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Do you cannibalize your old manuscripts?
No, not for Allie.... I needed something else today.
For now, it's just a fragment of Fox & Darkhorse:
So. To the writers among us -- how many of you have cannibalized an old manuscript? To the point that the previous book, which you (and others) may have loved, is gone forever?
In 1991, in an attempt to widen my horizons, since I could tell that Warner had killed my SF series, and did not want the fantasy I proposed, I wrote a mystery. I wrote it for myself, really, and for relatives who would never touch my fantastical stuff. It is a fantasy mystery in that I invented a decent-sized island in Lake Michigan to host the story (there are LOTS of islands in the Great Lakes, but mine is south of the real Beaver Island, and has a history of Irish monks, native tribes, bootleggers, and ghosts.) I like the characters, I don't think it was horribly predictable, and every time I sent it out, it was read to pieces. Even Jon, my "new" agent sent it out. He tried mainstream. That was when I discovered I apparently wasn't mainstream enough for the 90s. The book "did not have enough angst" for mainstream, according to one editor. It could not be the "B&B mystery" because they had B&B mysteries at each house. It was more accurately an amateur detective who saw and heard ghosts, a artist in stained glass who could travel a lot of locations, because of the depth of the world-building/characters. The B&B was a character in the first book, but wasn't crucial for other books.
Well. Although it went out again not long ago, I have despaired of selling it. I have been contemplating a small, private printing so my aunts and other relatives in their 70s-90s can have a copy before they're admiring it from another plane of existence.
As for other things, I had a resurgence of the Spider goddess book (apparently when I became ill, my subconscious went on without me...) and also something modern in a way I didn't expect, about a man who has become a shape shifter, a soldier who speaks a dozen languages and was never used for his linguistic talents until recently, who was pushed out not because he may be bi (he's still of two minds on that) but because he refused to question and dismiss a man in his command that was suspected of being gay -- and about another young man who is part of an unusual family, who is brilliant but very right-brained, so the world doesn't have a place to slot in his genius. He has a long, twisted history of personal rejection on multiple fronts, despite his strengths, and oh, he's a shaman, as is his attorney brother -- whether they like it or not. There is this thing about power building each generation if not used, and.... Well.
I see a fantasy novel here, but I try never to leave people out when I write. A dear friend said: "Will anyone read it if the protagonists are gay, or maybe gay?" Yes, nowadays, it indeed will be read, if a good enough story. But it's a point -- so...suddenly Keelin, the female protagonist in the mystery, is jumping up and down and waving her arms and saying HEY!
"What if instead of being part Ojibwa, I'm half a made-up tribe, the majority of whom are shamans? And I'm the daughter of a Darkhorse daughter -- and Ash is the son of a Darkhorse son. So we have a big mix, straights with no children, my sister and cousins with children, and the shifter who doesn't know that he also has relatives in this direction, although their family tried to be bad guys and -- "
"WAIT!" I yell. "For heaven's sake, don't give me four books right now! The question is -- are you ready to kill BLIND TIGER as it currently exists? Maybe even half your and D's story to fit Fox and Ash in here? Or would y'all still be in two books?"
Long silence. Characters are realists -- they know if they die somewhere else, they may not be reborn. Life happens, as my illness shows. Still -- looking at what I want for the new story, and looking at the world-building underneath BLIND TIGER already -- it feels like 20% of the idea is already done. 60-75%, if I do a first book with Keelin and "Steve", and a second with them supporting Ash and Fox.
So --
1) Have you killed a novel before? A novel you liked, whose time just doesn't seem to be rolling around?
2) Did you screw around with the idea a while, before stabbing the old book?
3) Why did you simply not make clones with different names, a la Georgette Heyer and THE BLACK MOTH?
4) When did you tell your agent? Should I ask him to pull the novel now, or should I go on the basis that should the book actually sell in its current form at the 11th hour -- I can file off the serial numbers in the fantasy using global search/replace.
Opinions? I'm curious how others have handled this. I may have answered my own question by writing those 8 pages today. But I welcome hearing what you did, and why you did it.
For now, it's just a fragment of Fox & Darkhorse:
| |
2,000 / 100,000 (2.0%) |
So. To the writers among us -- how many of you have cannibalized an old manuscript? To the point that the previous book, which you (and others) may have loved, is gone forever?
In 1991, in an attempt to widen my horizons, since I could tell that Warner had killed my SF series, and did not want the fantasy I proposed, I wrote a mystery. I wrote it for myself, really, and for relatives who would never touch my fantastical stuff. It is a fantasy mystery in that I invented a decent-sized island in Lake Michigan to host the story (there are LOTS of islands in the Great Lakes, but mine is south of the real Beaver Island, and has a history of Irish monks, native tribes, bootleggers, and ghosts.) I like the characters, I don't think it was horribly predictable, and every time I sent it out, it was read to pieces. Even Jon, my "new" agent sent it out. He tried mainstream. That was when I discovered I apparently wasn't mainstream enough for the 90s. The book "did not have enough angst" for mainstream, according to one editor. It could not be the "B&B mystery" because they had B&B mysteries at each house. It was more accurately an amateur detective who saw and heard ghosts, a artist in stained glass who could travel a lot of locations, because of the depth of the world-building/characters. The B&B was a character in the first book, but wasn't crucial for other books.
Well. Although it went out again not long ago, I have despaired of selling it. I have been contemplating a small, private printing so my aunts and other relatives in their 70s-90s can have a copy before they're admiring it from another plane of existence.
As for other things, I had a resurgence of the Spider goddess book (apparently when I became ill, my subconscious went on without me...) and also something modern in a way I didn't expect, about a man who has become a shape shifter, a soldier who speaks a dozen languages and was never used for his linguistic talents until recently, who was pushed out not because he may be bi (he's still of two minds on that) but because he refused to question and dismiss a man in his command that was suspected of being gay -- and about another young man who is part of an unusual family, who is brilliant but very right-brained, so the world doesn't have a place to slot in his genius. He has a long, twisted history of personal rejection on multiple fronts, despite his strengths, and oh, he's a shaman, as is his attorney brother -- whether they like it or not. There is this thing about power building each generation if not used, and.... Well.
I see a fantasy novel here, but I try never to leave people out when I write. A dear friend said: "Will anyone read it if the protagonists are gay, or maybe gay?" Yes, nowadays, it indeed will be read, if a good enough story. But it's a point -- so...suddenly Keelin, the female protagonist in the mystery, is jumping up and down and waving her arms and saying HEY!
"What if instead of being part Ojibwa, I'm half a made-up tribe, the majority of whom are shamans? And I'm the daughter of a Darkhorse daughter -- and Ash is the son of a Darkhorse son. So we have a big mix, straights with no children, my sister and cousins with children, and the shifter who doesn't know that he also has relatives in this direction, although their family tried to be bad guys and -- "
"WAIT!" I yell. "For heaven's sake, don't give me four books right now! The question is -- are you ready to kill BLIND TIGER as it currently exists? Maybe even half your and D's story to fit Fox and Ash in here? Or would y'all still be in two books?"
Long silence. Characters are realists -- they know if they die somewhere else, they may not be reborn. Life happens, as my illness shows. Still -- looking at what I want for the new story, and looking at the world-building underneath BLIND TIGER already -- it feels like 20% of the idea is already done. 60-75%, if I do a first book with Keelin and "Steve", and a second with them supporting Ash and Fox.
So --
1) Have you killed a novel before? A novel you liked, whose time just doesn't seem to be rolling around?
2) Did you screw around with the idea a while, before stabbing the old book?
3) Why did you simply not make clones with different names, a la Georgette Heyer and THE BLACK MOTH?
4) When did you tell your agent? Should I ask him to pull the novel now, or should I go on the basis that should the book actually sell in its current form at the 11th hour -- I can file off the serial numbers in the fantasy using global search/replace.
Opinions? I'm curious how others have handled this. I may have answered my own question by writing those 8 pages today. But I welcome hearing what you did, and why you did it.