Self-Evaluation

By this point I've published enough books that I can take a look back and evaluate their quality. The picture isn't pretty.

I think I unintentionally came to believe that writing novellas was easy, but that's comparative. Writing a novel was unbelievably hard. I struggled more than any self-respecting writer should have to struggle. My goal was to get trade published, so a novel-length book was required. (Nobody publishes novellas, except for a small press here and there.) Granted, I was a novice, so perfection could hardly be expected, but striving to reach the expected word count also impacted my love of writing. After querying all three of my novels, I almost quit writing completely. It was only by accident that I stumbled upon novellas. I began a story and honestly had no way to "elongate" it, so I just continued writing to the story's natural conclusion. I knew it was short and I actually had to research what category my story landed in. That's how I discovered I'd written a novella. The story was cute, compact, no meandering subplots. I liked it, so I published it. 

Without a doubt, the format worked for me. I found it (comparatively) easy, which may have led to complacency. I was so focused on writing the story "all the way to the end", I neglected craft. I may be being too hard on myself; if I was to reread those books today, I might surprise myself. And truthfully, it's difficult to remember most of them. 

So, how (at least in my memory) did these books fare? And where where their downfalls?

Once in a Blue Moon was my first stab at writing a novel. My ignorance was astounding. I knew nothing about craft. I had a vague idea about the main character assuming the personas of her mother and grandmother through some kind of "magic". The book actually ended up with three main characters. I honestly did a great job writing the grandmother character, but the youngest of the three was rather boring, and unfortunately the story began with her. For a first effort it's not terrible. When I later reformatted the novel (KindleCreate didn't exist at the time I published) I fretted over the lackluster beginning, but it would have taken a gigantic effort to revise it and the cost-reward benefit just wasn't there.

Radio Crazy was my second novel, now condensed into a novella titled, Whispers in the Dark. Logically, a first novel should be bad and the second one better. That logic was reversed in my case. I began Radio Crazy with even less of a premise than Once in a Blue Moon. The main character was an overnight disc jockey. That was it. So, one can say that the plot developed over time. It turned out eventually that the MC had a stalker. The good part was, the identity of the stalker was a surprise. The bad part(s)? Oh, let me count the ways. Heavy, heavy, backstory. Subplots that added zero to the novel, one involving MC's shy boss and another featuring an old woman that MC took into her home. Just nuts. And a vomit of words that existed just to exist. It wasn't necessarily the number of supporting characters that ruined the story; it was the space I devoted to them. Looking back, I attribute these mistakes to my drive to reach a word count goal. There wasn't enough meat to create a full-length novel; at least I didn't know how to cook that meat at the time. Is Whispers in the Dark better? Well, the boss now takes up a couple of sentences. The old woman is still there, but she doesn't move in. I honestly don't know if the whole thing is better or not, but at least my shame has dissipated a bit.

One more novel before I abandoned the format: The Apple. The Apple was better than the first two. Its title is derived from the old saying, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The main character's father is a career criminal, and while MC has a respectable, important job, she does a bit of internet fraud on the side, which makes her a ton of money. I like the premise. Overall, The Apple is semi-good. It's readable. But after querying it and failing, I was done. Done with novels; convinced I was done writing all together. 

Eventually, I tried again, but by now I understood my shortcomings. None of my new ideas could be developed into a full novel; they were just too bare. When I began New Kaitlyn I assumed I'd somehow turn it into a novel, but it just happened that the story was suddenly over and I had nothing more to add to it. Its premise? A woman moves to a small town to open a new branch of her company. Um, that was it. But it turned into a sweet little story about meeting new friends who lived different lives than what she was used to; new small-town experiences (like a barn dance), falling for a guy who was already engaged to one of the girls who worked for her, saving her branch that the company announced it would close. Very compact, but personality-heavy. I still like it.

Find My Way Home came next. I'd seen something on TV about the 1969 moon landing and thought about how and where I was at that age, and I decided I could make a story out of a fictional teenager's life centered around that event. Again, good premise; bad execution. Perhaps it's better than I remember it; perhaps not. The MC's life progressed from 1969 to the mid-eighties, and the question that lingered in her mind all those years was why her family had never looked for her after she ran away at fifteen. The supporting characters (at least some of them) were interesting ~ I'm always good with characterization ~ but it was another of those stories that sort of fizzled out.

If you've been following along, you know that Second Chance is in the process of being revised. If I can't pull it off, it will remain unpublished. I hadn't written anything related to music before, so I made my MC the singer in a failing local band. After a series of embarrassing gigs, she's finally had enough and heads off down the road. This is another story that fizzled out and I ended up filling the last third with inconsequential events. Great start; horrible ending.

Shadow Song turned out great. It's probably my sentimental favorite. It developed out of nothing. The main character's company was bought out by a big corporation and she had no good job options, so she took a summer job at a nearby lake resort. That morphed into a misunderstanding of the job she'd applied for and she found herself in charge of the amusement park rides, supervising a group of teenagers. Why she found her boss's dead body in the woods, I don't know. It just happened. The story fell into place. I don't know if I'll ever have that experience again.

Then came Bad Blood. The idea came to me when I thought about the brother of someone I know. The guy is a born sociopath, but a charming one. He doesn't hesitate to con even his closest relatives, all with a smile and an improbable story. As it turns out, the MC's brother decides to burn down the house she's inherited from her mother. Worse, he assumes the MC is inside it. The book has at least one great scene; I can't vouch for the rest of it. I have very little recall of Bad Blood at all. If I was to read it today, it would be brand new.

The Diner Girl is a horrible title, but I was lost trying to invent one. The story itself is pretty good ~ good supporting characters ~ not a heck of a lot of drama, but a somewhat engrossing slice of small-town life. I don't hate it. I think it'll keep people reading to find out how it ends.

I've gotten the most reviews for Lies and Love, but that's simply because I did a bit of promoting. This story came faster to me than any other. MC is a girl who's escaped her small town and the souvenir shop her family owns, but is drawn back because of her dad's alcohol problems. I have no complaints with the story. It's "good". One may quibble (and one reviewer did) that the ending is rushed, but I'm not of a mind to revise it. It stays the way it is.

I liked how I was able to flesh out Inn Dreams. It was a real struggle. Don't get me wrong; I like it, but the swarm of ARC readers I've obtained has soured the whole experience for me. This story began simply as a woman inheriting a sum of money and searching out a motel to buy. It morphed into intrigue and a faceless saboteur. Does effort count? It does to me. I tried really hard with this one and I mostly succeeded. 

If I was to rate my books, the list would probably be:

1. Shadow Song
2. Lies and Love
3. New Kaitlyn
4. The Diner Girl
5. Inn Dreams
6. Bad Blood
7. The Apple
8. Once in a Blue Moon
9. Find My Way Home
   
10. Whispers in the Dark

Who knows where Second Chance will end up? Not me. 

I was hoping this exercise would teach me something. I did learn that my initial ideas aren't all that bad. I suppose I learned that I have to exercise more patience and not rush my stories. I learned that I can't allow myself to settle. I guess I did learn something.

And now that I'm done procrastinating, it's time to get writing.