The Weekly Catch Up

On throwing out a troubled book.

I began working on my fifth novel last fall. It was slow going, but I found my groove and by spring, I was three-quarters finished. The story starred two sisters. I developed the setting. I followed the B plots and got to know some of the supporting cast. I was beginning to really love the story, which gave me a reason to keep going.

Our Last Vineyard Summer released in July and I focused the rest of the summer on a book tour, criss crossing the eastern seaboard’s best beach towns to promote the novel. SO MUCH FUN!

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

I returned to my desk in September knowing exactly what was wrong with the book. There wasn’t enough at stake. I needed to figure out the villain, and the sisters weren’t reading evenly, meaning their characters didn’t feel solid enough to make the reader believe they were actually real people. To me, the hallmark of a great book. I decided to get under the hood and tune it up. I gave it to two trusted writer friends who gave me solid feedback about what needed to evolve. All in all, I thought the book was in great shape.

When I gave it to my agent, she didn’t one hundred percent agree. I’ll paraphrase her words: There was a lot to love, she said, but the plot was just not coming together. When a writer is told they don’t have a plot, that writer knows they don’t have a book. Yet. To my credit, I was crushed for about thirty seconds. Then I thought to myself: If there isn’t a plot, I need to rework this entire book. It’s one reason I’m grateful for my twenty years as a journalist. In my mind, writing can always be improved. It’s not personal. Either a story is working or it’s not, and it’s my job to fix it.

So I pushed up my sleeves in mid-January. Feeling a bit like Tom Hanks’ character in “You’ve Got Mail,” I blew on my fingertips to ready myself. Then I went to the mattresses. (sorry, the romantic in me had to show this photo below—swoon!)

One thing I noticed when I was replotting my story is how I wrote myself into a corner. My instinct kept telling me that this should be more of a road trip story but I had found this comfortable place in this wellness retreat I’d found so I stayed there. Sometimes that works. For this book, it wasn’t because there weren’t any big reveals other than personal reflection. BORING. Who wants to read about characters thinking all of the time? I’m laughing just thinking about this. Characters need to be doing things. There needs to be action in women’s fiction just as much as emotional development.

Within a few hours, I had a completely reworked plot and outline. What was at stake with the two sisters was revealed in the first two chapters, and by page 50, the reader was very clear what kind of book this would be: two sisters searching for their mother go on a road trip to retrace her steps and figure out what happened to her ten years before. Of course there’s so much more, but the road trip gave me so many more opportunities for them to screw up, feel triumphant, have a setback, all while figuring themselves out.

I’m 200 pages in to the new version of the book. It’s the same characters, the same premise, the same ending, but thank god for my agent’s honesty. Now the book’s pages are flying, and my readers will be thrilled to spend a couple weeks with these sisters.

So here’s my advice of the day. If you’re told your book isn’t working, don’t fret. Just go to the mattresses! xo

This photo reminds me of the two sisters I’m writing about.

Friends With Books

I received a couple of emails in the last couple of weeks from friends who need help spreading the word about their amazing books. My buddy Karen Dukess, whose highly entertaining novel Welcome to Murder Week, came out in paperback last Tuesday. If you missed this one, it’s worth a read!

The darling Allison Pataki, who is as lovely as her novels, has her latest out today: It Girl. Looks super good and I adore the cover. I’m going to get a copy this week.

OMG fun fact. When my agent and I submitted Summer Darlings back in 2020, the working title was The It Girl. Isn’t that funny!? It didn’t work for us, but it clearly works for Allison.

Media Diary

Article I Devoured: Actress Daryl Hannah’s essay about how poorly she was misrepresented in the biopic “Love Story” about John Jr. and Carolyn Bisette’s marriage. It’s egregious to think of a real person as a narrative device. I loved this quote: “Many people believe what they see on TV and do not distinguish between dramatization and documented fact — and the impact is not abstract. In a digital era, entertainment often becomes collective memory. Real names are not fictional tools. They belong to real lives.”

Podcast I Listened to a Second Time: “How to Design Your Life” featuring Debbie Millman, a professor at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan who is an expert in helping people ask the right questions to visualize and work towards the life of your dreams. I found out about it from my friend Georgene who said it was a powerful tool for reimagining her everyday at midlife, but I gave it to my teenager to listen to too. Very powerful. (Just pretend it’s not a Mel Robbins episode; she’s not my favorite.)

The Most Egregious Thing I’ve Heard All Week: The author Coral Hart who uses ChatGpt to write her romance books. There are so many problems with this, but….most of all…I think it’s odd because the whole point of being a writer is loving the act of writing.

I get that people who hate writing use AI for help. Makes perfect sense to me. I just don’t understand why you would be a creative writer if you’re going to use ChatGPT to write for you. Anyway,,,,the premise is so ridiculous but this line did make me laugh out loud: “Chatbots were also bad at building sexual tension — the slow-burn, will-they-or-won’t-they plotlines that romance readers crave. When told to craft a love scene, the bots usually jumped straight to the obvious narrative climax.” Slow down, bots!

This Made Me Laugh. Be gone Daylight Savings. I feel like a zombie!