do it?

Most readers allowed as how they liked it. Some a lot, some less so, but nobody came back and said they thought it would stink on ice, and I was glad about that. Couple folks thought it was as good as anything I've done.

Part of the challenge for me was to do the book from a single viewpoint. I haven't written a novel that way in a long time and I was pleased that I mostly pulled it off. It's Kane's story.

When I got to the end of the first draft, there were several things I felt needed to be dealt with further. 1) The ending was rushed. 2) Some of the exposition sequences were too long and too static. 3) I needed to have Kane work harder to solve the mystery.

Several readers mentioned some, or all of these, and thus pass the Apprentice Editor Test. You know who you are. Those three things get the most attention up front.

After that, there were a lot of smaller clunks that readers pointed out that I'm going to adjust. They range from a wonder why I'm using Bahasa terms for a Tibetan art -- already fixed -- to comments on the weapons, computers, guitar stuff, and what readers considered loose ends. And one big typo, where I misplaced a decimal and made somebody really, really, drunk.

Just FYI, the crewcut boxer was left unexplained on purpose, as were the four guys in the G.I. Joe's lot. And who Kane is that gets him all the help and why. If you do more than one book about a character, you have to pay each one off, but you get a larger arc to play with, and you can leave a few threads dangling.

Anybody ever see Hitchcock's The Birds? Remember the central question in that movie? Yeah. And ole Hitch never addressed it at all. I walked out of the theater not having a clue, and also being wary of the pigeons I saw. I still remember that last scene, more than forty-five years ago, and my sense of wonder at what had just happened. I like my readers to work a little, too, figure stuff out on their own.

Lotta martial artists don't like guns, and some of those who read the story don't want to read about 'em, they want to see more on the knives. And see Kane learn how to sword fight.

Computer porn: Most of my geeks liked what I did, but every one of them had a slightly different way of doing it. Some of that I'll add. If you are a gun guy, you might sit still for the hardware lessons, and if you are a computer guy, you might get off on the encryption stuff, but general readers won't do either nearly as much, so there will be less boomware and very little more computer material than is already there.

When Kane goes to the range, that five pages gets cut to three, and that more show and less tell. A few places where I -- and some others -- thought things dragged, I trimmed a pound or two to make them run faster. I think there might be two scenes left that run more than four or five pp, and I think both are necessary pay-offs. (The longest one will be a visual flashback in the movie version when Hollywood comes pounding on my door.)

Couple guitar players liked the music scenes, nobody else seemed too distressed by those, and it goes to Kane's character, so probably much of that will stay in, though those will get a haircut, too.

It's a fine line I'm walking here between too much information and not enough. If there is any question, my opinion counts more. Goes with having the name on the cover and no franchise to whom I must answer. Can't please everybody, so ...

Kane and Rosie's relationship will get a little spit and polish. I'll lay in some small hints that it's coming. (Deadly danger turns some people on, and that was enough excuse for me to show some more stuff about Kane and his internal conflicts. Danger sex is hot.)

Some plot points, such as why the computer was still at Oliver's, I'll address, if a bit ambiguously. The whole book was about Kane trying to figure out what the fuck was going on, and he never did get it all. Didn't need to get it all.

Kane will have to work a bit harder, he'll maybe lose a couple set-tos, get thumped, and I'll lay in why he put up with all of Tinzen's you-aren't-ready-to-know-yet crap. Other bits here and there that readers pointed out that deserve attention and with which I agree. Should add up to another twenty or thirty pages scattered throughout, though the cuts will offset some of that. Whatever it takes.

Thanks, again, everybody. I do appreciate the help.