What We're Writing: The Score is Outline-1 Hank-0

First, yes, this has been a crazy week for "the book that is."  

 I spent last Monday night at the Brookline Booksmith virtual launch of  HER PERFECT LIFE life, and I have to tell you it was transformative.  There were 346 people!

 And so much love and joy that I was in tears much of the time. Thank you all who came, and thank you all who bought books, and I honestly have never had such a fantastic event. 

Below I am signing the pre-orders in the Booksmith's empty basement, and of course I put my mask back on right after the photo.

The wonderful reviews keep coming, including the Providence Journal saying "Her perfect life is as close to perfect as a psychological thriller can be." Which, I have to say, made my Monday.

(If you have not purchased HER PERFECT LIFE, this is the one time I will say to you. Please do :-) No pressure. It is just my career. Click here.

 A star from Kirkus and a star from Publishers Weekly and my endless endless gratitude. If you want a copy signed personally to you, I can tell you how. Just mention it in the comments.)

But of course, in my world of spinning plates, I am also trying to finish "the book that is to be," and I will tell you that the deadline for it is October 6.  (Ha. Ha.)

And here's the crazy thing that happened along the way.

So, you know me, a card-carrying pantser, or as George RR Martin described it, a gardener. He says some authors are architects, that they build the structure of their novels, and then weave and plaster their story onto that scaffolding. A plotter. Other authors, he says, are gardeners, who have a seed, and plant it, and cultivate it, and then watch their story grow. You know this. 

Anyway, for 13 books, I have been an inveterate gardener. I have no idea what comes next, you all know this, too, and so far, that has worked well for me. 

But one day, back in, maybe February, I was thinking about my new book, book 14, and suddenly, the whole thing appeared to me. WHAT?? 

I sat down with a notebook and a pencil, yes pencil, and wrote out four pages of outline. Beginning middle end. Everything! Everything that happened.  AN OUTLINE.

It took about half an hour.

Wow, I thought, this is awesome. This is sensational. This is the best thing that has ever happened to anyone in anyone’s conceivable entire life. 

I was ecstatic. I thought wow, why didn’t anyone ever tell me about this! And of course they have, Jeffrey Deaver has spent years trying to convince me to write an outline, and although it worked for him, I never quite believed it. 

But there it was,  four soon-typed pages revealing the entire story. EVEN THE END. I HAVE NEVER KNOWN AN END. Amazing. 

So I sat at my computer, gloriously happy, and started banging it out. What happens next, the question that always filled me with fear, this time it was a snap! I just looked at my pieces of paper, (which I bought a magnet board to display), and it told me what happen next. Incredible. 

I got to about 60,000 words. And slammed hard into the wall. It just wasn’t working. It just wasn’t working! People were doing things for no reason, they were saying things that were ridiculous, they were behaving  in insane ways, and I just sat and stared at it. What had happened to my beautiful story?

Time passed, and I stared at the page. I asked myself all the questions I always ask when I am stuck: what would really happen, what would someone really do, what time is it. I asked myself all those things. And nothing was working.

And time was going by.

Time. Was. Going. By.

I finally called my editor and said hey, wanna look at my manuscript? I’m about two-thirds finished with the rough draft, and I’m not quite sure of where this is going, can you just look at it and see where I may have hit some quicksand?

She read it in a day, maybe two, and we chatted. She said: this is a great story, really good, but it’s only the story. “There’s not enough…thinking,” she said.

Then she paused and said: I don’t mean a bunch of internal dialogue, but this is all plot and no depth. 

And I said yeah, but by word count I’m about  60 percent of the way through, but by the story arc, this should be almost finished. Is that why I can’t figure out what to do?

And she said: absolutely. Go back and open this up.

And, reds and readers, that is exactly what I am doing.

 Turns out, I knew how to make an outline, hilariously, but I did not know how to use it! 

Now, I am closing in on the ending, sort of, and don't know what it it, and it's NOT THE ONE IN THE OUTLINE, but at least I know what the book is about. More than story, it is about the characters. And gardening.

Yes yes, I obviously already knew this. It just took a minute to come back to me.

Book 14, underway.

And book 13, HER PERFECT

LIFE, is now happily in the world, thanks to all of you, and I am floating! (LOOK, Zibby Owens (gasp!) chose it as a top read for fall!) 

What do you think about what my editor told me?