Vampy Black: Mysteries, Pay Offs, and Build Up

I am almost done editing the 5,000 word long central chapter of Darthaniel's Vampy Black project, and this one is a key investigation scene that is key to the book. It was a heck of a chapter to edit, and we both love how it came out. We chose to emphasize our heroine's investigative abilities and put the focus on her as a participant and instigator, instead of someone who took in clues and internalized them, and the chapter is gripping and very entertaining.

In the end, the chapter broke up into a 1,200 word leading introduction to the scene that builds tension, and a 4,500 word chapter where the mysteries are laid out. That is still long, but I didn't want to break that up since the entire scene is the focus of the book and important to setting up the book's conflicts. I am still on the last thousand words and wrapping the chapter up, so there is still a bit of work to do later.

I haven't written mysteries in a while, and this rekindled my love of the genre. While we search for clues, there are a couple layers going on here with other characters, so this is not a one-dimensional "find Waldo" type of chapter. It works on a couple levels, and the character interplay is fascinating and intermixed with the investigation - and it also influences a big part of what happens. We have a struggle between two characters that is fascinating to watch, and I love how the two of these people play off each other with their conflicts and shared concerns.

Layers are fun to write. Letting readers see a character's incredible skills putting pieces together is also one of my loves. The readers of course should have every opportunity to put things together themselves, so there is a lot of setup required to do this correctly. You need to lay our pieces and mix them with the scene. You need to present information before it is needed. You need to write it all as naturally as possible without tipping people off, or hitting them with blindsided clues they knew nothing about.

You can't rob readers of the satisfaction of letting them figure it out before the character does, that is a big part of the fun of the mystery genre. If you blindside them with a clue nobody knew anything about, it takes the game away from the reader.

So good mysteries and clue collecting takes time. Clue collecting is also inherently boring to the reader unless you have some tension involved, and in this case we have a deep-seated tension running between our main characters. Things could go terribly wrong here with tragic consequences on both sides. There has to be something else going on, a ticking clock, a moral dilemma, or some sort of conflict.

The chapter of course looks nothing like what it was when we started, and I love it when a chapter gets turned on its head and the whole thing comes out better. I also love writers like Darthaniel who have the stomach and insight to help transform a chapter like this, and who also have great ideas to contribute when the reshuffling and rewriting is still going on. He is incredible with taking and giving feedback, and someone I love working with.

In away some of this is 'extreme editing' with the amount of reworking and improvement going on. This is one of those I will talk about long from now, a complete rebuild of a chapter into one I consider an incredible piece of work between an editoress and a engaged writer focused on improving the end product. I just love this sort of work, and I hope readers have that gut reaction to it that I love making happen.

More on this project soon, and work continues.