Hush, Hush: The Story Behind The Story

[zelda_queen]

ZeldaQueen: So. We've trekked through the story itself, the acknowledgements, the jacket summary, and now it's time for the last bit of fail - Fitzpatrick's account of how she hatched this stinker of a fail tale. We all ready?

Projection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...

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The Story Behind The Story

The day was February 3, 2003, and the event was my twenty-fourth birthday.

ZeldaQueen: Lady, you're telling us how you came up with a story idea, not how you figured out the Zodiac Killer's identity

After a long debate between Japanese cooking lessons and an eight-week writing class, my husband decided to give me the writing class for my birthday present.

ZeldaQueen: Ah, so this is the point to blame for that book's creation! *makes note for event of time travel*

I have to admit, I was hoping for the Japanese cooking lessons because A) I took one English course in college and my professor  threatened to fail me,

ZeldaQueen: Given the prose in this thing, I'm not surprised. "A smile that spelled trouble with a promise", what?

and B) I didn't think I had a story to tell.

ZeldaQueen: *glances at the sloppy, incoherant mess of a "plot"* No comment

But at the same time, I felt a scary and almost magnetic draw to the class.

ZeldaQueen: By now, I think that phrase reliably causes my eye to twitch violently. Fitzpatrick, you were attending a writing class. Stop acting like you were fulfilling some huge destiny by going! And for the love of all things holy, DON'T USE THE SAME DESCRIPTIONS THAT YOU HAD YOUR IDIOT PROTAGONIST USE TO EXCUSE HER RELATIONSHIP WITH PATCH THE DICKHEAD!

When I was eight years old, I watched Romancing the Stone for the first time and promptly announced to my mom that I would grow up to be a writer. Granted, I thought all writers hunted for treasure in Colombia and fell in love with a sexy, mysterious stranger a.k.a. Michael Douglas.

ZeldaQueen: Uh...you were interested in pursuing sexy strangers in jungles when you were eight?!

In the following autumn, I started a new book about a sixteen-year-old girl named Ellie Fairchild (who would later become Nora Grey),

ZeldaQueen: Does "Fairchild" have some meaning I'm not aware of? I'm sure it's coincidence, but that was also the maiden name of Clary's damsel-in-distress mother in the Mortal Instrument series

her backstabbing and manipulative best friend, Vee Sky,

ZeldaQueen: *cheerfully* Well, good to see that part didn't change very much!

and Ellie's sexy bad boy bio partner, Patch (who had a very big secret he’d been keeping).

ZeldaQueen: He was secretly a woman

Thinking I'd write the book and figure out Patch's big secret later, I finished a rough draft in a matter of weeks.

ZeldaQueen: That...explains a lot about the coherency of this thing

I wasn't very happy with 99 percent of the plot, and Vee as a backstabbing best friend wasn't working for me.

ZeldaQueen: Oh, really? Then why didn't you change that in the final product? *pointed stare*

With a lack of workable ideas to fix the story, I decided to shelve it.

ZeldaQueen: Wish it had stayed there. Although I'd like to point out that there were plenty of ideas you could have picked form, most of which involved Nora realizing what a stalkery creep Patch was and getting him arrested

A few months later, I pulled the story out and tried again. I kept the first three chapters but scrapped everything beyond that point.

ZeldaQueen: Does that include the massively inappropriate teacher? And Patch sexually harassing Nora in front of her classmates?

After a brief hiatus, I was hit with an overwhelming desire to pull

ZeldaQueen: - a rabbit out of my ass

out the book and try again. But this time something was different, very different.

ZeldaQueen: (Fitzpatrick) "I felt the oddest sensation, as if I ought to get an editor, refrain from painting Patch's actions in a positive light, and give Nora some agency! The feeling passed, fortunately"

I knew Patch's secret.

ZeldaQueen: Where he hid his Halloween candy, the naughty boy!

He was still the ultimate bad boy...but now I knew that hadn't always been the case.

ZeldaQueen: Really? Could have fooled me, going off of the end product

At one point long ago, he'd been upstanding, and something had caused him to change his ways.

ZeldaQueen: I'm sorry, the notion that Patch was ever in any way upstanding does not compute

As I thought about his progression from good to bad, I couldn't shake the image of falling.

ZeldaQueen: Um...yeah. It's a very obvious and often-thought-of metaphor, given how infamous the whole "fallen from grace" thing is. You want a medal for coming up with such a well-known bit of imagery?

After that, everything fell into place.

ZeldaQueen: *wryly* Fitzpatrick, did you see what you did thar?

I knew Patch was a fallen angel. That realization opened up endless possibilities – I could literally make him anything I wanted.

ZeldaQueen: Um, no. No you can't. You just said you made him a fallen angel. Yes, you could re-imagine what a fallen angel is, but you can't entirely ignore the fact that you chose to make your male hero SOMETHING LARGELY CONSIDERED TO BE A DEMON!

And I did just that.

ZeldaQueen: And did it terribly. I swear, I have no idea how the mythology in that world is supposed to work!

I do hope you enjoy it.

ZeldaQueen: *strained smile* How optimistic!

Becca

ZeldaQueen: I hate  you

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Onward to: Final Assessment

Back to: The Story

Return to: Table of Contents

Comments

[angel-renoir.livejournal.com]

I used to go about my writing like that. Have people, have a VERY VAGUE IDEA of the setting, and bother about the plot later.

Until I realized that the "wing it" tactic is a big no-no. Nothing happens, and many pointless "it's for teh lulz!" scenes made their way into the story. And that's just awful.

[chibi-regalli.livejournal.com]

I don't always have the exact events down, but I always know what I want to happen in the plot.

For instance, I'm currently planning a Nuzlocke comic run for Pokemon Black. Since I don't want to do the whole in-game run well in advance, I can't plan out everything that happens, but I do know what I'm doing with an overarching plot outside the game's storyline. I don't have the specific details, but I still know major events, and if I'm introducing a "mysterious" character, I'd damn well better know their secret before they enter the story!

Also, calling Patch a "bad boy" is like calling Jack the Ripper "rowdy". It's TECHNICALLY accurate, but it's also the understatement of the century.

... Also, I could totally see a reveal of Patch being Jack the Ripper.

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

"... Also, I could totally see a reveal of Patch being Jack the Ripper."

Dude. That would be the PERFECT reveal, that Patch spent that time period running around England, stabbing and killing women he picked up off the street. That has got to be saved for fanfiction!

[chibi-regalli.livejournal.com]

Added bonus if he reveals this as he decides he want that thrill back and pulls a knife on Nora.

Plus, there's a semi-popular theory that the Whitechapel killings could have stopped because the killer went to New York, as there was at least one similar murder there around the same time period. Well hey there, reason for going to America!

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

To an extent, I can understand the "just wing it" approach, especially if there's the issue of writer's block and the writer just needs to try *something* to get the story going. The thing is though, if you do that, you will almost certainly need to go back and extensively edit it. That includes making sure the storyline matches up, the pacing works, any unnecessary scenes are removed, details and characterization are consistent, and that the whole thing generally flows well. In short, everything Fitzpatrick didn't do.

[angel-renoir.livejournal.com]

Yeaaah, I usually don't try writing UNTIL I know the generic idea of where I'm going.

And, like chibi_regalli said, if anyone has a secret, I better damn well know it before writing.

[flamefire124.livejournal.com]

That's how most of my stories are. I'll have characters and normally an event I'm heading for, then I just write it all out. Sometimes this works but editing almost always includes at least one complete re-write to iron everything out.

And I'm starting to believe more and more in planning as I write.