So, I’m nearing the end of my mentoring process.
I’ve sent Tim 4 extracts and each time he has come back to me with something that has made me think about my writing, most of the time has taught me something and on 2 occasions has caused a major rewrite.
This extract was a piece from the centre of the book. In this extract Maximilian has locked Grace in a room and is trying to piece together the memories of how he came to be here. Grace is trying to escape and is using her skills as a counsellor to try and convince Maximilian to let her go.
It is absolutely pivotal, it is important that these scenes zing because they form the centre piece of the novel and set up the climax.
Firstly Tim had a couple of positives to share with me- he thinks there is real potential in the dynamic between them and he really admired the vividness of language in the flashback scenes of Maximilian.
But, and this is a fairly big but and one that made me think for several days, why is it important that we see inside Maximilian’s head? The question he asked was, is this essential? Because he thought the tension would potentially be stronger if we as the reader had little or no idea of Maximilian’s motivations.
I mulled this over for a while and made a hard decision. I could get across all the ideas that I wanted to within conversation between them and in some ways it would be truer to the themes of the novel if I were to do that.
If I was to be honest with myself I was writing from his POV because it gave me an opportunity to write some beautiful prose. I was writing it for me and not for anyone reading it.
So, out they came, tens of thousands of words.
Cutting your favourite bits out of your work is known as killing your babies. I was slaughtering them. This was word genocide.
I now have a lot of blank paper in front of me, but I’m excited about the possibilities for the novel again now.
Gulp.
