Becca Fitzpatrick

I'm typing this with shaky hands (exhaustion, sheer joy, sheer panic) because I just finished the first pass of HUSH, HUSH's sequel.  I can't believe the book is there on the page and not just in my head anymore.  I can't believe I did it, period.  I still remember that feeling of nervous dread when I started it months ago, wondering if I had it in me to write more than one book.  Three hundred pages later, I'm a tangle of relief and joy and excitement.  I have a second book!  And aside from the really sucky scenes, I love it.  Actually, I love the sucky scenes too.  Just in a different way.  (A way that foreshadows much work ahead.)  

I was going to write more - the pros and cons to writing a sequel - but my husband picked up pizza and strawberry Twizzlers on the way home from work, and I just want to celebrate.  I'll save that post for another day!

-Becca

P.S. I need a title  - I'm sick of calling it SEQUEL :)

Anybody watch Law & Order SVU tonight?  I just finished, so I'm heading into this post a little teary . . .  

I'm not doing Nanomo.  But I have a friend who is . . . unofficially.  Laura is the person responsible for taking me to Left Coast Crime earlier this year, which is where I literally had flash upon flash of inspiration as to how HUSH needed to be written.  I can't tell you how many drafts of HUSH Laura read . . . I gave up counting around draft five.  We live ridiculously far away, but all summer long, Laura and I emailed back and forth hashing out plot and character and preventing each other from pitching our stories into a bonfire.  More than once, Laura talked me off the ledge all writers know well.  That ledge called IS THIS REALLY WHAT I SHOULD BE DOING WITH MY LIFE?

Warning: this is where I start to tear up.  Laura just finished what she will probably remember as The Toughest Year of Her Life.  After a hiatus from writing that worried me beyond words, she's back.  Not only back, but back writing a breathtaking YA novel that I know is going far.  I think this will be The One.  She's going to get published.  It's a big, daring, literary book with intrigue, adventure and romance.  And did I mention it's a historical - by someone who really knows history?  It's like reading Jane Austen, and I'm not sure I possess enough patience to wait for the moment when I can tell Laura, I told you so!  (Keep in mind when her story sells, I'm going to shout on my blog I told ALL OF YOU so!)

She posts her progress daily on her blog (lauraadrian.blogspot.com/), and if you get a chance, stop by and cheer her on!  

I can't believe in my last post I said "Marcus Sakey is a boy, he has curly hair, he introduced himself using the word 'handcuffs,' and he's cute."  Of course Marcus is a boy.  Do you know any girls who go by Marcus??  Looking back, I think I was trying to be funny.  Note to self: don't try for humor when you're dead tired. 

Onward.

Looking back over my notes from LCC, I noticed a few things I wanted to share.  These notes deal mostly with crafting mysteries, but I think the knowledge can be applied to just about any genre.  (These notes are also the personal opinions of published authors, and while I don't agree with all of them, I do agree with parts of all of them.)

1.  Every 25 pages or so of the manuscript, something needs to be elevated or get worse. 

2.  We don't learn as much about characters by being told which brands they wear, the type of car they drive or the color of their hair; we learn about characters by how they act in conflict. 

3.  As the story progresses, the reader needs to be more and more convinced that the protagonist is going to fail.

4.  As much as authors hate formulas, readers love patterns.  They have expectations coming into a novel, and it's the author's job to meet those expectations, or blow them away (in a good way).  One author in particular believed in plotting the mystery/suspense novel like a Hollywood movie:
             *Rising Action
             *Pinch Point #1
             *Midstory
             *Pinch Point #2 
             *Climax
             *Resolution

Tomorrow, I'll go into more detail on this "Hollywood plotting" by applying it to the movie Patriot Games. 

I'm back from Denver!  Back from Left Coast Crime!  Of all the things I learned, these top the list:

5. Marcus Sakey is a boy, he has curly hair, he introduced himself using the word "handcuffs," and he's cute ;)

4. Every author under the sun plots differently.  There is no secret method.

3. "High concept" means a book marries a universal icon with a unique concept.  For example, a secret society (universal icon) plots to conceal the fact that Jesus was married and had children (unique concept).

2. I CAN go four days without buying shoes. 

1.5  Mormons are going after "world domination." 

1. Some day, I want to sit behind a table, pen in hand, and sign my name on the title page of my book for my fans. 


Other memorable stuff?

I won a silent auction: editor Chris Roedern is going to critique the first 15 pages of my manuscript. 
I bought way too many books.
I found a new favorite author: Stephanie Barron.
I ate one of the best banquet dinners of my life.
A drunk man fell on top of me while I was riding the bus.

Best of all?
I got to meet Laura and Katie.  I've known Laura for almost five years now--online.  Last week, for the first time, we got to spend four amazing days together in person talking about books, writing, our personal lives and . . . handcuffs :)   You know what?  It was the best four days I've had all year.  As Laura so perfectly put it, going to this conference reaffirmed that this is where we belong.  We are writers.  We are storytellers.  This is where we . . . fit. 

-Insert spooky music-

I'm going to Left Coast Crime!!!  Which is going to be especially awesome because I'll be meeting up with writing buddies Laura and Katie!  I promise to take heaps and heaps of notes. 
http://www.leftcoastcrime.org/2008/