BOOK CLUB FRIDAY -- GUEST AUTHOR LINDA LOVELY

Today we welcome debut mystery author Linda Lovely. DEAR KILLER, set in South Carolina’s Low Country, is the first book in a new series featuring Marley Clark, a 52-year-old retired military intelligence officer who now works security for a gated island community. NO WAKE ZONE, the second book in the series, will be released the second quarter of 2012. To learn more about Linda and her books, visit her website.

Linda is offering a copy DEAR KILLER of  to one of our readers who posts a comment this week. -- AP

Black Friday & The First Draft of a Novel

Today, Black Friday, is the busiest retail shopping day of the year. Or so I’ve heard. Me, I eat turkey sandwiches and treat myself to a good book. I MIGHT venture as far as my backyard. While I’m not BFF with Wal-Mart or Toys-R-Us, I have relatives (we all claim crazy kin, right?) who begin shopping sprees Thanksgiving eve and continue the wallet Olympics for 24 hours straight. Waiting in the freezing predawn, they stamp their feet to ward off frostbite then elbow through crowds to snatch up bargains—even if said merchandise fits no one on their Christmas lists. The purchases are “too” something—cute, funny, clever, chic, warm, cool—to pass up. In no time, the marathon shoppers have stuffed their car trunks to capacity.

I empathize. I amass words in my first drafts faster than holiday shoppers can max out their credit cards. Word counts beyond 110,000? Yup. When I’m in an idea-gathering mode or writing frenzy, I find adverbs and back story irresistible. A twenty-year-old heroine may have so many internal conflicts she’ll experience menopause before she sorts them out. My description of a sunset may wax poetic for a solid page. In other words, I fill up my mystery novel “trunk” with so much extra baggage I don’t even try to close the lid.

That’s fine. Just like my Black Friday warrior kin, I know at least some of my word purchases will be perfect, and the others are “returnable.” Perhaps writing an overweight (okay, obese) first draft isn’t the most efficient way to pen a novel, but I find editing easier than attempting to strategically pad a puny manuscript.

So how do I eliminate my impulse buys? First comes a sentence-by-sentence hunt for adverbs that add no zip, back story that bores, unnecessary “she saids” and pretty, but irrelevant, descriptions. This first pass trims perhaps 10,000 words. Now it’s time for critique partners to make their hatchet recommendations. My cruel but wise CPs have no qualms about identifying slow sections that don’t contribute to plot. If I can’t bring myself to hit the “delete” key, I pack up my prose and copy it to a “scrap file” for future use. Mind you, I’ve never actually mined this scrap heap for a new novel, but the “exchange” policy lessens the sting.

I actually enjoy editing, and I never worry about backsliding. Once words are cut, I feel no urge to search out replacements. Just like my relatives return to penny-pinching after Black Friday, I limit my word splurges to my first drafts. And isn’t everyone entitled to a splurge now and then if there’s a happy ever after ending—like a story that keeps its svelte, target-length shape in print forever?

Okay, readers, do you feel even some of your favorite authors could benefit from tighter editing? What types of passages do you tend to skim to get on with the story? What are your pet “word splurge” peeves? Or do you feel some authors are so driven to meet publisher-dictated word counts that they leave you too few gifts to unwrap?

Thanks for spending time with us today, Linda. Personally, I skip over the sex scenes in books, but that might have something to do with my bitterness over my dead louse of a spouse. What about you, readers? Post a comment to enter the drawing for a copy of DEAR KILLER. -- AP