TWO NOVELS PLACED!

Hi folks,

Good news today!

I just returned from Mail Boxes, ETC from mailing signed copies of my contract for two of my novels to be published by StoneGate/StoneHouse Publishing! Best twenty bucks for the gas for this trip I ever spent! (Reason it cost $20 was that it’s half a mile from my house and my car only gets 40 miles to the gallon…)

Both novels are thrillers and were placed by my (awesome!) agent, Chip MacGregor. (I’m hoisting one to you, Chip…) Since my noir thriller, The Rapist, is coming out from Bare Knuckles Press sometime in the next year, this is fast becoming a red-letter year!

Here’s the synopsis of the first, titled The Perfect Crime:

Criminal genius Charles "Reader" Kincaid makes but one mistake in what would have been the "perfect crime" when he steals a Futaba remote controller from the wrong person—Jack Fogarty, the brother of retired cop Grady. Once Grady's involved in the case, his bulldog tenacity uncovers enough clues to nail his brother Jack's murderer and turn the tables in a surprising twist on Reader. Reader's plan is to wire banker C.J. St. Ives with a bomb that not only can't be removed, but is controlled by remote control. The money Reader is after is the weekly drop of illegal millions from drug czar Fidel Castro (a cousin of the more famous Fidel) which St. Ives launders through his bank. St. Ives has his own plan for stealing the same money, which complicates matters. In the end, it turns out that Reader has been orchestrating the whole affair and his real purpose is achieving vengeance over Titus Fuller, St. Ives' father-in-law and also the man to whom Castro answers. His machinations would have worked perfectly if Grady Fogarty hadn't become involved.

The setting is a bit of Dayton, Ohio and a lot of New Orleans. While on the heels of Reader, Grady falls in love with animal control officer Whitney Farver and gains assistance from new friends Sally and Veronica Graziano, both retired NOPD cops who own a bar in Jefferson Parish. Also involved in the plot are Cuban drug dealers, a slimy ex-con named Eddie who loves expensive shoes, and more electronics than you'll ever see outside of a Radio Shack.

*

One of the things I had fun with in writing this novel, was a sex scene. Normally, I don’t like to write ‘em, mostly because just about all the original ways of showing a sex scene have been done. But, I’m proud to say that I came up with a different way to create this one. Instead of doing what many of us do—ramp up the volume with more and louder screams and deeper slashes with fingernails on backsides—I came up with the opposite tack. The first time Grady makes love to Whitney, they’re on a stakeout in a duplex and are in the apartment directly above the bad guys. The floors creak so much they can’t even walk around in stockinged feet. They do the nasty while having to remain completely silent or else they’ll be discovered and killed. Not only don’t they dare move much, they can’t breathe too heavily since the bad guys below don’t turn the TV on and the slightest sound will expose them. It turned into one of the best scenes I’ve ever written. My litmus test when writing a humorous scene is that I have to laugh out loud. And, more than just during rhe initial writing or reading. Every time. I apply the same test to sex scenes. If I don’t get physically turned on during the writing and upon subsequent readings, it ain’t working. I’m happy to report that reading this scene still turns me on… Although, that can be simply because my libido is so low, which explains the five marriages perhaps...

*

The second novel is a psychological crime thriller, titled The Bitch. Here’s the synopsis:

In the rich vein of psychological thrillers such as Scott Smith’s bestseller, A Simple Plan, Les Edgerton’s The Bitch is the story of Jake, a two-time loser who, since his last release from prison for his second bit, has reformed his life completely. He has begun attending college, has fallen in love with and wed the beautiful Paris Meacham, and they are expecting their first child. Jake has also prospered in the hairstyling business and is just about to open his own salon. Life is good. Think: A Simple Plan meets Beloved, if you will!

It’s at this point, that old cellmate Walker "Spitball" Joy enters his life, requesting a favor—to help Walker pull off a job. A burglary. A favor Jake can’t deny as he owes Walker for saving his life back in the joint, even though if caught, he faces being sent back to prison for life under the Habitual Criminal Statute. (Commonly referred to as "The Bitch" derived from the Ha-bitch-ual Criminal...) The favor? To pull off a burglary (once Jake’s specialty).

The biggest guiding force in Jake’s life has always been his fierce sense of loyalty. Forced by his code of ethics to perform the crime for Walker, Jake's act sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that ends with his beloved Paris dying. A story of criminals and their code of honor and how that trumps even the fierce love of a man for a woman. Jake’s once idyllic life plunges farther and faster into the abyss, to the point where, one by one, his actions are responsible for his brother’s death, he is forced to kill his mother-in-law, his friend Walker Joy, his father-in-law, and finally, in a staggering and blinding moment of self-realization, is forced to allow to die the woman he loves, Paris. He realizes at that moment that loyalty wasn’t what guided his life at all, but a more base tenet—survival. He experiences an epiphany that shows him that he’s never been any more moral than the lowest animal and he realizes his soul has been damaged beyond repair... that he's warped beyond redemption.

(As a note of possible interest, Cathy Johns, the Assistant Warden of Louisiana's Angola Prison ("The Farm" of the award-winning documentary of the same name) has read Edgerton's work and she told Edgerton he had delivered the truest and most accurate portrayal of the criminal mind she'd ever read.)

So there you have ‘em.

Stonehouse Publishing is a relatively new press that has been tearing up the publishing world as of late. Their sales are off the charts and I’m hopeful that my books will soon be contributing to the bottom line. The novels should be available in a couple of months and you can bet I’ll be announcing it here. A link to their site is included in my favorite web sites here.

I’m also looking for potential blurbers. I’ve got several great ones for The Bitch but haven’t sent The Perfect Crime to anyone yet. If anyone here is interested in providing a blurb, please let me know.

And, it looks as if there’s possibly more good news on the way with several others of my books. The possibility of a mass market paperback sale with Pocket, a possible sale of my next writer’s how-to craft book, a YA, and my memoir, among others. I’ll keep you posted!

Now, I’m off to down a bottle of Corona Dark…

Blue skies,

Les

SOME THOUGHTS ON THIRD PERSON VS FIRST PERSON NOVEL NARRATIVES

 

Hi folks,

A source of discussion that always comes up at the beginning of my classes is whether the writer should use first- or third-person. The short answer I usually give, is: “Whatever the material calls for.”

Since that doesn’t adequately address the question, I go on to amplify the answer, and that’s what I’ll do here as well.

First, I ask the student who wants to employ first-person why they chose that stance. Almost without exception, they’ll state, “Well, it’s just more intimate. Third person is too formal for the character I want to create for the story.”

That’s when I proceed to knock a couple of holes in that theory.

Before I do that, here are a few things I’ve observed. More beginning writers than established writers tend to write in first-person. Far more people who’ve been published are aware that third person is considered the “professional” pov and that first-person is often considered the “amateur” pov.

Now, before everybody starts yelling at me that there are tons of excellent books out there written in first-person, let me assure you I’m well aware of that. If I may, I’d like to refer you back to my short answer: “Whatever the material calls for.” There are often times when the material calls for first person. However… not as often as is sometimes realized.

Let me explain.

The chief reason many agents and editors prefer third person and call it the “professional” pov, is that the overwhelming percentage of successful books and bestsellers are written in third person. This isn’t an accident. There are reasons this is the case. Actually, the overwhelming majority of manuscripts that arrive in a publisher’s or agent’s office are written in first-person. If that’s so (and it is), then why would more third-person efforts become published? Well, because many more manuscripts are submitted by beginners than by pros. By the time one goes from the beginner’s group to the published group, the numbers in the second group have dramatically diminished. That means the second group is going to be predominantly writing in third person. Fewer people by far in that group, but a much higher percentage of publishable manuscripts. Most in third person… Again, please notice I didn't say all; I said most.

This simply goes back to my observation above that more beginning writers employ first-person than do seasoned pros. Editors and agents have also noted this fact. Overwhelmingly so do beginners prefer to write in first- rather than third-person. That means that when a gatekeeper encounters a first-person manuscript, it goes without saying that a little red light goes on (from his/her past experiences) that chances are pretty good this mss came from a… less seasoned writer. And, it’s just a fact of life and the business of writing that the newer the writer, the less likely the mss will be of publishable quality.

Does that mean when your first-person opus lands on an editor’s or agent’s desk it is doomed from the start? Of course not. But, a writer should be aware that there’s a bit of a bias already in place against first-person. If it’s a book that should have been written in first rather than third, and it’s written well and is of publishable quality, no problem. Any good editor or agent will be able to tell within a couple of pages if it’s written well or not, no matter what pov stance the author has elected.

And, why do agents and editors feel this way about first-person? This gets to the heart of the matter. The reason many hold first-person in a negative light is that anyone who’s read many manuscripts knows that a great many first-person novels are thinly-disguised autobiographies, usually espousing some recently-learned political or social philosophy, or, if not that, their imitation of some current (or just-over) line of bestsellers. At present, vampire or zombie opuses, or invincible characters who look suspiciously like Jack Reacher but have different names and perhaps a different hair style.

Another reason many choose a first-person narrator is that it seems easier to newer writers. Many (many!) first novels are written with characters saying and thinking things the writer him- or herself thinks in their own minds. Novels that are fiction in name only; primarily many are just vehicles to assign the writer’s own thoughts to in a loosely-derivative plot.

Those are all secondary reasons why some writers choose first-person. Overwhelmingly, however, the biggest single reason lots of writers choose first is that they feel it’s a more intimate pov. It seems to make sense. After all, if one is writing “I” from their character’s pov, one can’t get much closer to the character, can they?

You saw this coming, didn’t you!

Of course there’s a way to achieve the same intimacy with third person as there is with first. And, it’s easy.

Simply by employing a close third person, not a formal third. A narrative that uses a close third achieves exactly the same intimacy with the reader as a first person does. The good news is that by using a close third person you get all the positives and none of the negatives of third person. The chief argument against third person usually seems to be that it isn't as intimate as first-person. Well... this just resolves that argument.

The bad news is… well, there isn’t any bad news. It’s a win-win situation.

And, how does one achieve this magical close third that feels like first person with none of the baggage of first? Again, it’s easy. You simply substitute personal pronouns for the character’s name. That’s it. Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Well, let’s take a look. Examples are the best way to prove a point.

I’ll give you a section of narrative in which a formal third is used. Then, I’ll give the same passage in first person. And, finally, I’ll follow that with the same narrative, only this time with personal pronouns in a close third person. I feel confident that as soon as you read them you’ll see and feel the difference.

***

From my short story, “My Idea of a Nice Thing” first published in Breeze and included in my short story collection, “Monday’s Meal.” (The two people are at an A.A. meeting and it’s about a third through the story. Raye is the protagonist.)

First, the passage in a formal third person:

            “My idea of a nice thing,” he said, “would be a world where you could get drunk and it wouldn’t harm you, physically, anyway.”

            Raye turned and offered her hand. “My name is Raye.”

            “Hi, Raye. Emory. Like the board.”

            Raye didn’t quite get it at first and then she did and smiled.

            “I liked what you said that time, about sorting yourself out,” Emory said.

            Again, Raye didn’t get it at first, and then she realized he must have been at the meeting she’d first gotten up and spoken at.

            “Well, yeah,” Raye said, “It’s kind of like that, but boy did I get in trouble saying that!”

            “From Jim, right?” ‘You shouldn’t talk about the joys of drink at a meeting or a place where that’s all the people think about?’ That Jim?” He grinned, and Raye saw he had great teeth, even and white, and what was nice was the way he smiled. Like he was unaware of how great his teeth really were, that he was smiling just because he was happy or had thought of something funny. “There’s been talk of replacing ol’ Jim. He gets his meetings mixed up, thinks this is Parents Without Partners.”

            There must have been something in Raye’s face that made him realize he’d said the wrong thing.

            “Look, I’m sorry. Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Go get a drink.”

            They use the same pickup lines here that they do in bars, Raye thought.

            “I don’t mean a drink with liquor in it,” he said. “I mean a Coke or something, but in a bar. This place feels like a hospital. It’s depressing.”

            “This is a hospital… Emory,” Raye added his name haltingly, knowing that once she’d said it she was going to leave with him.

That’s a formal third. Now, read the same passage as first person.

            “My idea of a nice thing,” he said, “would be a world where you could get drunk and it wouldn’t harm you, physically, anyway.”

            “Raye,” I said, turning and offering my hand. “My name is Raye.”

            “Hi, Raye. Emory. Like the board.”

            I didn’t quite get it at first and then I did and smiled.

            “I liked what you said that time, about sorting yourself out,” Emory said.

            Again, I didn’t get it at first, and then I realized he must have been at the meeting I’d first gotten up and spoken at.

            “Well, yeah,” I said, “It’s kind of like that, but boy did I get in trouble saying that!”

            “From Jim, right?” ‘You shouldn’t talk about the joys of drink at a meeting or a place where that’s all the people think about?’ That Jim?” He grinned, and I saw he had great teeth, even and white, and what was nice was the way he smiled. Like he was unaware of how great his teeth really were, that he was smiling just because he was happy or had thought of something funny. “There’s been talk of replacing ol’ Jim. He gets his meetings mixed up, thinks this is Parents Without Partners.”

            There must have been something in my face that made him realize he’d said the wrong thing.

            “Look, I’m sorry. Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Go get a drink.”

            They use the same pickup lines here that they do in bars, I thought.

            “I don’t mean a drink with liquor in it,” he said. “I mean a Coke or something, but in a bar. This place feels like a hospital. It’s depressing.”

            “This is a hospital… Emory,” I added his name haltingly, knowing that once I’d said it I was going to leave with him.

And, finally, the same passage as a close third. See if you don’t agree it feels exactly like first person.

            “My idea of a nice thing,” he said, “would be a world where you could get drunk and it wouldn’t harm you, physically, anyway.”

            “Raye,” she said, turning and offering her hand. “My name is Raye.”

            “Hi, Raye. Emory. Like the board.”

            She didn’t quite get it and first and then she did and smiled.

            “I liked what you said that time, about sorting yourself out,” Emory said.

            Again, she didn’t get it at first, and then she realized he must have been at the meeting she’d first gotten up and spoken at.

            “Well, yeah,” she said, “It’s kind of like that, but boy did I get in trouble saying that!”

            “From Jim, right?” ‘You shouldn’t talk about the joys of drink at a meeting or a place where that’s all the people think about?’ That Jim?” He grinned, and she saw he had great teeth, even and white, and what was nice was the way he smiled. Like he was unaware of how great his teeth really were, that he was smiling just because he was happy or had thought of something funny. “There’s been talk of replacing ol’ Jim. He gets his meetings mixed up, thinks this is Parents Without Partners.”

            There must have been something in her face that made him realize he’d said the wrong thing.

            “Look, I’m sorry. Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Go get a drink.”

            They use the same pickup lines here that they do in bars, she thought.

            “I don’t mean a drink with liquor in it,” he said. “I mean a Coke or something, but in a bar. This place feels like a hospital. It’s depressing.”

            “This is a hospital… Emory,” she added his name haltingly, knowing that once she’d said it she was going to leave with him.

***

See how by simply replacing the pov character’s name with personal pronouns instantly transforms it into a read that feels exactly like first person. The same level of intimacy? Kinda neat, isn’t it!

How do you know when the “material calls for first or third person?” There’s a handy-dandy litmus test. If you can substitute personal pronouns for all the “I’s” in the narrative and it doesn’t affect the story… then it should be in third. If it does affect the story and in a negative way, then it should be in first. Most of the time I think you’ll find that it works better in third person. A close third person.

Personally, I sometimes write in first person. Mostly for short stories. For novels, occasionally I’ll use first person, but mostly I opt for third. A close third.

Try it yourself. Take a passage written in a formal third (where the pov character’s name is used often) and rewrite it, taking out all the instances where the name is used and substitute personal pronouns for the pov character’s name. (This is once the character’s name is on the page and the reader knows who the “he” or “she” is.) Then, recast it in first person and compare the close third version with the first person version and see if you don’t agree they feel pretty much the same.

Or, take a previously-written passage in first person and substitute personal pronouns for the I’s. If you don’t feel any or very much difference, guess what? It might be a better pov to use.

Hope this helps!

Blue skies,

Les

Lagniappe

This has been a great week for good news! My agent, Chip MacGregor has just sold two novels to Stonehouse Publishing. He's working on the mass market rights with Pocket Books and will be trying to sell foreign rights at the upcoming BEA.

And, I'm sailing along with the first rewrite of my noir novel, The Rapist, which Bare Knuckle Press has taken. My editor, Eddie Vega, sent me some additional notes which I'll share. Eddie writes:

For now, work off the global changes I suggested. When you submit the revised mss, I will go over every inch and send it back to you with MS backtrack comments, so you can see the edits, which you can adopt or reject.

 As we discussed, the weakest writing occurs in the early sections. 1. You need to decide which parts are essential to the novel and which were you just cracking your knuckles getting ready to write. Leave the first kind and chuck the second kind.

On rewrite, when you see sections that are important to the plot or that has background information that you think essential, but where the writing is vague, you may want to add to some details to ground it, but be careful that you don't dramatize or super detail everything. Everything is not the same. Some things deserve more attention than others. Be careful of the "Show, Don't Tell" rule that they throw around in writing workshops. Show what matters, tell the rest. In this way, you will be following Van Gogh's Rule of Composition: Magnify the essential, ignore the obvious." That's how to fix the early parts.

Ask yourself of every page, what in here is essential to my story. If there is something there to which the answer is yes, dramatize it. That's the draft I want to see.

Best,

Eddie

I'll keep including in these posts our editor-writer journey. It's exciting on this end!

REWRITING AND THE EDITORIAL PROCESS

Hi folks,

Time to get back to writing!

I thought it might be interesting and hopefully informative/instructive to talk about the importance of a quality editor in the rewriting of our novels. One of the problems I see in the expanding world of self-publishing and e-books is the lack of quality editing in many of these books. It seems to be an uneven field at best.

My own experience has been that good editing makes all the difference between a quality book and… a book.

My own experience has been that rewriting a book under the guidance of a knowledgeable editor is infinitely harder and more work than the first draft entailed.

My own experience is that a good editor will almost always insist on more than one major rewrite.

Now, I have to admit that I’m not always crazy about facing the prospect of rewriting. In fact, if you’ve heard a loud groan coming from somewhere and don’t know the source of it, it may have been issued by me, facing the prospect of a rewrite.

But, that’s just the first reaction. Always, when I get into the bowels of the book’s engine, guided by the master mechanic that a great editor always is, I start to get excited. I can see by the notes he or she has provided, by the discussions we’ve had, by the terms of the work he or she has dictated—that we are about to embark on a fantastic journey of discovery. We’re about to begin a joint effort that is going to transform that assembly line engine—serviceable, but not noticeably different from the other fourteen million other assembly line engines—into an engine that is going to win races.

I’ve always had good editors. At times, I’ve had great editors. Among those I count as great are Kelly Nickell, Charlotte Wright, Rachel Vater, Jimmy Vines, and now… Eddie Vega.

Some of those folks I’ve absolutely hated during the time we worked together. When we were done and I saw what they had pushed me to accomplish, my feelings toward them changed 180 degrees. It’s not important to like your editor. It is important to respect them. And, if you’re like me, that dislike for them during the time you’re working together, will change once you see what their pushing and prodding has caused you to create.

I get the same thing from many of my students. At the time I’m working them to death and refusing to let them off easy or skate on anything or give praise where praise isn’t earned, I know my name gets uttered a lot in their homes, and most likely with the preface of “That frickin’ Edgerton!” (I don’t think they use the word “frickin’” however…) A great editor is going to evoke the same kind of emotional reaction from the writer he or she is editing, I imagine.

I’ve also had mediocre editors whose idea of a “rewrite” was more copyediting than rewriting. Looking for better synonyms, correcting syntax, punctuation, misspellings, and the like isn’t the primary purview of a rewrite editor, but that seems to be what many editors see as their job. Mostly the kind of thing you might enlist a retired English teacher to do. Those folks aren’t editors except in the loosest and most generous definition of the term, but they seem to be all over the place.

What I’m going to do in this post is open the door and let you into the private world of my editor and myself as we begin work on a new novel. The novel is a literary work originally titled The Rape. The editor is a genius named Eddie Vega. I’m doubly blessed in this endeavor as the publisher is also a genius, the writer Cort McMeel. Doubly-blessed and… doubly-cursed! I’m going to have to work and work probably harder than I ever have in my life. These guys won’t accept anything less.

Together, they’re launching a new, exciting press called BARE KNUCKLES PRESS, which will publish ebooks as well as print versions. Cort is the founder of Murdaland Magazine, and Eddie was his editor on that venture. My book is one of the first signed. You can twitter them at @BKPress.

The book we’re working on is an animal of a different stripe than any I’ve ever written before. In fact, I wrote it more than thirty years ago and didn’t show it to anyone until recently when I sent it to Cort. It’s a very dark, a very philosophical, a very literary noir novel. Actually, it’s a novella at a scant 133 pages, which brings its own problems as novellas are largely considered to be in no-man’s land in the publishing industry.

It’s also the most honest thing I’ve ever written. In it, I’ve done what I’ve always felt a great writer should do—go deep down inside and expose those dark places we all have in the deepest recesses of our hearts but hide from the rest of the world. Expose the warts, in other words. The place inside where real truth resides. Most of us are unwilling to go that far. Most of us are willing to go a certain distance, but never all the way. Well, this one goes all the way.

I’m going to show the process Eddie is putting me through. Before I begin, I need to say that Cort already had me do one rewrite of it before he sent it to Eddie. That took about a week and I suspect it’s going to be the easy rewrite when I look back after finishing it.

Eddie has told me he thinks we’ll do four major rewrites before they publish it. I have a sneaking suspicion there will be more. If so, that’s all right. I know from the gitgo it’ll be worth it.

We had a phonecon two days ago. Here are my notes from that, summarized:

There were three major areas Eddie felt I should address in the rewrite:

1. The overall structure.

2. The voice of the narrator.

3. The large themes of the book developed.

Note that none of this concerns syntax, or synonyms or any of that other crapola… Not that those things aren’t important—they are—but they’re grunt work and not the primary concern of a good editor. That’s like asking a NASA scientist to check the wiring of your house. Sure, they might have an E.E. degree and know how to wire a house, but that’s a job for an electrician, not a top scientific mind. A great editor looks at larger issues, not the stuff that a lower-level copy editor would.

Eddie wants me to go back and read some texts pertinent to this book. He insists I reread Celine’s Death on the Installment Plan for one. For the voice. He sees the voice I’ve used in the book as close to what he calls “Celine’s naturalist, ‘bad-ass’ voice, and wants me to reacquaint myself with his writing to be able to carry that voice throughout. What he didn’t know at the time was that Celine is one of my top three favorite authors. This was going to be a pleasant homework assignment!

He also wants me to reread three books of the Bible. Ecclesiastes, Lamentations and Job. Spot on. I’m very familiar with all of these, due to my childhood where we were required to read the Bible daily and I’ve read the Bible completely several thousand times. Again, he wants me to reread these for the voice, especially that in Ecclesiastes. And, for the themes of the book, which echo these books. I’ve used epigraphs in the original mss from John Donne, from Cipriano de Valera (translating from St. Paul in I Corinthians) and from Borges. Eddie wants me to change those to quotations from Job and Lamentations, which makes perfect sense and will help greatly to better delineate the themes of the book as well as more clearly align the structure.

Themes. Eddie wants me to identify 10-15 lines in the book that go along with the themes, and those lines will act as a kind of umbrella to teach the reader how to read the book.

He wants me to reread John Gardner’s Grendel to refresh myself with how Gardner structures the sections with the philosophical discussions between Grendel and the dragon and shape mine accordingly. There are several of these discussions in my book, between the protagonist, Truman, and his warden, and also between Truman and God.

What was amazing about Eddie, was he told me how I wrote the book. He said it looked to him like I’d begun not sure what the story was going to be about and then, as I discovered what the story was, began to zone in and really begin writing it. Precisely what had happened. That may seem like a small thing, but most editors wouldn’t have been prescient to have observed that. No “copy editors” would have…

He wants me to go back to the beginning where a lot of telling is going on and dramatize it in the way I did later on in the narrative.

Yesterday, he emailed me additional notes. Here those are:

Les,

Thanks for sending along the original manuscript. In the meantime, here are my thoughts on the one that Cort sent me.

The novel needs a restructuring and a massively detailed rewriting. But more importantly, the requirements of a great novel are there.

There were many essential elements in the earlier parts that were written around and that really called for direct treatment and elaboration. Some of this is simply the result of the writing process—the real writing begins when the writer finds the story he wants to tell. Until then he is really just feeling his way in the dark.

The cosmological and religious discussions deepen the themes but they are not cleanly strung together and the middle and end sometimes exhibit a clunky stream of consciousness that does not serve the story well. The language moves from high to low in a way that does not seem to serve the voice, which seems largely consistent, a feat in itself; however, there are moments when the sharp turns in the stream do seem to work and the results are wonderful.

There is a way of smoothing out the transitions and heightening the language so the mind gets on that stream and gets carried away without getting snagged on clumping logs or subaqueous stones – carried away like some of the long poetic sections of Wolfe’s Look Homeward Angel. We can get it there. But it will be work.

Here some things you can fix quickly:

1. Change the title to THE RAPIST. So the identity of the true rapist is left ambiguous—fate itself may be the rapist.

2. Narrative voice should be something dark and angry – like Celine – or dark and brooding like Ecclesiastes. But with a sense of hope, even if slim, even if the promise is ultimately false.

3. Add epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter to something from the Book of Job or the Book of Lamentations. Epigraphs should relate thematically to what is occurring in the chapter.

4.  Keep cosmology and philosophical discussions – like Book of Job or discussions between Grendel and the Dragon in the Gardner novel. But should be short, just enough to suggest depth and connection to larger theme.

5.  Smooth out transitions between sections. Stream of consciousness is a good technique if it’s grounded in realism (getting into the mind of someone who is drunk, or high, or depressed, or in state of agitation).

6.  Provide more details of prison life, the little details that few outside would know about.

7.  Add details to earlier sections, show more, tell less, dramatize more, include more dialogue.

8. Reinsert execution scene with blank rifle cartridge. Delete references to Indiana, replace with “the state.”

End of notes.

This is a glimpse into the mind of a truly great editor. A literate person, not a guy who wants each book to look like the last mindless bestseller and whose idea of editing is to “stick more sex in this.”

And, these are my marching orders for the first of at least four major rewrites.

This is an ambitious book. My aim is to deliver a work of true literature—a book that makes a difference. I’m fortunate in that both Cort and Eddie share the same view and same goal.

They both agree the raw elements are there. My job is to shape those elements into a definitive and noteworthy fiction with their direction. I’ve got the editors who can give the direction it requires—I just hope I’m up to the task!

I hope that this glimpse into the editing process is helpful in your own writing, and for those who aren’t yet at the stage where an editor is involved with their book, will give you an idea of what to expect. My hope is that you are as lucky as I’ve been with my book!

Blue skies,

Les

P.S. Earlier, I said it wasn’t important to like your editor, but that it was important to respect him. I’m getting a bonus with Eddie—I really like him! He’s the real deal—the kind of guy you’d want to hang out with and knock back some brews with.

If you haven't yet, I'd glom onto a copy of Cort's brilliant novel, SHORT.