Breakthrough - I Hope

Been doing more "thinkng about writing" than writing the last couple of days. But hey, that's all part of the job. I've also been reading a great deal over the last week, mostly other YA books.

I'm not here to defend my indolence. The point is, I think I figured it out. How to make The Bones in the Closet work. I have too many characters and a little too much story the way I've been going. But by changing the point of view from omniscient third person I think I can make it work. Two of the books I read in the last couple of days use the same device, alternating POV from chapter to chapter, from one character to the next. One book did it very well, the other did it pretty poorly, but that just shows me how to make it work, and convinces me that I've got it figured.

So that's where I'll take off. I'll start working that way immediately, finishing the first draft. Then when I go back to do the second draft, at least that part of the work is half done. Can't wait to get started now.

The book that does it well, by the way, is Charles de Lint's The Blue Girl. I won't mention the other by name, because I dislike being negative about someone else's work. I know how hard it is to write a novel, so I honor the effort, even if I don't like the result. Doesn't matter anyway. The bad one has probably already sold a million copies and will sell many, many more and probably will be a major motion picture coming soon to a theater near you. Anything I say won't stop it. But still, I have principles.

Speaking of bad writing, someone left a book around the house that I picked up yesterday. It was a huge hit - HUGE – when it came out in the late '70s and is still selling very well. The copy I have looks brand new. The story isn't terrible. If you like action-adventure you may well have read it. But every character is such a stereotype, even the names are stereotypes, and the dialogue is so routinely bad, total cliche, that I actually have been laughing out loud. No one and I mean no one ever spoke like this outside the pages of a pulp fiction.

But the guy's name is famous as an author of this genre. He's an institution.

And he sucks.