I'm in rewrite mode for BLUFF, the second book in my Lark Chadwick series which began with FAST TRACK. About ten people read the second draft and their comments have been helpful. But it's still up to me to make the necessary -- and I mean necessary -- improvements.
I guess it's a lot like remodeling a house as it's being built. Not pretty. The foundation and basic structure are there, but some new rooms, or in this case, scenes need to be added.
In my day job on "The Situation Room" at CNN, we write for the ear. The writing is meant to be conversational -- the way people talk. So, I'm finding that when building a scene, I start with dialogue. Two people talking to each other.
As I write, the blank computer screen quickly fills up with the back-and-forthing that constitutes our daily interactions. Unless I have a strong sense of what's happening -- the action -- I just stick to dialogue.
Then I go back.
In the second pass, I add details to show what's going on. Each time I loop back and make another pass through the scene, I'm always amazed to see that it's the process of keeping those fingers moving on the keyboard that seems to tap into my subconscious and cause events to come alive on what had been a blank screen.
But there's still a problem. More work needs to be done to complete the bigger project. Scenes may be the rooms of the house, but I still have more mental work to do on the blue prints. I need to construct additional rooms. But what will be their use?
It's a big job. Am I up for it?
Please pray for me, watch this space, but don't call the building inspector just yet.
JD
www.johndedakis.com
