I wrote 3K on STONE’S THROE today. It’s basically entirely the wrong 3K, for reasons rather beautifully detailed here, by Jennifer Crusie. I’m basically writing until I get to the start of the story, at which point–
Well, if I’m lucky, at that point I’ll be able to work the backstory in as short flashback chapters, because the two stories ought to resonate with each other rather than being “Hi, here’s Story #1, there, now that’s over with and here’s Story #2.”
I am, however, a pretty linear writer most of the time, and this stuff happens first chronologically, so I’m writing it first. Also, it’s a wayy to get into the character’s head, which is always useful and in this case, enlightening to a degree which caused me to leave an incoherent Twitter post along the lines of OH GOD NO AMELIA OH NO THAT’S MUCH WORSE THAN I THOUGHT AUGH AGH AGLGHGH *writewritewritetofindoutwhathappens*!
If I’m absurdly lucky, it’ll come out to be about 6 or 7K in total, ie, 10% of the ideal book length, and I will be able to (probably massively revise rather than use as is, but) fit it back in. We’ll see.
In the meantime, I’m finding that Writing Pulp brings a totally different voice to my writing. I mean, it’s still clearly my writing, and I can see the things I’m doing to make it work that way, but I was somewhat concerned going in because I’m writing this in first person and I didn’t want it to end up sounding Walker-Papers-ish. Not, thus far, a problem.
Of course, it helps that in my head it’s Amelia speaking English as she might if French were her mother tongue (which is not strictly accurate, since in fact I imagine her to have three cradle languages: her mother’s Ethiopian, her father’s American English, and their common tongue, French), but thinking about how French people say things helps to inform my language choices here. Jo certainly doesn’t sound like that. :)
Also it’s easier to write descriptions when writing pulp. How’s that for interesting?