As usual I was just “letting ‘er rip.” I was tooling along, my fingers fluttering across the keyboard. It was a joyride. Great scenes were popping in my head for further down the road. I was stopping on occasion to write a brief bit of dialogue or part of a scene that was coming up, just so I wouldn’t forget it. I had an ending forming in my mind, changing and shifting, but looking pretty solid at this point.
Man, I thought, this is great! At this rate, I’ll be done with the first draft of this–what was turning into a short to medium sized novel–by the middle of next week. I had knocked out 23k words in four days and was going nonstop. I was a little nervous because I had a few court scenes coming up. I wasn’t sure about where this court scene was gonna fit in, but jumped a little ahead and started writing it. All went smoothly and I had a very dramatic scene. I had written it, kind of just winging it. I had the swearing in and then I had the “state your name for the record” line. I thought, wait a minute, which is first, or does it matter? After I finished the whole scene, I went back and moved the “state your name . . .” scene first. Okay, this calls for me to take a short break and watch an episode or two of Perry Mason just to make sure I had my “sustains,” and “overruleds” in order, things like that. It was either that or wade through a John Grisham or Scott Turow novel, or perhaps an Erle Stanley Gardner . . . All of which is great, I love reading them, but I wanted to jump back on the writing right away. I had finished writing for the night. I popped some popcorn and put the dvd in (yes, I’ve still got one. I could have searched for it elsewhere but I have the first two seasons on dvd, so why not?).
Well, things seemed okay, and turns out I had the order correct in the first place on the swearing in and stating name portions, or perhaps the order didn’t even matter? But there was something else . . . something I hadn’t exactly forgotten about, but had pushed to the back of my mind, thinking I would check it later. What was it? Well, Perry answered it in one statement when he said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. L– there’s no bail for murder.”
Holy sh*t! My main character was out on bail. Yes, I had wondered at the time (very early on) about it, and couldn’t quite decide. I remember the thought going through my mind, Does a person get bail for murder? Obvious question, right? I went back and forth on it at the time, thinking well, seems like rich and famous people do . . . seems like I remember amounts being set for bonds, etc. Even for normal people. High bonds, of course, but yeah, I think . . . Anyway, I thought, I’m in the middle of a good scene here. And whatever, I can check it out later.
So here I was, 90 pages into the manuscript. I had a tremendous number of fantastic scenes which helped to develop and flesh out the main character, along with all of her friends, and, well, probably fifteen to twenty characters in all. A thought struck me. If she can’t get out on bail, how do these characters all get written, and established as part of the story? And her just sitting in a holding cell, isn’t that kind of boring? How much interaction is she going to have with any of these people? None. She’s not! It will just be her lawyer, and maybe the detective, etc. That means I have to go back and give the detective a bigger role. He will have to go around and talk to all of her friends, etc. I’ll have to rewrite everything. I’ll have to scrap about seventy of the ninety pages I had written. Holy —
Oh, well, it is what it is . . . but I was too depressed to think about it then. I knew I could rewrite it all, no problem, eventually. I couldn’t do it right away . . . all the wind was gone out of my sails. I was so bummed I stayed in bed the whole next day.
I had never written myself into a corner before, not one that I couldn’t get out of . . . something always came up, an idea, something. I always found some way to escape. I was always super confident about that. Of course, I’m usually just writing short stories, so it is easier. Sometimes they expand into larger pieces, but I always can wing it and then rewrite easy enough. But it usually isn’t a detail as huge as this. Would I get any ideas? Would something pop up now? I could always work on something else for a while. I had a couple other novels that I had a little bit started on. After all, those were already in the works as novels, while this had just been a short story initially; at least that had been my intent. I’d think about it, take a day or so.
When I finally dragged myself out of bed, I knew I had to look up the laws for the particular state that was the setting for the whole thing. I had to do that anyway. I just should have done it sooner. And so I looked. And well, bails were set, but not in cases of flight risks, and the amount was always exceedingly high. Usually had to be paid in cash. Talking several million here. And currently, there are some cases where Covid-19 helped to get someone released. Ahh, I didn’t want to use Covid. Well, something might turn up. A couple of days later, something surfaced, sort of . . .
I haven’t gone back to working on it yet. The idea is okay. Not bad, really. It is just that I am a little tentative, nervous. I did sit down and read over the first few chapters, proofing and cleaning up some stuff.
So, should I start doing more plotting up front? Maybe I should. Nah, I probably won’t. I usually play it fast and loose, especially at first. I just write what pops into my head. The characters usually do all the work. I do, after I get the ground work laid, kind of make notes of ideas. Who knows? Maybe in the future I’ll plot a little more. I can see the advantages of doing so.
I do know that Rex Stout (author of the Nero Wolfe series) used to research and plot everything out and then take about five weeks to write each novel. I think it was five (maybe five weeks total, two weeks of writing it). It’s been a few years since I read the bio. I do know Stout was extremely organized about it all. I admire anyone who can do that, and I probably could also, if it came down to it. But it is so much fun to just GO and see where you (or I rather) end up. I usually end up in some fascinating and wonderful places! Perhaps if I get a series character going–maybe my John Benson and Edwin MacCallum detectives from The Children’s Home, though I had intended the book to be only a one-off. I have had a few sketchy images for scenes of the two characters that occasionally drift about, or float up in my mind.
Overall, I guess the lesson to be learned here is that I need to stop and check things out when I think of them, especially when it comes to details that could be important and shape the way things play out.
Oh well, I’ll jump back in and get it worked out . . .
***
By the way, if you are like me, and enjoy reading biographies of authors, the Rex Stout bio. by John McAleer is pretty hefty, but a good one. Rex Stout was an interesting man who had a long and varied life. And, of course, who doesn’t enjoy reading Nero Wolfe mysteries? Wise-cracking Archie is always hilarious. I’m not sure I would have picked Timothy Hutton to play him in the short, but okay, T.V. series. It was okay, however.
