Are You Finished Yet?

How a first draft

I “finished” the first draft of Those Who Are Gone (the #2 Raquel Laing) a couple of weeks ago, had a conversation with my editor about it after she’d done a quick read—and now the work begins.

This was an unusual one for me to write because, unlike my general approach to a book, which is more or less “Set the characters loose and see where they go,” the complexity of this one’s plot would have rapidly sent them down into a bottomless well. Multiple time frames meant a contemporary case for Inspector Raquel Laing and, because this series will always be built around a cold case, a case from the past as well. BUT, part of the fun of is, the case that starts out as contemporary, eight months later begins to develop links to an even older cold case that no one had intended to be working. PLUS, during those eight months that separate the two stages, Raquel has worked the case that introduced the series, Back to the Garden. In that book, she is largely enigmatic, and you never do learn exactly why she has been injured, or why she is in trouble with the SFPD.

In Those Who Are Gone, you will.

And because all of these cases—now, eight months ago, and in the deeper past—are intertwined in ways that are definitely not obvious at first, and because there are in effect three timelines (or is it four?)—well, you can see why I needed to try and hash out the plot before I started writing.

Not that my original “outline” bears a terribly close resemblance to what now exists as a first draft.

I remember those tests given in high school where there was a drawing of a 3D object and they wanted you to choose what the back of it would look like—a test of spatial visualization for future engineers, perhaps? I would stare at the drawing of the example and the a, b, c, d option drawings, and basically my choice would be little more than guess.

All I can say it, it’s a good thing I became a writer rather than an engineer or architect, because my constructions would have taken some interesting turns.

With writing, a first draft is not a book. Every writer is different, but for me, a first draft is a way of showing me the mechanism of the story: if I put these gears and levers into motion here at the beginning, and add on other gears, levers, and complexities, when I turn the handle, does this Rube Golbergian machinery work smoothly all the way to the end?

However, gears and levers are not a story, they’re the plot mechanics. A first draft.

Fortunately, professional editors have the miraculous ability to read with one eye closed, overlooking all the dangling plot lines and unexplained motivations. I always send mine a cover letter detailing the major changes I see as being needed, but it’s hugely useful to have someone read it at his unfinished stage who can envision what it will look like when (pardon a shift of metaphors here) the bones are fleshed out—and can also see when there’s a problem that I haven’t seen yet.

To my immense pleasure and huge relief (since the final version is due at the end of the year, and I’m going to miss a large chunk of October recovering from spinal surgery) she declared the first draft a great success, with two or three spots that need addressing when it comes to avoiding the dread specter of coincidence and clarifying a key bit of character motivation. Both of which were in my own cover notes, with the possible solutions already in the back of my mind.

So, am I “finished”? Yes—hooray! And definitely: No—far from it! Because now it’s time to dig in to the fun part of writing, where I get to shape a compelling novel out of a bare-bones bit of plot machinery.

I’ll let you know how it’s going.

Excerpt & info about Back to the Garden: https://laurierking.com/books/back-to-the-garden/

Blog posts about Back to the Garden: https://laurierking.com/category/raquel-laing/