Drew Wagar

I’ve had a great time looking through some of the early crit of my novel. It’s very interesting to see who picks up what.

I knew I’d have loads of corrections and adjustments to make, and that is clearly going to be the case. I’ve got a raft of technical details to sort, scene balancing, continuity checks, dodgy dialogue, missing background and description, not to mention a stack load of grammar and typos to hunt down and nail.

This is clearly going to take a while, and given the day job is pretty demanding, I can’t see it being done before the end of the Spring, possibly even Summer. I think I’m going to have to aim at 2010 (as a whole) being the ‘Year of the Novel’

On the positive side though, folks have been telling me that they really really enjoyed the story. That they got to the end because they wanted to see how the story ended up, rather than by duty because I’d asked them too, is the best bit of encouragement I could have received. It seems I have a ‘page-turner’, so now it’s up to me to polish it up, and remove anything that makes the reader go ‘Huh?’ and mucks up the experience for them.

It’s a big job, but I’m committed (!) to doing it!

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Today I finished my first draft properly. It’s now in a state to be reviewed by people other than myself!

I have uploaded it to a secured area of my website and assembled a group of willing folks to review it for me, courtesy of Facebook.

I have to say this is giving me a feeling of some trepidation. I’ve been working on this book for over four years in elapsed time, though probably about 9 months of actually full-time writing, squeezed around real life!

I like it, but then I would, wouldn’t I?

What will others make of it? Is it any good or will it be dismissed as a torrid mess?

I have asked my reviewers to be brutally honest – which is even more scary! However, I’m pretty used to criticism and I think I’m up for taking it on the chin.

Wish me luck, because this is the first major bump on the hopeful road to publishing!

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A number of people have asked me – “You’ve been banging on about this book for a while, but what’s it actually about?”

Trouble is, if I write a comprehensive plot summary (which I will need to do for publishing purposes, but not for general consumption) and post that up, to my mind it gives the game away. What’s the point in reading a book when you know what the outcome is?

Having said that, I do want to give people enough flavour of the story so that they are interested enough to read it, and, one hopes, to buy a copy.

Perhaps if I explain ‘why’ I’ve written this and some of the major themes I’m exploring that will be sufficient for now.

The seeds of this book started back in the 1970s. I was taken along to my local village church (a classic Anglican Norman affair) for many years. At the age of 6 I was already a confirmed geek, and into science and space in a big way. By the age of 8, I’d figured out that what I was reading in science books and encyclopedias wasn’t jiving very well with what was being read out on Sunday mornings. I distinctly remember saying to the rector, “I’m going to find a way of making both of these make sense.” The reaction, as I recall, was polite amusement.

I found myself in a variety of churches and religious groups as I grew up. Baptist, Anglican, Methodist, Pentecostal, Charismatic. You name it, somewhere I’ve got a a membership card. Add to this Christian unions, at school and university. A huge variety of experiences, some positive, some negative, some plainly baffling, some scary.

My love of science has always been with me too, rankling with faith and belief and occasionally coming to blows. I don’t think it’s being to self-congratulatory to say that I have a half reasonable brain, and I always objected to having to ‘leave it on the shelf’ for the sake of a neat and tidy piece of religious reasoning. Many folks like things to be black and white, but I don’t think anything is; merely ’shades of grey’. I watch with interest, and some incredulity, the machinations of the Creationism and Intelligent Design schools of thought.

Yet, some Christian organisations are very draconian on what they believe, and the inflexibility demonstrated by some did force me into a choice between family and belief in the bible as a whole. I chose family. That was a tough one.

I’ve seen the church at large do hugely worthwhile things. Selfless giving for worthy causes, people who will stay with you in the dark small hours of a crisis, or just offer a simple “Let me help.” Friendship, companionship and life renewing change. I’ve also seen the dark sider: dogma, intimidation, politics, manipulation and gross injustice, bigotry, racism and the like.

With the birth of my own children, and increasing responsibilities at work and home, I was forced to take a good long hard look at what I did believe and didn’t believe. It takes an awful lot of effort and heartache to do this, as people have certain expectations of you, built up over years, and if you are planning a change of direction, it can come as a bit of a shock. Friends who really are friends stand by you, others disown you or betray you. Sad, but true.

So what is the book about? It’s the best and worst of church, religion and faith. The best and worst of science. It’s about wrestling with faith in a complex world. It’s about indoctrination, dogma and manipulation, even outright lies. It’s about family, expectations, mis-communication and betrayal. And it’s about love and hate.

It’s based on some real situations, and though there are no ‘real’ characters in here, recognisable traits from people I’ve met will doubtless be detectable, both laudable and otherwise. The characters in the story are deliberately clashed together to create conflicting situations that demand a painful resolution. At times I’ve felt I’ve had to scale back on the story in order to keep within the bounds of credibility, only to be confronted with a worst excess on an almost daily basis. It’s possible you may read this and think – “That can’t happen!” Let me assure you, it can; it does.

Religion and science may or may not be compatible, so I guess my book is my way of exploring what I think about all of this and the battle we all face in trying to seek real ‘truth’, despite the influences around us. Hopefully that gives you a bit of a clue…

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I’ve just finished the first draft of my book, which, unlike my previous two, is a completely original and independant work, not based on any previous material. This means I may be in a position to publish it at some point.

I’m aiming to do this in order to find out whether or not I stand a chance of one day becoming a full-time writer. (once certain financial commitments are remedied!)

The first draft is a complete story, but it’s yet to be read from end to end. My next job is to re-read it from beginning to end to make sure it actually works. This might sound a bit odd, but I have written it piecemeal, often writing later parts of the story before earlier parts as I’ve felt inspired. I don’t know how many other writers do this, but I suspect it’s quite common. Given this, there is a clearly a danger that the story is a bit disjointed, and the scenes may have some continuity errors. Clearly I need to get rid of these.

Next up the usual grammar and spelling checks. Bound to be plenty of those!

Third is more difficult; revising the text to make sure you haven’t committed any of the various writing ’sins’. Top amongst these is “show don’t tell”. There’s a tendency to ‘info-dump’ about what is going on, rather than letting the reader figure things about by the way the characters react. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but less is more! Then there is situation and descriptional stuff, ensuring the scene is visualisable. In other words, making sure the reader gets enough description of the scene to feel it’s a real place. I know I have a tendency to concentrate only on the dialogue and forget the scene. I need to make sure I add in the background and paint a canvas for the characters to ‘act’ against.

The avoidance of cliche is another one. Ensuring that the characters are not too predictable (unless that’s what you’re deliberately after), making sure their backgrounds are not too obvious, but also not being deliberately obtuse by making them act out of character either. I’ve also got to ensure the plot isn’t too predictable, nor is it unrealistic. This is a work of fiction, but it’s set in the here and now – it’s got to be plausible.

All this will result in a second draft, after which comes the most scary part… getting a team of willing, fair, honest and critical reviews to give me an opinion on it!

Wish me luck, it’s a long road ahead!

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