First Draft -- Fix It

Yesterday I posted a flash fiction, The Elephant in the Room. It was a first draft, not seen by my editor or, for that matter, by my husband. I liked it. But I can almost always count on me to like something I consider finished. The thing is, I know what I meant to say. The question is, will a reader know what I meant to say?

I think the most important skill for a writer (You know, over and above good grammar and the ability to use spell check.) is the ability to rewrite. It's not my editor's responsibility to tell me how to fix a problem area. It's their responsibility to identify the problem area. Good Beta readers can also help in the same way. My husband is a good Beta reader. They can say what doesn't work for them. There again, it's my responsibility to fix it.

All this said, this is the fixed Elephant in the Room.

image from newh2o.com

Her daughter Carrie sat in her normal place at the table. So beautiful. So young.

The girl reached for the rolls and offered them to the young man seated next to her.

Two months married, the girl had completed her first year at State. It would be so easy to give up her future to follow a man.

She, herself had followed Carrie's father Paul. Not that she gave anything up. College wasn't that important to her. She could paint without college and where she lived didn't make any difference. But Carrie had a true gift for math. She should be in school.

Loxodonta, the African Elephant, is one of two extant genera of the family, Elephantidae. Elephas, the Asian, is the other. At an overall length of 18–21 feet, even the smaller Asian elephant would not fit in this room. It's very size would suck the oxygen out of the room.

Her chest hurt. She wanted to ask her brilliant daughter if she was sure she wanted to follow this young man.

"What about school?" she asked pouring them each a glass of lemonade.

"Oh, Mom. They have colleges in Virginia."

The African bush elephant is even bigger, females stand an average of seven to nine feet tall. An ear six feet long by four feet wide would cast a shadow twice that large over her dining table.

She took her own seat next to Paul. Her family was already scattered across the country by the time she married him. She hadn't had the reassurance of family in emergencies. Or when Carrie was born.

She knew exactly how far it was from Fort Wayne to Norfolk, Virginia -- 728.8 miles. She could drive it if she had to, but it would take too long to get there in an emergency. And Paul couldn't take off work just any time. He would, though. If it were an emergency.

When a calf squeals in distress, its mother rushes to its protection immediately. It is common for the bond between mother and daughter to last more than 50 years.

"Yes, Carrie. I know there are colleges in Virginia." She looked at Paul. Paul raised his eyebrows.

Michael reached for the meat loaf. "That'll give her something to do while I'm deployed. That and the baby."

"Yes, the baby ..." she murmured.

She wanted to say how hard it is to sit in a hospital waiting room or, worse yet, to wait 728.8 miles away.

She left the table to get something. Paul followed her. What was it she was in the kitchen to get? Napkins? No. A serving spoon.

The African elephant's trunk ends in two opposing lips, whereas the Asian elephant trunk ends in a single lip. The trunk is an important method of touch. Elephants use touch in much the same way humans do. In greeting. To reassure and soothe. She wanted to weep.

Paul touched her cheek, then took the spoon from her.

"It'll be all right," he said. "She'll be fine." He kissed her on the forehead. "You'll be fine."

Elephants exhibit grief behaviors, including a period of despondency, dragging behind the herd for days. Elephants have been reported to surround a grieving family member. 

The End

When my husband read it yesterday, he asked "What's the point?" 

And my editor felt that the elephant facts seemed too random, not relevant to the story.

Hopefully, the point is now more obvious and the elephant facts more relevant.

If you missed yesterday's post, click here.

                                             

There Are Days -- another Essay on Editors

Yep, it was a day just like Alexander had. And I'd been looking forward to it -- nay, anticipating it. It was going to be wonderful. I would win the lottery. I would be the teacher's pet. My editor would congratulate me and tell me I had done it. I had written the most perfect YA short story.

If your mother did not read Judith Viorst's Alexander stories to you when you were little or you did not read them to your children when you were big, I must tell you you must. They are wonderful and true and, without a doubt, they are your stories, too. That morning I did not wake up with chewing gum in my hair. I have only one brother and his name is neither Nick nor Anthony. And he hasn't pushed me down in the mud in many years. But that day I understood Alexander's pain.

My daughter, who is also my editor, has been trying to get me to write something YA for a number of years. For those of you out there who are not writers (bless your hearts) YA stands for Young Adult, probably the most salable genre in fiction today.

Because YA fiction needs to be focused on something and someone young adults can relate to, the most obvious element is a young adult protagonist. The Young Adult Library Services Association defines young adults as being between the ages of twelve and eighteen. Wikipedia states that authors and readers of YA literature more generally accept the age parameters as sixteen to twenty-five. 

This year has been the year for me to expand beyond my comfort zone into nonfiction and now YA fiction. I never thought I'd like nonfiction because it's so limiting. I mean the story has to be, you know, true. And I'm here to tell you I have a long history of embellishing true stories, adding a flourish here or there, maybe a bit of embroidery around the cuff. I mean, with a little imagination you can always make a good story better. But I did it a while back.

On to YA fiction. I've always read what is now called YA fiction -- Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders, Louise Rennison's Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging, etc. But I write in a somewhat understated way. I have to trust my readers to bring their own intensity to my work. I guess I have never trusted young people to have enough life experience to have their own intensity.

Silly me. It's because they don't have enough life experience that they have not lost their intensity. At my age, I know the sun will rise tomorrow. That having survived the dangers of today and yesterday and the day before that that I will be able to meet the challenges of tomorrow. They don't. Every moment is make or break. Every challenge is world-changing either as the greatest victory or the most abject failure. Intensity is what they do best.

Realizing that does not help. How do I write a fitting intensity? Can I do it in my normal low-key style or must I morph into a slam-bang Marvel Comic Book writer?

Then there's the question of topic. High school dating? No. Werewolves and vampires? Impossible! Super powers? Not likely.

Wait a minute. Super powers. Why not?! My character wouldn't have to be faster than a speeding bullet or able to start fires with her mind or foretell the future. I figured out a super power that I could accept as plausible. Well, not really. But close enough. And Grace liked it when I pitched it to her.

Then a situation that a YA reader could relate to. Yep, got that, too. And I could relate to it. Else how could I write it?

And I wrote it. It was great. Intense. Suspenseful. Engaged all the senses. (Not smell, but teens don't seem to have an effective sense of smell anyway. Think about the gallons of scent teen boys slather themselves with. And it doesn't seem to dissuade teen girls from hanging out with them.)

I was so pleased with myself. I emailed it to my editor and waited for her response. Of course she has a life, so she couldn't read it fast enough. I mean she did it when she could which was not fast enough. But she did. Finally. And called.

"It's not YA," she said. 

Nobody loves me.

Then she added, "It's a good story. Well written. Clean. Flows well."

Everybody hates me.

"If you were reading this story, who would you say was the main character?" she asked.

I didn't have to guess. It was the father.

Think I'll go eat worms.

"The daughter should be the main character," she said.

Editors! Who needs 'em?! 

Obviously I do. Not just to check my spelling and punctuation. Not just identifying continuity problems or pointing out the use of the same action verb too many times. Or passive verbs that should be action verbs. Or eliminating expository writing. Or avoiding non sequiturs. Etc., etc., etc.

I needed her to point out the most painfully obvious error. The daughter should be the main character in a YA short story.

Okay.

I don't like worms.

I am a writer. I can do this. Rewrite!