It's All in the Details
I'm turning in a new book to my editor tomorrow. I had finished it but then went back to the beginning to proofread it. I was amazed at how many little details I added on this last read-through and how much they added.
If I counted words, maybe I added 5,000. I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention. But it was a word here, a paragraph there, a page here. It wasn't the page count or the word count that really mattered though. It was the mood. The nuance. I changed one character's quoting of a Greek myth to the character of Achlys, which is SO much better than Sisyphus, which was my original example. Thematically, it fits the theme of grief.
In another spot, my character talks about when her world of science collides with the emotional impact of crime . . . In short, it was the layering of a hundred tiny details that hopefully make a book seem very real.
I wrote on my blog one time about "quirk overload"--when writers give their characters quirks as a shorthand for character development. Instead, to me, it's the subtle process, the little things. The details that hopefully give a character life.
If I counted words, maybe I added 5,000. I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention. But it was a word here, a paragraph there, a page here. It wasn't the page count or the word count that really mattered though. It was the mood. The nuance. I changed one character's quoting of a Greek myth to the character of Achlys, which is SO much better than Sisyphus, which was my original example. Thematically, it fits the theme of grief.
In another spot, my character talks about when her world of science collides with the emotional impact of crime . . . In short, it was the layering of a hundred tiny details that hopefully make a book seem very real.
I wrote on my blog one time about "quirk overload"--when writers give their characters quirks as a shorthand for character development. Instead, to me, it's the subtle process, the little things. The details that hopefully give a character life.
posted by Erica Orloff at 7:28 PM
6 Comments:
Does it still count as quirk overload to have a character with one quirk, used a few times. My current hero isn't a talker. At all. He doesn't smile either. At best, his mouth lifts at one corner and the heroine thinks the world flips on it's axis.
I had another hero with a broken finger that didn't heal right and expressive hands. Gads, now I'm going to be examining all my heroes...hmm, that's not a painful job. LOL! Thanks Erica!
Hey Dee!
No. I mean, in Trace of Innocence, Lewis has a BRAIN collection, but since he is head of a crime lab, it seems fitting. I love quirks. I just like them to be organic, like you describe. That it seems like something a real, living breathing person would have, not something tacked on to be different.
Funny . . . I have a character coming up in a new book who doesn't talk much, but he's a new love interest. That was tricky to do!
I'm just entering the phase you talked about. At least I'm in character with this book, but the characters are still showing me the different parts of them and so I feel as if I'm not quite down to the marrow.
So do we get more details about this new book? I just started High Heels In Heaven and I had to give it to my husband so I wouldn't be tempted to crack it open during my writing time. Damn you, Erica, damn you ... in a good way, of course!
Mary
Hi Mary:
Well, this book is book 2 of a three-book series for Bombshell about an assistant crime lab director. Unlike CSI, this is more what real criminalists do . . . but she and her best friend/boss also consult for a nonprofit group called The Justice Foundation to try to free wrongfully imprisoned men using DNA. What makes Billie unique or different is she walks this line between her lab work and turning a blind eye to her brother and father who are both bookies and thieves. I've never done a series before . . . so the story arc was a lot--no joke--like the first Star Wars trilogy--LOL. Book 1 is victorious, Book 2 is dark and the bad guys sort of win, and book 3 is returning her to the light again.
Hope you enjoy High Heels. You might want tissues. ;-)
E
You're turning ANOTHER book to your editor???? Which one is this? I haven't even finished "Do They Wear High Heels...," nor have I started on your IT GIRL or TOI. You are one prolific beeyatch! And you know I mean that in the most complimentary way. :-) How do you do it???
Hey Karm:
I write 5 books a year . . . and frankly, I don't know . . . I think it's mostly that I have a brain that never shuts down totally. So it's sort of like writing helps me just feed that intense monster in a way. I can get all this flurry of thoughts down in a manuscript and play with it and shut my brain up. I mean, on the one hand, that's great. On the other, it can be wearying to just have this mind spinning a million miles an hour. It's really why prayer/Buddhism has become so important. Just to be QUIET up in that head of mine sometimes!!!
God, I sound nuts, don't I?
LOL!
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