I recently asked my most trusted editor, collaborator and coach (aka my wife Pat) to read through the first three chapters of my second book as I was preparing to pitch it to agents at the upcoming Books Alive Writers Conference. The writers group I joined a few months ago had just reviewed the pitch and opening, and panned both for being too wordy.
Compared with the rest of the book, the front end is new—and to that I attributed its not-so-highly-polished state. I re-engineered the opening on the insistence of a literary agent who had shown great interest in my suspense thriller. Originally the story progressed in linear fashion, the chronology beginning when my main character was in high school. In the retelling, I had to scrap seventy-five pages of atmospheric character building in favor of starting off at a dead run with the protagonist being in his late twenties—well into his career.
Rebuilding the book was a time-consuming task, given the ripple effect caused by those front end alterations downstream. However, as a professional writer I am used to changing, cutting, tightening, and rearranging copy to please the boss, the client, or the editor. I bought into the idea that having my book get off to a faster start was a needed improvement. Though it was a tough job, it was doable, and I believed in the value of doing it.
All writers lament what falls to the cutting room floor, or, as Stephen King puts it, killing our babies—and I’m no different from the rest. I lost the literary feel in trade for something faster, more sensational. I was sold on the idea that this was what thriller readers want.
There was time for me to revise my one-page pitch before the conference, but not enough to revise the opening. As it turned out, three agents wanted to see full or partial manuscripts. On my request, Pat, who was familiar with the new beginning and claimed to have liked it, dug back into those pages and made suggestions that resulted in better word choices and in some cases, tighter sentences. I incorporated those changes into the manuscript and submitted the requested materials to the interested agents.
I was pleased to have wrapped up this most recent phase of agent queries. However, while talking about it over an end-of-day cocktail Pat revealed that she didn’t like the new version as much as the original. Ouch! Adding to the ouch is the fact that the agent who suggested all of the re-engineering completely dropped out of the picture a full year ago. After investing herself in three substantial edits, she stopped communicating. I had been knocking myself out to please her, and suddenly she disappeared. I felt about my book the way you might feel about a child that you’re left to raise on your own after your partner abandons ship.
After the next cocktail or two I tried to figure out how I felt about making so many changes for someone who’s no longer involved. It occurred to me the better question is, what am I trying to deliver to my reader, and am I going to be able to accomplish this by publishing my first draft? For me at least my first draft is a compilation of characters, ideas, conflicts and movement through time and place. It hangs together as a story, but it is by no means all that the story can and should be.
Although I’m not happy with how this agent went into exile, I do credit her with helping me write a better book. I can’t dwell on all of the atmospheric back story that I lost because there’s a logic to my characters’ actions that works in the current iteration, and the story gets to its most important plot points in far fewer pages. I am at peace with my story opening the way that it does. As a James Bond fan, I don’t need to read about the boy James or Jimmy on his high school rifle team in order to appreciate Agent 007 on the job in Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
So little book, after all of the revisions recommended by editors, agents, coaches, readers and writing colleagues, are you still mine? Damn right you are.