pants on fire

On Thursday, I got my editorial revisions for SSG2 (title redacted, ’cause I’m tricky like that). In a stunning coincidence, it’s exactly the same length as the letter my editor sent for SSG. It’s also a thing of beauty, and a joy for-evah! My editor, whom I love and adore and rarely, if ever, want to smack (except for that note about page 159), is quite the talented creature. Cute, too. And she shines a flashlight onto all the edges of my manuscript that are sticking up and looking rough and patchy. I’ve been smoothing out and sewing up for a couple of days now, which is right around the time when I’ve done all the ‘easy’ stuff and am trying to procrastinate my way out of the hard stuff.

And for that, I blog. I was thinking today, as I perused my gorgeous editorial letter (which I cherish and revere), that I’ve been doing more coloring since becoming a writer than I have since kindergarten. First, there’s my whole color-coded plot board. And then there’s the editorial letter (of which I am quite smitten), which I have attacked with a set of multi-colored highlighters. I have this whole highlighting code worked out that would probably scare you all. I wanted to take a picture of my editorial letter (which I respect and admire) all marked up, but I can’t figure out a way to do so in which I’d preserve the marking and color style but obscure the letters. And the letters must remain obscured. Spoilage, you know.

Anyhow, now you all think I’m an anal freakazoid. I’m really not. I’m actually a slob. But I’ve found that it helps when it comes to revising to break the editorial letter (which I appreciate and esteem) down into lists of easy stuff to do, hard stuff to do, and stuff you don’t want to do and are going to argue about with your editor, no matter how cute and smart and wonderful she is. Plus, doing all the easy stuff first makes you think you’ve made real progress, and if there’s hard stuff coming, at least it’s reduced to a page or two of hard stuff, rather than 10 pages of all kinds of stuff.

And of course, “easy” is relative. So far from this editorial letter (which I tolerate and obey), I’ve made a few plot-sweeping structural changes with relative ease, whereas I’ve been messing around for three days on a line that should take about two seconds to fix, but requires some delicacy. You see, the character is lying. Now, when you are writing first person POV, and another character is lying, but your POV character doesn’t know it, it’s a little tricky to get that across. Especially since, in this case, the lie is about ten times as believable as the truth. Especially since, in this case, even the liar isn’t fully aware of the lie. Denial, baby. Ain’t just a river in Egypt.

But a lot of characters lie to Amy in this book. And a lot of lies that were told in the last book are now revealed for the lies they were. So being able to suss out the lies is pretty important. In general, it’s made me think about what the choice to write in first POV means. I think 1st person POV creates a layer of trust in the reader that may not be there in third person. You readers of romance know what I’m talking about. It’s the whole, “Oh, he’s the most infuriating man, she thought. She wouldn’t marry him if he was the last man on earth!” kind of thing. I feel like you wave her off in third, but if, if first person, she says that some guy bugs the crap outta her, you’re going to believe her. And if she doesn’t act suspicious about someone’s behavior, then that behavior may not be viewed as suspicious. (This is why unreliable narrators are so difficult to write well.)

There are certain tricks that directors use to signal a lying character. Not meeting eyes, halting speech, emphatic repetition… all of these are usually a huge red flag to the viewer that the person is lying. The same could be said for the reader. However, if the person is relating the event says, “She wouldn’t meet my eyes,” and that person is as with it as Amy, she probably knows just as well as the reader that the person is lying. So, in order to get it across to the reader but not the POV character, you have to mask it. If the liar becomes suddenly very busy with tying their shoe or something, then the reader can be all, “oh, they’re refusing to look at Amy,” while Amy can be spending her time wondering why they didn’t just double-knot their laces.

And, with any luck, the truth will get across. The original draft had the halting in it, but that apparently was not enough to signal the lie lie lie. Possibly because the character was out of breath and it came across as panting. I may have this character’s jeans spontaneously combust. That ought to do it, don’t you think?

This insight into a writer’s editorial process was brought to you by the letters K and B and the number 13.