You’ve seen the cliche: the writer staring out the window appearing to be idle while she’s actually thinking of the next part of her story. I sympathize with that writer. It could be me! I’m on the re-write of the third Darcy/Flora mystery and re-writes and critiques are pain-staking necessities. The Cozy Critiquers are giving me ideas, suggestions, ways to say things better and Lola is going through word-by-word, line-by-line. She said, “That’s what friends are for” and I appreciate her time and expertise because it takes a lot of both.
When I was a whole lot younger (we won’t mention how much younger) I took piano lessons. I hated practicing. I wanted to sit down at the piano, play a piece through and have someone tell me how beautifully I played and what talent I displayed. Somehow, it didn’t work that way. I would set the clock on the piano, practice for only the prescribed thirty minutes a day and at the end of each session, I was off the piano bench. Later, when I played the song for Mr. Stone, my teacher, in his studio, I would think, “He’s not going to be critical this time. I’ve got it down pat.” Wrong! “I can’t hear the melody come through,” he would say. “Phrasing! A phrase is a musical sentence; let me hear the break at the end.” Oh, dear me! And I thought it was perfect!
The same is true with writing. “That paragraph sounds good,” I’ll think. “Appropriate dialogue, colorful action words, spelling is correct and punctuation is flawless.” Wrong! Upon re-reading or seen through another’s eyes, that paragraph is a fertile field of literary foibles. Even though excising words is painful, it’s also beneficial and after necessary surgery is performed upon my beloved words, the paragraph comes out better, shining with new appeal.
Here is the strangest and most frustrating part of all: every time I read what I’ve written, I see words, sentences, whole pages that must be re-written, added to, or the most painful of all, discarded. First sentences and first paragraphs are especially important and are among the most re-written of my whole manuscript. Final paragraphs and sentences rank right up there in significance. In between these are many words (heading toward 60,000 at this point) that hopefully keep the reader turning pages, wondering what comes next. Nobody but the writer, the critiquers, and her dear and trusted reader-friends know how many re-writes and hours staring into space it took to get from the front of the book to the end. Each word has been carefully chosen, polished to a high sheen, and set in place. Now, let’s “play that song again, Sam” (I mean, read that cozy mystery) and see how it sounds this time!
Blanche’s cozy mysteries
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