When I last left you, I had a first draft manuscript finished, ready for the next step.
But I have to take a step back… why? Word Counts.
Some people see things in terms of imagery and pictures. They might doodle or paint or draw or sculpt.
Some see things in terms of sounds. Perhaps they make, play, listen to music, or all three.
Others see those same images in terms of words. So, they write and read.
I can see many reasons someone might want to write. Perhaps they need to get a swirling thought out of their head and down on paper. Perhaps we have a message to deliver or a theory to prove. Sometimes it is simply to tell a story.
For me, I had many stories in my head (and still do) that have itched to crawl their way out. So, it was with this first novel. The germination of it began decades ago when I was working in the numismatic industry. For those unfamiliar, numismatics is the study of coins. Of course, notaphily, the study of paper money, is a subset of numismatics. And gold, silver and other precious metals are interrelated as many coins are made of those.
Anyway, I digress. I worked for more than ten years in that field, where I would encounter old coins. Some were decades old and some centuries old. When I would examine and research these, I often wondered: Who else has touched these objects. Were they famous? Why were they made and by whom?
I wondered the what ifs that many fiction writers ponder. What if this coin or that coin had a dark history? What if they were held by a famous killer like Jack the Ripper or tragic figure like Abraham Lincoln?
And if that was the case, what if the coins themselves somehow had a curse on them like the Hope Diamond?
And so, a story began to articulate itself in my mind. I’ll tell you more about that later.
Let’s fast forward to the present.
I have now a finished story. I wrote for months and wove what I felt was a well thought out tale with complete character backgrounds and historical context of the cursed items. It was a tale of adventure and suspense.
Then I joined a writer’s group to learn the process of getting published. In the very first session, I was suddenly hit with a difficult reality.
In order for a publisher to take you on, your novel MUST fit inside their acceptable parameters for the genre.
What did that mean?
Word count. Readers often think in terms of pages, but publishers think words. For each genre, there is an accepted book size. An easy-to-read romantic novel will only have so many words while a detailed sci-fi novel is allowed more. An historical biography is afforded more than a book of poetry. And so forth.
I discovered the adventure/thriller/suspense genres, if they have historical or scientific context, are allowed up to 120,000 words.
My in-depth novel with background and historical weaving had a tad more. Well actually a lot more.
I had over 300,000 words.
I was shocked. How was I going to compress my whole story line by two-thirds?
Stop the presses I told Jacki. Stop proofing for grammar. I need to re-think, re-tool and ultimately re-write. I spent the next several months chopping sections. Paring down context. Anything that would reduce the size without losing the substance and richness I felt I had in the story.
And it worked.
I finally had a novel that fit the accepted genre limitations while maintaining an entertaining and believable tale.
The characters sounded authentic, were multi-dimensional, and behaved in a manner befitting them and the situation. The storyline, while having a metaphysical aspect, was not so crazy that one would have to throw out their disbelief instead of just suspending it for a bit. It had suspense, and historical context. It had real places and circumstances intertwined with fiction.
And it fit the word counts limitation of the industry.
Although, I call foul on those word counts limitations.
As an avid reader, I was the type that loves thick books. I like novels with depth. I love reading King, Rollins, Brown, Baldacci, and Rowlings. I enjoy those who are able to weave an intricate tale that is believable because of the depth of story and character.
New authors are not permitted that leeway.
Of course, that is because of the next challenge in getting published. This is a business. As such, publishers look at their cost and risk.
I understood that. It was why I joined the writers group. To learn the business side of things now that the creative aspect was mostly done.