Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing everyone enough food, friends, family, and a holiday to remind us all how fortunate we are to have what we do - sparse or surplus.

Making it to the end of a novel

As I sit struggling to complete my current novel, and as I reflect on Diana's novel, it occurs to me that "The End" is a difficult piece of the writing.  For Diana, she didn't end.  She ran out of pages.  The story just stopped - until the next one.  I don't mind that quite so much as, say, Anne Rice, who leaves you hanging at the end of her stories.  I'll never forget reading the Vampire Lestat and at the end of the novel, the Queen of the Damned climbs into Lestat's coffin.  What??  That's the end??? What happens then?  YOU CAN'T DO THAT TO ME!  She has done that in several of her books, in fact in The Witching Hour, I swore I wouldn't read another one of her books because of the fast switch at the end of the novel and the hanging ending.  That novel was too long not to finish (but I did read Lasher, the sequel).

For my part, I can finish the story.  I can wrap up the loose ends, but it's difficult to get to that point because you become so involved in your characters, your story.  The end means a parting of the ways.  They move away to a different state, in a manner of speaking.  You can revisit, and sometimes they come back to star in a subsequent novel, but it still marks the end of an era.  Bittersweet.  Some friends do that when they read.  They don't rush through a book, they read as slowly as possible to savor every word, every moment with the characters because the end is . . . well . . . the end.

Another reason writers postpone "The End" is that it means then they have to move on to the next one.  Generally I have the next one sketched out - a very rough outline on one page, of characters, motivation, general plot lines, and quite often I'm already putting down rough chapters.  But if that subsequent story isn't flowing, there's a certain amount of "I can't finish this one until I have somewhere new to go."  It's an excuse, and a classic case of procrastination, and yet it is what it is.  Outside distractions can also keep you from putting down that final chapter.

One of the girls that babysat me when I was growing became an author - Mary Doria Russel, The Sparrow.  She came "home" last weekend and one of the things she said was that it made a huge difference to have a husband who could support her so she could spend her time writing (reminder:  being an author is NOT a lucrative careeer, unless you're JK Rowling).  For those of us that are still in the working world, we have those other responsibilities that fight for our time, and that creates one more excuse not to finish a novel (although a much better one than the ones previously outlined).  I tell you what - a contract in hand would be a mighty strong motivator! 

But until then, I just plod along, setting a more leisurely pace.  My current work in process, tentatively titled Giselle, will be finished, and the next one will get started.  I'm still shopping Epitaph around and with the positive feedback I'm getting, I feel pretty good that someone will like it enough to take a chance with it, and when that happens, my pace will pick up again with renewed vigor and interest, like a new relationship, until I reach the point where I don't want to stop again, and postponing The End means I'm still writing, and still living with my characters - for a little while longer.

Coming up for air and a review of Echo in the Bone

I've been working too hard again.  A necessary evil.  This is the point where we (my coworkers) and I say to each other, "well, at least we have a job."  But the stress levels are intense and the work load is heavy.  Nevertheless, I take great pride in my work and continue to strive to be better, even after 23 years. That's the whiny part of my post.

I finished Diana Gabaldon's new book!  Yes, I borrowed it from the library, and it's on the "maybe I'll buy it" list.  I generally only purchase books that I know I will read again, and I do read them again.  I have all of Diana's previous works, and after the last one (which is, coincidentally authographed), I decided I would read this one first, buy it later (which I have now done, the read it first part).  I like Diana Gabaldon.  I enjoy her books (mostly).  This one (An Echo in the Bone) is long, like the other ones.  Outlander I never noticed the length.  A Dragonfly in Amber I never noticed the length.  Voyager got a little long and actually dragged through a couple of spots, although I still enjoyed it.  The Fiery Cross was the first of her books that I can't say I liked all that much.  I enjoyed Roger Mac, but I still don't like Brianna.  She was tolerable in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, although that book was VERY long and hard to slog through (at least for me).  In this latest book, I enjoyed it (but I still don't care much for Brianna and her whole story could have been left out), but having finished it just tonight on my train ride home, it ended rather abruptly.  Kind of like "I'm only allotted 800 pages, and this is it.  Guess I have to stop the story now."

An Echo in the Bone doesn't really have a beginning and a middle and an end.  For devoted readers who are in love with Jamie and Claire (raising my hand), it was a warm, endearing family chronical, much like we've come to expect.  I'd read reviews about how these aging characters are still too adventurous for their ages considering the times they lived in.  That may be true, but I was able to buy into it, and there are references to their aging (which were notably lacking in the last book).  I still love Jamie and Claire and it was like visiting old friends to read their story.  The whole Roger and Brianna portion of the book seemed superfluous to me.  Not necessary and could have cut out a whole bunch of pages.  The William subplot was integral, and I enjoyed that, and then there's the Ian thing.  Ian is integral also, and I enjoyed reading his story, but it ended with the Ian story, which was a minor subplot, not the major focus of the book, which brings me back to what was the major focus of this book?  It's a tender rendering of the life and times of Jamie and Claire, which remains an ongoing saga, but there's no real plot, per se.

For 800 pages, there is an awful lot of information that could have been cut - including the obligatory trip home to Scotland.  Not a necessary trip, in my estimation.  Don't get me wrong - after reading the first two in the series, I made a trip to Scotland to experience the wilderness first hand (I loved it, by the way).  In this book, it's an easy edit out without losing anything in the story.

One gets the sense that Diana is trying to wrap up all the loose ends from all the characters that you meet along the way, but there are so many scattered so many places that it just isn't necessary.  We've moved on.  Let's keep focus.

There will obviously be another installment in this series, and I will read it when it comes out - probably another three years by Diana's reckoning.  Hopefully she will be able to conclude the Revolutionary War by then.  As to Roger and Bri - I'm thinking she ought to just give them their own series, the way she has with Lord John (I haven't read any of the Lord John books).  Then those folks that care about those characters can have their fill (and I can skip over them).

One person's opinion.  Now, from a writer's perspective, Diana has broken so many writing rules.  Again, I enjoy reading Diana's books and if she wants to break the rules, she has gifts that counterbalance, so far be it for me to criticize the writing.  Her ability to bring her characters to life far outweights wondering which point of view you are reading because she hasn't identified the speaker in a chapter.  Her overuse of "ten dollar words" doesn't bother me, I have a ten dollar vocabulary.  I can only hope I write well enough for people to overlook the rules I break!  In the meantime, I'll have to try not to break the rules.

Cheers.