My next release is coming to stores December 11th. I'm STILL freaking about the opening and closing. STILL. Here's a little history of worry...
1. Wrote it at the Muskoka Novel Marathon over a 72hr weekend period. As I was writing it, I kept thinking, 'I need to delete that WHOLE opening before I submit this for judging. No way this would fly!'
2. At the end of the marathon, instead of deleting the extraneous opening...I kept it in. Shhhh. And I went ahead and wrote the ending in the same style. I bookended my novel in no-nos.
3. Judges loved it. Early readers loved it. I kept thinking, 'Yeah, but I have to remove the opening and closing still.'
4. Submitted it to my agent on a whim. She was working on placing a different manuscript at the time. I thought, 'might as well see what she thinks...but I'm sure that opening and closing will be nixed.'
5. She loved it. She didn't say, "BUT YOU HAVE TO DELETE THAT OPENING AND CLOSING!" Not one bit did she say that. In fact, she liked the bookends. A lot.
6. She found a home for my novel! YAY! I waited for the publisher to say, "BUT YOU HAVE TO DELETE THAT OPENING AND CLOSING. WE JUST DON'T DO THAT IN NOVEL WRITING!"
7. Two editors and nobody suggested cutting the bookends. Cue the Bill & Ted guitar riff happiness!
Now to explain the opening and closing. I panned in to my story. I panned out of my story. Basically with the suggestion of IF THIS WAS THE MOVIE OF MY LIFE...
I thought that was a major no-no. But I did it...and every single time I tried to say, "Yeah...but that obviously needs to go." I was met with, "No it doesn't. I like it..."
Did I get away with murder?
And a question for others... Have you gotten away with things you thought were no-nos in your writing?
(I swear, I thought those pages would eventually end up on the cutting room floor).
ETA: My novel, Burn Baby, is a young adult contemporary novel. And to lend credence to the opening and closing, I made my narrator a hopeful future movie director. I was making excuses for what I thought of as an unacceptable device in my fiction...
1. Wrote it at the Muskoka Novel Marathon over a 72hr weekend period. As I was writing it, I kept thinking, 'I need to delete that WHOLE opening before I submit this for judging. No way this would fly!'
2. At the end of the marathon, instead of deleting the extraneous opening...I kept it in. Shhhh. And I went ahead and wrote the ending in the same style. I bookended my novel in no-nos.
3. Judges loved it. Early readers loved it. I kept thinking, 'Yeah, but I have to remove the opening and closing still.'
4. Submitted it to my agent on a whim. She was working on placing a different manuscript at the time. I thought, 'might as well see what she thinks...but I'm sure that opening and closing will be nixed.'
5. She loved it. She didn't say, "BUT YOU HAVE TO DELETE THAT OPENING AND CLOSING!" Not one bit did she say that. In fact, she liked the bookends. A lot.
6. She found a home for my novel! YAY! I waited for the publisher to say, "BUT YOU HAVE TO DELETE THAT OPENING AND CLOSING. WE JUST DON'T DO THAT IN NOVEL WRITING!"
7. Two editors and nobody suggested cutting the bookends. Cue the Bill & Ted guitar riff happiness!
Now to explain the opening and closing. I panned in to my story. I panned out of my story. Basically with the suggestion of IF THIS WAS THE MOVIE OF MY LIFE...
I thought that was a major no-no. But I did it...and every single time I tried to say, "Yeah...but that obviously needs to go." I was met with, "No it doesn't. I like it..."
Did I get away with murder?
And a question for others... Have you gotten away with things you thought were no-nos in your writing?
(I swear, I thought those pages would eventually end up on the cutting room floor).
ETA: My novel, Burn Baby, is a young adult contemporary novel. And to lend credence to the opening and closing, I made my narrator a hopeful future movie director. I was making excuses for what I thought of as an unacceptable device in my fiction...
