The Story Behind the Story: Achilles' Heel (Part 2)

For Part 1 of the story behind “Achilles’ Heel,” click here.

So I finished my first draft of “Achilles’ Heel” and submitted it my writer’s group. I knew they’d have plenty to say, especially about the ending.

I was right.

For starters, there was the problem of Alan’s heel. He reached for it far too many times. Okay, I’ll nix a few heel scratches.

Mostly, though, there was the problem of the ending. Considering I just threw it together at the last minute, this was not a surprise. First, there was some disagreement about what the ending meant. Did the disappearance of Alan’s heel itch meant he’d reached peace with his memories of his mother? Did it mean he made peace with himself? Did it mean his mother had died? Note to self: clarify the meaning a bit more.

But there was general consensus that the ending was unsatisfying. Alan needed to see his mother, talk to her, write her a letter—communicate with her in some way. Okay, then. How could I implement that? Should I have the action switch location and send Alan to the hospital to see his mother in person? Do I send him home to write a letter or make a phone call?

I decided I wanted to keep the action of the story in the same location: Dr. Lucas’ office, mostly because I knew Alan would chicken out if left to his own devices. He needed Dr. Lucas to shepherd him through the process. That limited the possibilities to letter writing to calling on the phone. I chose the latter.

Then came the excruciating process of plotting out the phone call. What if Alan called and his mother couldn’t speak on the phone? What if Alan called and found out his mother had just died? What if? What if? What if?

I rewrote the ending in fits and spurts: a sentence here, a phrase there. Know that cliché about pulling teeth? It was kinda like that.  But the teeth got pulled, the ending got rewritten, and now (hopefully) the story concludes on a more satisfying note.

To read the revised version of “Achilles’ Heel,” click here.

Be Careful What You Wish For

A few years ago, my friend and fellow writer Shari Pratt pointed me toward a blog called Miss Snark's First Victim, run by Authoress. What a gold mine! Authoress is every aspiring author's champion and she has created a first-class community of aspiring authors.

Throughout the year, she runs contests to help writers get their work in front of agents and to help them get feedback on that work. As I was writing and revising The Novel, I dreamed of being ready to submit it for one of these contests.

Be careful what you wish for.

Monday was the submission day for one of Authoress's Secret Agent Contests, one that included the category and genre of my novel. Having just completed Draft 4 last month and about to embark on the Great Query Adventure, I thought, "What the heck. I'll throw my hat in the ring."

As soon as I clicked that Submit button, a feeling of panic fluttered in my chest. What was I thinking? What if I got picked to participate?

I dismissed the doubts. Tons of people entered the Secret Agent lottery. The chances that my entry would get picked had to be slim.

Not slim enough.

My entry was one of the 52 randomly selected to play the game. And by "game," I mean the first 250 words (well, 248 in my case) of my novel published on Miss Snark's First Victim for the whole world to see and criticize--I mean, critique--and for a lurking agent to read.

That's my baby! What if they don't like her? What if they say she's horrible? (They won't. They're much nicer and more tactful than that, but still, those are the screaming doubts every writer hears when they put their work out into the world. Right? RIGHT?)

The contest entries go live tomorrow (Wednesday). To say I'm brimming with nervous energy would be an understatement. Still, as excited as I am, I can't help wondering: what have I gotten myself into?

The Story Behind the Story: Achilles' Heel (Part 1)

I thought I'd try something different this summer. Instead of a new story on July 1st and August 1st, I thought I'd give a glimpse into my writing process. So, today, July 1st, I posted the first-ish draft of a new story: "Achilles' Heel." Next month, I'll post the revised version.

The idea for story "Achilles' Heel" came out of nowhere. I woke in the wee hours of the morning back in March with the image of a woman dipping her infant in the fountain at a shopping mall, holding the baby by the heel like he was Achilles. I rolled over and went back to sleep--it was the wee hours--and wrote the idea in my notebook later, after I woke up and started my day.

The idea stuck with me. At random moments, I found myself wondering why a woman would dip her baby in a public fountain and what effect did the incident have on the baby as it grew up. It took a few fits and starts of scribbling in my notebook to come up with the scenario: a grown man in therapy, trying to deal with the memory of what his mother tried to do to him.

The actual writing of the story didn't go smoothly, either. I started over half a dozen times. Wrote two paragraphs, deleted one. I started writing the story on March 8th. I finished the first draft June 17th. That's right: six weeks to write 1,494 words. I believe that's the definition of slow.

Early on, I had an image of how the story would end: the protagonist in his car in the parking lot of the hospital where his mother is a patient. However, on June 16th, as I began writing the end of the story, I realized that ending would not work. I did not have a Plan B. I was stuck.

This is what I wrote:

I had a self-imposed deadline of the next night (June 17th), so that I could submit the story to my writer's group. I put the story to rest and picked it up again on the afternoon of the 17th. I decided the last line had to return to the image of the heel used in the first line, and rewrote it accordingly. Then I went back in and added a few more heel-scratches into the story so that the last line would make more sense. I clicked SAVE and uploaded it for my writer's group.

You can read that first draft of the story here.

Next month, I'll share some of the feedback I got from my writer's group and post the revised version of the story.

Another Step Closer

It's getting real, y'all. I'm one step closer to sending The Novel out into the world.

I finished Draft 4 of the manuscript last weekend. (So, of course, I woke up every morning this past week with an idea of how to rewrite a sentence here or add another detail there. A writer's job is never really done.)

I spent my writing time this week researching literary agents and compiling a spreadsheet of agents to query. I even color-coded it. Ain't it purty?

I researched online classes about query writing and found one to try. The course starts at the end of July and lasts two weeks. So, allowing appropriate time to panic, I expect I'll be sending out my first query some time in August. Happy birthday to me?

Beach Reads

So last Sunday night, as I was watching the Chicago Blackhawks lose to the Los Angeles Kings, my Twitter feed began filling with summer reading recommendations from a fellow book lover. With each rec, I said "YES! I loved that one, too." A few times I tweeted back, "Since you loved Book X, you'll probably also love Book Y."

See, I love books. I can talk books for hours. Ask me for a recommendation and I'll give you ten. Inspired by Sarah's list, I came up with my own list of summer reading rec's. Here are ten, in no particular order:

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

I have never read a novel as slapstick as this one. Set in a world where historians study the past via time travel, the story is Murphy's Law in action: whatever can go wrong for the protagonist, does. Even if you don't like science fiction or historical fiction, give this one a shot, just for the humor. It's quite a romp.

The Cemetery of Forgotten Books trilogy by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Imagine a secret library that stores old books so they will never be truly forgotten. According to Zafón, that place--the Cemetery of Forgotten Books--exists in the city of Lisbon, Portugal, and it forms the link among three brilliant books: The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel's Game, and The Prisoner of Heaven. Unlike most trilogies, these books do not tell a story in sequence and do not need to be read in any particular order. While they share certain supporting players, they focus on different decades in twentieth-century Lisbon and different main characters. The stories are not light--they are more like the literary equivalent of a noir film--but they are beautiful reads.

The Dreyfus Affair by Peter Lefcourt

Summer is not summer without baseball, and The Dreyfus Affair is a baseball book. But not any baseball book. Loosely based on the historical Dreyfus Affair, in which a Jewish officer in the French army was wrongly convicted of treason, Lefcourt's novel imagines what might happen if two professional baseball players fell in love with each other. Told with a deft touch and colored with humor, Lefcourt's story is a satire of the professional sports establishment, the media, and institutionalized homophobia. It most definitely has a serious message, but it still made me laugh out loud.

Anything by Bill Bryson

If you've never read anything of Bryson's, start with A Walk in the Woods, a memoir of his escapades on the Appalachian Trail. If you have read Bryson, you probably don't need any recommendations because you've already discovered his dry wit and penchant for misadventures. I have yet to read a book of Bryson's that did not make me giggle at least a little bit.

The Stand by Stephen King

I was torn about which Stephen King novel to list. To me, summer isn't summer if I don't have a Stephen King book to read. My original list had two books by King: IT, the story of a group of outcast kids who form a family and together face down the monster that haunts their town, and The Stand. I decided to go with the latter, a complex story of a disease-borne apocalypse  and the rebirth of civilization in its aftermath, including a good vs. evil civil war. That sounds so high-fallutin' but really the story is about people and the choices they make.

Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

The story of Peter Pan completely reimagined. The focus of this story is, obviously, Tiger Lily, but the brilliance of the book lies in its development of Neverland, which Anderson populates with new and diverse landscapes and characters. This Neverland is far more interesting than the Disney version, let me tell you. And Tiger Lily's account of Peter and Wendy? Well, that's not very Disney either.

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

In 1899 Texas, young Calpurnia Tate is far more interested in becoming a scientist like her grandfather than becoming the young lady her mother wants her to be. Her narrative voice and misadventures in science and young-lady-hood create a most charming story. Rumor has it there's a sequel in the works, due out next year. I'm already salivating.

The Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray

Bray's Gemma Doyle Trilogy--A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, and The Sweet Far Thing--is a wonderful blend of historical fiction and fantasy. After her mother's death, Gemma Doyle is forced to leave her childhood home in India to attend boarding school in Britain. She struggles with the confines of British society and boarding school life while discovering a magical legacy.

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Where to start? Eleanor and Park are two high school misfits who fall in love. While that is an accurate statement of the premise, there is so much more to the story: bullying, race, abuse, body image, friendship, family. How good is it? There are groups out there actively trying to ban this book from schools and school libraries. That should be reason enough to give it a try!

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

A story of friendship and war and sacrifice, Code Name Verity is told by two narrators: best friends Queenie and Maddie, who meet on an RAF base during World War II. The narration in the first half of the book blew me away: a perfect mix of bravado, fear, and humor. And the plot twists in the second half...well, you'll just have to read them yourself. I don't want to give anything away.