My Eight Step Revision Process

This week I completed the first draft of my new novel (working title To Hemlock Run), the culmination of a bout nine months of daily effort. (Thank you, thank you). It currently stands at about 113,500 words and is basically a good effort, but still has some problems. I would imagine nearly all first drafts do. That’s why they’re called “first” drafts. They are nowhere close to being a finished novel.

Many more drafts will come before the novel is ready for publication.

So, several people (none of whom are writers) have asked when they will be able to read it. I tell them not for a while. The first draft is an important step in writing a novel, but only one step in the writing process. An important one, no doubt, because without it none of the other phases will be possible, but still just one step.

I thought I would devote this week’s post to all the steps I go through in the process of writing a novel. (I imagine the process would be similar were I to be writing a nonfiction book, or collection of stories or poetry).

Step one is to write the first or rough draft.

This is complete. Naturally, I try to write as accomplished a manuscript as I can, but I will not let an oversight stop my progress in the draft either. Some things I realize I mishandled on the first attempt, others I have decided looking back in hindsight, and I assume I will find a few issues I haven’t thought of yet. It is part of the process.

But the draft is finished, so I move on to step two.

Take a break.

I put the manuscript away, close the file and—regardless of how much I’m tempted—refuse to let myself look at it for at least a week. Two weeks is better, but I maintain a minimum of a week’s break between drafts.

Why? Because the creative mind needs a break to replenish the well. Just like anything else, constant stress will gradually result in lower and lower productivity. It’s why people like to take weekends off from their day job, and even a couple of weeks’ vacation. It’s a time to replenish the well. And for someone like myself, who tends to work every day when I’m in the middle of a project, it is important to take that break.

Taking as much time off also helps me return to the draft with a fresh eye. Often the biggest problem we authors face when we go to revise a work is that we see what we’re trying to say, not what we actually said. Staying away from the draft for as long as possible, helps keep your judgment objective.

Step Three: Revising the big things.

This is the step where I got through the work and attempt to fix the larger, structural problems. I look for plot holes, subplots that seem to go nowhere, and incomplete characterizations. In this stage, I also pay much greater attention to the structural markers, such as the three pinch points—plot point one, the mid-point, and plot point two—and make any adjustments necessary. I may add new scenes, or delete scenes, depending on what the story needs.

When I finish with revision the big things, I move to:

Another Break.

I close the file and keep it closed for another week or two, for exactly the same reason I did the first time, to recharge the well.

Step Four: Revising the little things (and any big ones left).

This time, as I go through the manuscript I’m looking for internal consistency, what I call the little things.

If I described a house as made of red brick in chapter one, then of yellow vinyl siding in chapter seventeen, I’ve got a problem. This goes for descriptions of scenery, locations and characters. The goal is logic and consistency. Sometimes, in the heat of writing something I simply forget what I said before and have to correct it. I might have the characters blocking the sun from their eyes as they talk in a certain location one morning, then, several hundred pages later, the plot calls for them to be in the same location at the same time, but in shade. Either the plot needs to change, or the description.

Another break.

For the same reasons and for the same amount of time.

Step Five: Characterizations.

In this run through the manuscript, I concentrate on making sure the characterizations are exactly as I want them to be. (Actually, they will never be exactly what I want, but I need to get as close as my abilities will allow). In To Hemlock Run, for instance, I already know that I’m unhappy with one major character’s depiction. I think she should be more badly effected by some of the events, perhaps even losing her temper a time or two. My gut tells me that, as it’s written now, it doesn’t ring true. She’s too even keeled.

Of course, I will fix any other large and small things I might find, but these will not be my primary focus.

When I’m finished with this step:

Yet another break.

Step Six: Re-writing.

In this step, all the basics of the plot, structure and characterization should be about as fixed as I’m going to get them, so now I concentrate on the actual words and sentences, the prose. I try to create the most beautiful, poetic, prose I can. I create and use similes and metaphors whenever possible. I do my best.

In this step I also try to correct any spelling and grammar issues my prose may have. (Which is usually a thing, because grammar is not my strongest suit, particularly some of the more obscure rules).

Then, again:

Break.

Step Seven: editing.

Step seven is where I turn to outside help. I have several beta readers, whose opinions I trust. Each of them gets to read the manuscript and offer any thoughts or suggestions they may have. When those are incorporated or not (just because someone doesn’t care for a certain part or aspect of the story doesn’t necessarily mean I will change it. It just means I will consider changing it). I will then send the manuscript off to a professional editor.

Break.

There is a break here, but primarily because I’m waiting for people to read it and get back to me. Until they do, there’s nothing I can do.

Step Eight: consolidating.

This is the final step. I take all the suggestions from my beta readers and my editor and go through the manuscript and decide individually whether each instance needs to be changed and, if so, how to change it. Sometimes there is a lot that needs to be redone. Sometimes there isn’t. (My goal is always to send her a manuscript with nothing for her to do. She says it’s impossible.)

Once these decisions have been made and the necessary changes made, the manuscript is as good as I can make it, at this time with my current skill set. It is ready to be shown to the public.

Simple math will show that this process takes about a minimum of six months, depending on how long each step takes. But that is just a guideline. Each step takes as long as it takes, as do the breaks.

So when will you be able to read To Hemlock Run? My guess would be at least six months from now. Until then, it isn’t worth reading.

Writer’s Toolkit: Beta Readers

If you listen to writers talk, or read the acknowledgments pages of their books, you have probably come across the term “beta readers.” I have mentioned them (my own) a time or two on this blog. So, like any use of jargon, some of you inevitably will find yourself wondering just what is a “beta reader” and how does one get one?

First though, a definition. A beta reader is the writer’s test audience. The name is borrowed from the software and game development industry, where beta testers have long been used to try out developing software and games before they are released to the public. Their job is to find overlooked flaws and judge intangibles such as playability and ease-of-use, things the original designers might have missed. Though the designers test and re-test their programs, experience has taught them that sometimes they are too close to a project to judge it impartially. Thus the beta testers. They have objective eyes.

Beta readers perform much the same function in the writing world. We, the authors, write and revise our work until we’ve refined it about as much as we can on our own.

The key phrase here is on our own.

Beyond a certain point (and that point is as impossible to pin down as the definition of art) it is impossible for an author to perfect her own work. We all need an objective set of eyes to see the project’s flaws and point them out (gently) for us.

But, I hear some of you protesting that you already have an editor. That’s her job.

To which I say true, but…the problem is that editors—the good ones anyway and why would we hire bad editors?—are expensive. Most of them charge by the hour and their time is valuable. My goal through four novels has always been to submit a manuscript to my editor with nothing there for her to do. It’s a point of professional pride and it’s way cheaper.

That’s where the efforts of a beta reader are valuable. They work basically for free (though it’s good form to thank them on the acknowledgements page and give them a free, autographed copy of the published work). With some good beta readers, you can eliminate many of the mistakes that make an editor earn his money.

A good set of beta readers also provides you with second (and third, fourth, etc.) opinions on virtually every aspect of the manuscript. In my most recent novel, Deception Island, (shameless self-promotion) I had one beta reader who really did not like the protagonist’s girlfriend and his reactions to her. However, no other reader mentioned a thing about her, so I decided it was just a personality conflict and left it in.

On the other hand, every single reader did not like the way I originally opened the story. I took that as a sign and completely re-worked the first two chapters.

Beta readers give you a chance to see how the audience reacts to what you’re trying to do. For that reason, it’s best to have readers with varying tastes and interests. As much as possible, you’d like your beta readers to be as diverse as your readership will be.

It’s also greatly to your advantage if your beta readers have varying skill sets. One might be a fan of the genre you write in so they’re familiar with the genre’s conventions (and they all have conventions). Another could be familiar with the story’s location. A third, a grammar and usage expert. A fourth, a poet. Each will evaluate your work as a whole, but their particular skills will naturally focus on a different aspect.

So, now that we’ve gone over some of the reasons for using beta readers the question naturally rises: how does one find beta readers? The simple answer is that you ask them to do it. They can be friends, or family, colleagues at work, or members of your critique group (those are the best). There are only two real requirements I look for: they need to be almost as voracious a reader as I am. Someone who does not read fiction, or does not read at all is not qualified to make any judgments about my story. Sorry, but they don’t have the experience. Second, they will have to be confident and secure enough to be completely honest about the work.

If a scene in my new novel sucks, I want someone to tell me. Don’t be afraid of hurting my feelings. Sure, I’ll be disappointed, but I’ll get over it. If something doesn’t work, I want to know about it so I can fix the problem. My feelings will be hurt much more if a scene that doesn’t work ends up in the published work because no one was willing to tell me it was bad.

Beta readers are as important a tool as any a writer can have. We all know what they can do for us now and how to try and recruit them. All you have to do now is go out and get them.

One other thing to remember though is the benefits of being a beta reader yourself. We can learn just as much by critiquing the work of others as we can by having others critique our work. Besides, it is good to help someone else, even as others help us.

It’s good karma.

Writer’s Toolkit: the Placeholder

Often in the writing life, we’ll be cruising along in our story until we come to a place where the dialogue (or description or whatever) just doesn’t ring true at first draft. Suddenly the entire flow of your story comes to a halt and you’re faced with a dilemma: fix the flawed dialogue, but lose all the momentum of your story; or leave the flawed portion and continue with the story, hoping you’ll be able to fix it in re-write, (providing you can remember what, where, and how you originally wanted it).

How many fantastic ideas have been lost over the years because of this? I know I have lost many, mostly because I have a horrible time coming up with names. It doesn’t matter what kind of name I need: a character, a town, a business, even a rock band once. All have caused my creative flow to screech to a halt.

It was a problem.

The solution to this dilemma is so simple I find it amazing I hadn’t thought of it earlier. Just insert a placeholder into the spot in question and move on. A placeholder is something (a symbol of some sort, easy to remember later or to find in a search) marking the place for further attention, along with a brief sketch of what you want in the final product.

I first used placeholders (consciously) in my most recent novel for character names. As I’ve said before, I have an awful time coming up with good names and the story will often languish for days while I try to decide what to call my main character’s best friend. This time, I smartened up. I just typed XX or AA where the name should be and moved on.

It was a wonderfully liberating development. Now I could just move on as fast as the story would come to me without worrying about it. After all, this was just a first draft and the most important goal here was to get the basic story down on paper. The time for anguishing over a character name is during re-write, not while you’re constructing a first draft.

However, the placeholder is not just a tool for managing our character names. It can be used wherever an imperfect part of the story threatens the story as a whole. Dialogue, description, even plot problems can be marked for further work and then left for later while you continue with the momentum of your first draft intact.

I also used placeholders (unconsciously it turns out) in the dialogue of the new novel. One of my beta readers pointed this out after reading an early draft. Her exact words were “everybody sure is nodding a lot.” Really? I hadn’t noticed. As it turns out, I had someone nodding six hundred thirty-five times in one hundred thousand words, about one nod every hundred and fifty words.

A tad excessive.

So I examined the usage more closely and discovered I wasn’t so much saying that the characters were actually nodding as that they weren’t responding immediately to whatever the other character had said. It was about the rhythm and pace of the conversation. The word “nod,” as I was using it, was place holding for some other form of activity. During the next re-write I fixed that, replacing “nodded” with what I really wanted to show them doing.

In both cases, I used an easily-found symbol (XX, “nodded”) to mark a passage for more detailed work in revision. In ongoing projects, I am continuing to do something similar. I am still using the XX to mark character names I don’t know yet. The “nodding” thing I’m not sure of yet, but that is always a possibility.

In my opinion, the momentum of a story is too important to jeopardize over some detail you can always fill in later. Face it, we’re going to re-write the whole thing anyway. So use a placeholder and keep the flow going.

Pulling the Trigger

So this week I faced a dilemma I think every writer faces at some point in the career. I call it “pulling the trigger.” As in do I “pull the trigger” or not?

What am I talking about?

Tuesday, I sent my new novel off to the publisher, but it sounds much easier than it actually was. Because that moment, that pull of the trigger, was preceded by days of agonizing indecision. Is it good enough? Is it as good as I can get it? Would it benefit from one more re-write/revision? Probably. Would the result be noticeably better than what I have now? (I am now working with the seventh complete version of the novel.)

That is debatable.

I was talking with a friend the other day and wondered aloud whether other people go through this and she assured me almost everyone did, especially those in the arts.

A musician practices and practices before setting foot on stage to perform a new song. At what point does she decide she’s practiced enough? When she can perform the piece perfectly? When she can perform it perfectly twice in a row? Five times? Ten?

The same goes for a stage production. When have you rehearsed enough?

For visual artists, from sculptors to painters to film directors, the question is different, but similar. Is it good enough? Is it ready? Can I make it better?

Do I pull the trigger?

Every writer who cares about what they’re doing probably goes through something like this with an article, poem, or story before they send out. Is it ready?

The truth of the matter is that there are no good answers to these questions. Is your poem ready? Who knows? Could it be improved by re-working it? Quite probably, since nothing we do (at least nothing I’ve attempted) is perfect.

Perhaps we’re asking ourselves the wrong question. Maybe we shouldn’t be asking whether we could improve the work given more time, but whether we can improve it enough to justify the time and effort.

We could easily spend the rest of our short lives revising our work in a fruitless quest for perfection. After all, we can never truly achieve perfection in our art. Heck, our definition of perfect can change from day to day.

Instead, we need to stand back with an objective eye and determine whether this work is, today, as good as you can make it at this point in our career. If the answer to that question is yes, then leave it alone, send it out and see what happens.

At some point, you just need to pull the trigger.

The First Two Pages

Most editors, publishers, and agents have a dirty little secret every writer should know. (They don’t always read your entire submission.) They do if it’s good, of course. They probably do when it’s borderline good, but that is questionable. I have it on good authority (a highly placed source) that most editors make their preliminary decision on whether to accept a piece or not before they finish the second page.

In other words, if you don’t impress them within the first two pages, you’ve probably missed your chance. It doesn’t matter how brilliant your climax and resolution are if the person reading it doesn’t ever get that far.

Okay. So how do we do that? How do we keep our works from ending up in the reject pile?

By making the first two pages so good they compel the reader to continue.

First, we need to make our opening line exemplary. It has to be better than good. It has to be the bait that draws the reader in and then sets the hook without missing. Ever. It needs to be as close to perfect as possible. It needs to be as perfect as we can make it.

The first line can set the piece’s mood, introduce the main character, the setting, the conflict and the author’s major and minor themes. But it must do all this heavy lifting with the grace and beauty we strive for in our prose. The only way we can accomplish this is through the age-old method of re-writing and revision.

It is said (by Diogenes Laertius, actually) that the Greek philosopher Plato re-wrote the opening sentence of his masterpiece The Republic some twenty times. That was just the opening line. Nobody, from the most amateur among us to the most accomplished professional or lauded author of classical literature, creates art the first time she puts pen on paper. The true mark of the professional is the willingness to do that heartrending work of re-writing and trying to create the perfect first line. Thus Paul Gallico’s famous quotation on writing: “…sit at the typewriter, open your veins and bleed.”

If it was easy, everyone would do it.

The second measure we need to take to make our first two pages as good as possible, is to make sure we begin our action in what the literary critics call in media res (Latin for “in the middle of things.”) The days of a gradual build up to the action are long gone (Dickens hasn’t had a new story published in years). These days, readers (and the editors who cater to them) want everything to start NOW. If yours is a murder mystery tale, the murder needs to take place immediately, not fifty pages into the novel.

Now that isn’t saying we now can, or should, ignore the classic pyramid structure of fiction, or discard the idea of a beginning, middle, and end to a story. They are “classic” because the ideas are valid and effective; we can’t afford to ignore them.

What we can do is use the classic ideas more creatively. Perhaps we can use the beginning, middle and end in a different way, such as Edgar Allan Poe did in the beginning of “The Cask of Amontillado.”

“The thousand injuries of Fortunado I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.”

Edgar Allan Poe was a master and what he did in this story was condense the first two parts of the story into the opening. By paragraph four, we are into the climax of the story and the rest is how the climax is achieved. There is nothing in the rule that says we need to have a beginning, middle, and end, that says they all need to be the same size or of any particular size relative to each other. The beginning could be one sentence, or most of the story. The ending could be the majority of the tale as in Poe’s work, or it could be one final word.

There is also nothing to say that the parts need to be in any particular order. The beginning does not have to precede the middle, which does not have to precede the end. We can be creative. We can begin with the middle and fill in the beginning with flashbacks.

Whatever we decide to do, we must remember that the goal is to create a work in which the first two pages are so dramatic, so compelling, the reader has no choice but to continue with the rest of the story. This is important in a general way (we all want our readers to read our work, after all) but it is crucial when presented to an editor or agent.

The editor is presented with many more works than they have room to publish. We must give them absolutely no reason to set our work aside. That means creating the best first line and most interesting first pages they have ever seen.

The Difference Between Revision and Editing

For many people, saying that they are revising their work means anything and everything they do to bring their writing from the rawness of a first draft to the polished efficiency of the finished product. For years, I thought the same thing. I took a first draft of a story or novel and went through it and through it, reading it over and over, correcting this and changing that until I finally had a piece that, if not perfect, was at least as good as I could make it. What’s wrong with that, you ask? It’s how many writers perfect their work.

Well, there’s nothing exactly wrong with it. Like I said, I’ve spent most of my writing life working that way. The primary drawback to that method is that it isn’t terribly efficient. And the problem with inefficiency is that much time gets wasted because you end up doing work you didn’t need to do at all, or you end up doing the same thing twice while completely missing something else that needed your attention.

Part of being a professional writer (whether we get paid or not is immaterial. In my mind, professionalism is an attitude.) is the ability to work as hard and efficiently as possible. This includes revising our work.

So how do we streamline the act of revision? How do we increase the efficiency of our work as we struggle to turn rough drafts into final, polished products?

By realizing that revision and editing are not the same thing. They describe two very different processes that address different potential problems with our written work. By concentrating on each in its turn, we can quickly and efficiently correct the flaws that may exist in our rough drafts without the risk of wasting time or missing anything crucial.

The difference between revision and editing.

REVISION.

The revision process is about making “big picture” changes; macro, if you will. You may need to remove whole sections, completely re-write others, still others may need to be moved from one part of the narrative to another. It is this type of “big” changes that revision is designed to take care of.

A simple approach to revision is the A3R system. (Adding, Rearranging, Removing, Replacing).

Adding.

What else does the reader need to know? If you haven’t met the required word count, what can you expand on?

Rearranging.

Sometimes, scene x you wrote toward the end of the story would actually work better in the middle where the action drags. Or vice versa.

Removing.

Possibly you’ve gone over the requested word count, or maybe the anecdote about your character’s Uncle really doesn’t add anything to the story. Sometimes you need to bite the bullet and just delete it.

Replacing.

Sometimes, your original idea for a particular scene isn’t as strong as you’d like. Sometimes, it just doesn’t work. Maybe the ending disappointed your test readers. In all of these cases you just have to come up with something else. It happens.

EDITING.

Editing is the “small picture” to revision’s “big,” the “micro” to revision’s “macro.” Editing is the process of making sure you have the perfect words and sentences for your purpose. It should only be done after the “big” changes of revision are finished. There is no point (and it is incredibly inefficient) to agonizing over the choice of verb in a particular sentence if you’re going to end up cutting the entire scene from the work.

Editing involves going through the piece line by line and making sure each sentence, each phrase and word is as strong as possible.

Here are some things you might check for as you go through your piece:

Have you used the same word, phrase, or description too many times?

In the novel I’m currently working on, I found the verb “nodded” some 350 times in just over 200 pages. (Thank you “find and replace.”) In another place, I used “body” four times in one paragraph. In both cases, it meant being creative and finding a different way of saying what I meant.

Are any of your sentences hard to understand? Awkward?

Reading the work aloud is the easiest way to find these. If they sound awkward or senseless, they probably don’t read well either. Read what you wrote, not what you meant to say.

Which words could you cut to make a sentence stronger?

Just, quite, very, really, and generally, are often meaningless and merely filling space. See if the sentence is stronger without them. The same goes for all adverbs and adjectives.

Are your sentences grammatically correct?

Is everything spelled correctly?

Have you used punctuation marks correctly?

Have you avoided the passive voice?

These are just some suggestions. There are always more.

I think that this system will help streamline the revision process for everyone and help you create clean, polished works faster and with more efficiency than ever before.

Revision: Before and After

Recently I posted about having to re-work my current novel because I’d previously overlooked the rule, Chekhov’s Gun. Well, I’ve finished now and thought I’d share some of the results with you. Below, you will find the final scene of Chapter 4 as it stood before the revision, followed by the same scene post-revision.

Tell me what you think.

BEFORE

His dad’s house, the house where Jason and his brother had grown up, was a ’30s era Victorian farmhouse in a neighborhood of similar houses on the lower slopes of Beacon Hill at the west end of town. Back in the boom days the homes had been built by the prospering ship’s officers, cannery managers, and merchants who called Port Salish home. By the time Jason was born the boom in Port Salish was long over, the neighborhood was no longer upscale, and many of the houses were beginning to lose their battle with time and the elements. But they’d still been captivating, especially to a young boy with imagination.

Now, as Jason steered his car sedately down Salmon Berry Lane, he noticed that Port Salish’s reincarnation as a retirement and tourist community had been good to the neighborhood. Many of the stately old houses had been restored to their former glory and he counted two that appeared to be in the middle of major work. The shrill of power saws filled the air.

He didn’t see any sign of children around any of the houses he passed. They’d still be in school, of course, but their bikes, balls and other toys shouldn’t be.

Even the house on the south side of his dad’s had a dumpster parked in the drive.

Jason pulled into the drive that sloped up the left side of his father’s house, beside the dumpster
in the neighbor’s. None of the houses in this neighborhood had been built with garages. In the thirties, few people in rural Washington owned cars, so why build a garage? Later, when cars and trucks became more popular, some had converted old carriage houses at the back of the properties into garages. Others had built simpler carports as shelter from the rain.

He parked behind his dad’s Ford pickup, removed his briefcase and laptop from the car and climbed the half dozen steps to the front porch. Jason still half expected the front door to open and his dad emerge to greet him. To welcome him home. He didn’t, of course. No one did. No one was there.

Jason took a deep breath and tried the front door. It was locked. His dad never locked the house. When Jason pointed this out on one visit his dad had shrugged. “Port Salish is a small town,” he’d said. “On an island with limited ferry service. Where would they sell the stuff without getting caught? No burglar worth his salt is going to bother with us.”

Now it was locked.

Fortunately, Jason had a key. He unlocked the door and stepped into the living room. It was exactly as he remembered it. His father hadn’t changed the decor since the day his mother died. He’d never seen a need to.

Jason set his briefcase and laptop on a nearby armchair and just stood there for a moment taking in the atmosphere. The place simply oozed his father. There were hints of his mother, of course. Everything from the art on the walls to the patterns on the furniture were his mother’s choice, but her choice of over twenty years ago. It didn’t so much show a woman’s touch as the memory of one. It was now all his dad’s.

It looked like his dad had just stepped out for a beer or to grab something from the market. In the kitchen, breakfast dishes still soaked in the sink; the coffee maker held half a pot of cold coffee. He always took a thermos of coffee on the boat with him. It could get cold out on the Sound. A fishing magazine lay on the dining room table folded open like he’d intended to finish the article later.

Jason found his dad’s answering machine. To his surprise, there were no messages waiting. There should have been a few, he thought. Word, particularly word of a tragedy like this, traveled fast in a small town, but it wasn’t perfect. Somebody would have called, not knowing he was dead. Somebody would have called trying to reach Jason. A telemarketer would have called. Somebody would have called. But no one had.

What did that mean?

He left the kitchen, glanced in the downstairs bathroom, saw nothing of interest, then moved into the den at the back of the house. Or what used to be the den. His father had pretty much turned it into his office years ago. But it had always been “the den” when Jason had been growing up; he just couldn’t bring himself to call it anything else.

His dad had updated the television to a fifty inch flat screen, but the room was dominated now by a desk, a PC, printer/fax combo and a two drawer steel file cabinet. It was his office, study, and living room. And again, it looked like he’d just stepped out for a few minutes. An empty beer bottle and a partial can of peanuts sat next to the keyboard. So did the remote for the TV. The air was colored with the nutty memory of old cigar smoke.

Jason sat down at the desk and turned on the computer. While it booted up, he began looking through the desk drawers. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for. Something labeled in bright neon “Clue”? He didn’t know. At some point later on he’d need to sit down and go through all his dad’s files, business and personal, but right now he was just glancing around, orienting himself.

And looking for clues.

He found his father’s checkbook and scanned the register, but nothing looked out of the ordinary. Most everything else in the desk drawers were office supplies, copies of the fish and game regulations, and odd correspondence. Nothing of interest.

He turned his attention to the computer. Again, he found nothing that struck him as unusual. He saw all the usual programs, Microsoft Office, Outlook Express, Internet Explorer, Photoshop. Nothing attracted his attention. He briefly opened his dad’s accounting program, but found nothing interesting there, either by its presence or by its absence. He then tried Internet Explorer. It successfully opened to his dad’s homepage, Yahoo News, so he had internet access. He open the browser’s history record, but found it empty. Either his dad had set his browser to erase the history after each session, or someone had scrubbed it.

He sighed and leaned back in the chair. Something was wrong, he was sure of it. Deep in his gut he knew he was missing something significant, something right in front of him. He just didn’t know what it was. Try as he might, he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. It was like he’d blanked out the name of some familiar movie star.

The answer was to walk away. Quit thinking about it.

He’d no sooner stood up than his cell phone rang. He glanced at the display. It was a local number. The only person in town who knew his cell number was Sgt. Hayden.

He answered it.

“Mr. Reynolds?”

“Call me Jason,” he told her.

She paused. “The Medical Examiner is releasing your father’s remains today. They’ll be arriving on the afternoon ferry. I took the liberty of calling Schroeder and Sons, the local funeral home. They’ll pick up the body at the ferry.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem, but you’ll still need to call and set up a meeting to arrange the funeral and burial and everything.”

“Of course.”

“Got a pen and paper?”

He was a reporter. He always had a pen. He pulled a pad of notepaper closer to him on the desk top and told her he was ready. She gave him the name of Lindsey Schroeder and a local number and he scribbled it in an unused corner of the page, just below a scribbled note reading “strawberry fields.”

Odd. He didn’t think his dad had voluntarily listened to a Beatles song his entire life.

“Mr. Reynolds? Jason?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m here.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” he said. “Sorry, something distracted me.”

“Anything I should know about?”

He smiled. “Are you a Beatles fan?”

“Excuse me?”

Something else occurred to him. “I do have a question for you.”

“What’s that?”

“Did your Department bring my dad’s truck back to the house?”

She hesitated, just for a moment. “As far as I know, it’s exactly how we found it. Why?”

“I was just wondering how he got down to his boat. Someone give him a ride?”

“Maybe. Or he might have walked. It’s a small town. You’re, what, maybe six blocks from the marina?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “You’re probably right. Sometimes I forget how much safer it is here than in Seattle.”

But he was thinking that it had been raining then. Raining pretty hard.

“Speaking of your father’s boat, the Department will release it to you tomorrow morning. Do you know where the Sheriff’s dock is at the port?”

He told her he thought he could find it.

“A deputy will be there between 8:00 and 9:00. You’ll just need to bring some ID and sign a couple of release forms.”

He told her he would be there.

“That’s all I’ve got. Is there anything else you need?” Sgt. Hayden asked.

“No. No, I think that’s it. And thanks.”

“Happy to help,” she told him.

They disconnected.

True to his word, he immediately called the funeral home and set up an appointment with Mr. Schroeder for 3:00, two hours from now. The woman he’d talked to said Mr. Schroeder would explain all the options then. She’d had an extremely soothing telephone voice. Jason briefly wondered whether they’d trained for that soothing tone at mortuary school, or did it come naturally?

He closed his phone and headed upstairs to take a look at the bedrooms. The stairs were right outside the den at the back of the house, next to the back door. They ended at a small landing on the second floor. To get to the attic, you had to pull down a panel in the hallway ceiling to reveal a narrow set of wooden stairs. But he wasn’t going to the attic right now. At the head of the stairs was a short hallway floored with scuffed oak. To the left was his old bedroom, then the bathroom. To the right, on the south side of the house, was Jeremy’s old room, now the official guest room. Directly ahead, and occupying the entire front of the second floor was the master bedroom. His parents’ room. His dad’s room.

The hall was as dark and gloomy as if it were night. The only window was behind him above the stairs and the weak eastern light only penetrated so far. On a cloudy day like today, it didn’t even bother fighting the shadows. His mother had hated the gloom and insisted their bedroom doors remain at least partially open, to let some light in.

His dad hadn’t felt the same way. All the doors were closed.

Jason walked past the two smaller bedrooms and opened the door to his dad’s room.

It felt like violating a trust. Growing up, the only room in the house that was strictly off limits to him and his brother had been his parents’ bedroom. Technically, Jeremy’s room was off limits to him and vice-verse, but that rule was only honored when it was convenient.

He had never gone uninvited into his parents’ room. Ever.

First of all, the bedroom was as neat as a hotel room. The king-sized bed was made, the comforter precisely draped to just miss touching the hardwood floor on all sides. The night stands and dresser surfaces were all clutter-free and gleamed as if they’d just been polished. A throw rug sat on the floor to one side of the bed and a pair of slippers beside it. Even the pair of jeans and work shirt draped over the back of an armchair seemed to be part of the design. There were no dirty socks or underwear on the floor, no half-eaten snacks. A modest stand across from the chair held a small television, a few books.

Was his dad the type of man who made his bed every morning? Jason wasn’t sure. It could have been a habit left from when his mother was alive.

Besides, if his dad hadn’t made the bed, who had?

Did he have a housekeeper, or a neighborhood lady come in to do some cleaning? He didn’t know. It was possible. If so, she would be a great source of information.

He pulled his cell out of its pocket and opened the notepad app to write himself a reminder about the housekeeper. This was exactly how he worked a story, especially in the early stages. Find something, often something very small, that didn’t seem to make sense. Figure out a list of people who could explain it to him. Ask them the question. See if they have an explanation. If they did, did he believe it? Did their explanations lead to further questions?

The Stevenson story had started out with the oddity of one particular construction company winning such a large percentage of supposedly “open bid” contracts. It had seemed strange. So he had asked some questions. The rest, as they say, is history.

He saved his entry and shut the phone down.

Again, he had the annoying feeling that something important was lying there just beyond his grasp. It was taunting him.

His thoughts were interrupted by the musical ding-dong of the doorbell echoing through the empty house. Naturally, he was about as far from the front door as he could be and still be in the house. He left his father’s bedroom, hurried down the hall and took the stairs two at a time, just like when he was a kid. The bell chimed a second time just as he reached the ground floor.

“Coming!” he yelled out, though the odds were no one could hear him.

AFTER

His dad’s house, the house where Jason and his brother had grown up, was a ’30s era Victorian farmhouse in a neighborhood of similar houses on the lower slopes of Beacon Hill at the west end of town. Back in the boom days the homes had been built by the prospering ship’s officers, cannery managers, and merchants who called Port Salish home. By the time Jason was born the boom in Port Salish was long over, the neighborhood was no longer upscale, and many of the houses were beginning to lose their battle with time and the elements. But they’d still been captivating, especially to a young boy with imagination.

Now, as Jason steered his car sedately down Salmon Berry Lane, he noticed that Port Salish’s reincarnation as a retirement and tourist community had been good to the neighborhood. Many of the stately old houses had been restored to their former glory and he counted two that appeared to be in the middle of major work. The shrill of power saws filled the air.

He didn’t see any sign of children around any of the houses he passed. They’d still be in school, of course, but their bikes, balls and other toys shouldn’t be.

Even the house on the south side of his dad’s had a dumpster parked in the drive.

Jason pulled into the drive that sloped up the left side of his father’s house, beside the dumpster in the neighbor’s. None of the houses in this neighborhood had been built with garages. In the thirties, few people in rural Washington owned cars, so why build a garage? Later, when cars and trucks became more popular, some had converted old carriage houses at the back of the properties into garages. Others had built simpler carports as shelter from the rain.

Jason had never seen a vehicle in their carriage house garage. It had always been his dad’s workshop and storage for his fishing gear.

His dad’s pickup wasn’t in its usual spot in the drive. But it wouldn’t be, would it? It would either be still down at the Port, or in a police impound yard.

He parked beside the house, removed his briefcase and laptop from the car and climbed the half dozen steps to the front porch. Jason still half expected the front door to open and his dad emerge to greet him. To welcome him home. He didn’t, of course. No one did. No one was there.

Jason took a deep breath and tried the front door. To his surprise, it was locked. His dad never locked the house. On one visit, when Jason pointed this out, his dad had shrugged. “Port Salish is a small town,” he’d said. “On an island with limited ferry service. No burglar worth his salt is going to bother with us.”

But today it was locked.

Fortunately, Jason had a key. He unlocked the door and stepped into the living room. It was exactly as he remembered it. His father hadn’t changed the decor since the day his mother died. He’d never seen a need to.

Jason set his briefcase and laptop on a nearby armchair and just stood there for a moment taking in the atmosphere. The place simply oozed his father. There were hints of his mother, of course. Everything from the art on the walls to the patterns on the furniture were his mother’s choice, but her choice of over twenty years ago. It didn’t so much show a woman’s touch as the memory of one. It was now all his dad’s.

It was also like a cave. All the window blinds were drawn.

He took a couple of minutes and opened the blinds, letting the living room fill with light.

It looked like his dad had just stepped out for a beer or to grab something from the market. In the kitchen, dishes still soaked in the sink; the coffee maker held half a pot of cold coffee. A fishing magazine lay on the dining room table folded open like he’d intended to finish the article later.

Jason found his dad’s answering machine. To his surprise, there were no messages waiting. There should have been a few, he thought. Word traveled fast in a small town, but it wasn’t perfect. Somebody would have called, not knowing he was dead. Somebody would have called trying to reach Jason. A telemarketer would have called. Somebody would have called.

But no one had.

He left the kitchen, glanced in the downstairs bathroom, saw nothing of interest, then moved into the den at the back of the house. Or what used to be the den. His father had pretty much turned it into his office years ago. But it had always been “the den” when Jason had been growing up; he just couldn’t bring himself to call it anything else.

His dad had updated the television to a fifty inch flat screen, but the room was dominated now by a desk, a PC, printer/fax combo and a two drawer steel file cabinet. It was his office, study, and living room. And again, it looked like he’d just stepped out for a few minutes. An empty beer bottle and a partial can of peanuts sat next to the keyboard. So did the remote for the TV. The air was tinted with the memory of cigar smoke.

Jason sat down at the desk and turned on the computer. While it booted up, he began looking through the desk drawers. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for. Something labeled in bright neon “Clue”? He didn’t know. At some point later on he’d need to sit go through all his dad’s files, business and personal, but right now he was just glancing around, orienting himself.

And looking for clues.

He found his father’s checkbook and scanned the register, but nothing looked out of the ordinary. Most everything else in the desk drawers were office supplies, copies of the fish and game regulations, and odd correspondence. Nothing of interest.

He turned his attention to the computer. He saw all the usual programs, Microsoft Office, Outlook Express, Internet Explorer, Photoshop. Nothing attracted his attention. He briefly opened his dad’s accounting program, but found nothing interesting there, either by its presence or by its absence. He then tried Internet Explorer. It successfully opened to his dad’s homepage, Yahoo News, so he had internet access.

He sighed and leaned back in the chair. Something was wrong, he was sure of it. Deep in his gut he knew he was missing something significant, something right in front of him. He just couldn’t put his finger on what it was. It was like he’d blanked out the name of some familiar movie star.

The answer was to walk away. Quit thinking about it.

He’d no sooner stood up than his cell phone rang. He glanced at the display. It was a local number. The only person in town who knew his cell number was Sgt. Hayden.

He answered it.

“Mr. Reynolds?”

“Call me Jason,” he told her.

She paused. “The Medical Examiner is releasing your father’s remains today. They’ll be arriving on the afternoon ferry. I took the liberty of calling Schroeder and Sons, the local funeral home. They’ll pick up the body.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem, but you’ll still need to call them and set up a meeting to arrange the funeral and burial and everything.”

“Of course.”

“Got a pen and paper?”

He was a reporter. He always had a pen. He pulled a pad of notepaper closer to him on the desk top and told her he was ready. She gave him the name of Lindsey Schroeder and a local number and he scribbled it in an unused corner of the page, just below a scribbled note reading “strawberry fields.”

Odd. He didn’t think his dad had voluntarily listened to a Beatles song his entire life.

“Mr. Reynolds? Jason?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m here.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” he said. “Sorry, something distracted me.”

“Anything I should know about?”

He smiled. “Are you a Beatles fan?”

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind.”

“The Department will also release your father’s boat to you tomorrow morning. Do you know where the Sheriff’s dock is at the port?”

He told her he thought he could find it.

“A deputy will be there between 8:00 and 9:00. You’ll just need to bring some ID and sign a couple of release forms.”

He told her he would be there.

“That’s all I’ve got. Is there anything else you need?” Sgt. Hayden asked.

“No. No, I think that’s it. And thanks.”

“Happy to help,” she told him.

They disconnected.

True to his word, he immediately called the funeral home and set up an appointment with Mr. Schroeder for 3:00, two hours from now. The woman he’d talked to said Mr. Schroeder would explain all the options then. She’d had an extremely soothing telephone voice. Jason briefly wondered whether they’d trained for that soothing tone at mortuary school, or did it come naturally?

He closed his phone.

Again, he had the annoying feeling that something important was lying there just beyond his grasp. It was taunting him.

His thoughts were interrupted by the musical ding-dong of the doorbell echoing through the empty house.

“Coming!”

Chekhov’s Gun

Last Tuesday, as I was preparing the revised version of Deception Island’s Chapter 4, I came upon the sudden and unexpected realization that I had made a mistake in my narrative and hadn’t noticed it before (through six re-writes, mind you).

I had forgotten about Chekhov’s Gun.

Chekhov’s Gun is one of the primary rules of drama, supposedly first enumerated by the Russian playwright and author Anton Chekhov. The rule goes something like this: “If you show a rifle hanging over the fireplace at the beginning of the story, someone had better shoot it by the story’s end.”

In other words, there should be nothing in the narrative that doesn’t have a concrete reason for being there. Everything must have a purpose. Everything. There is no room for fluff. If you describe the facade of a character’s house as constructed of brick rather than wood, you’d better have a good reason for it. Will the bricks collapse of someone later in the story? Stop a bullet? Or does it just show how arrogant the wealthy character is? Otherwise, why specify brick?

Every specific detail needs to have a discrete and identifiable purpose. And the fact that you’ve created a truly wonderful description of the brick facade is not enough.

In previous posts I’ve mentioned the literary term verisimilitude (using specific and concrete details to create the illusion of reality). To make verisimilitude work, you must include as many concrete details as possible. The more, the better. This is still valid, but with the Chekhov’s Gun caveat. That caveat is that each of those details you’ve created to achieve verisimilitude, must also serve another significant function in the story, such as plot, characterization, or mood.

An example. Your character is a young man waiting for his date to finish getting ready. He wanders over her book shelf and pulls out a well-worn copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Now the fact that she owned a copy of the novel says a lot about her character, her intellect and fortitude. His reaction to the novel also says a lot about him. Perhaps he’s a twenty-four hour a day sports junkie. He has no idea what the novel is or signifies.

Now, if you continue the evening and the two get along famously. They both enjoy the movie they see and the meal they eat. They even like the same baseball team. By the end of the evening, they are on the point of falling in love.

So what was the point of the mail character finding the copy of Ulysses? It had no effect whatsoever on the plot of the story. True, it did show something about the character of the woman, but it wasn’t germane to how their date went. There was no cultural or intellectual conflict. Chekhov’s gun says leave the Ulysses reference out. You might use general genres instead, or just skip the book reference at all. Have him find some sports memorabilia instead.

So, what was my mistake in Deception Island? I mention, first in Chapter 4, but then several times later, the pickup truck of my protagonist’s father. He is suspicious his father’s death was not an accident and inconsistencies surrounding the truck reinforce his doubts. The problem is that, other than those couple of chapters (I think it is mentioned three times in the first half of the novel) the pickup is never again mentioned. I showed the reader a rifle, but then never fired it. I disregarded Chekhov’s Gun.

Now I need to break out the manuscript again and work on fixing the error and any others I may have overlooked before. (I can already think of a couple of instances where I may have ignored Chekhov’s Gun). So I will re-write Deception Island (again) and this time I will post a sticky note with “Chekhov’s Gun” written on it at eye level on my monitor.

Just as a reminder.

Deception Island, Chapter One, scenes 3 & 4 (revised)

Again, some of you will have seen this before, and will probably not notice any huge changes. These scenes have been edited and revised and now come in at almost fifty words less than the original post.

Fifteen minutes later, Jason hitched the strap of his laptop case back onto his shoulder and stepped off the curb along with the crowd of other late arrivals crossing John Street. On the south side of the street he ducked between two umbrellas, hung a right, and headed up the block toward The Seattle News building. The rain had paused for the moment, but the clouds still hung low and pregnant with moisture. The air was cool and smelled of the Sound.

As always, he found himself gazing in simple admiration as he approached the building. Something about The News Building always awoke in him the kind of awe a cathedral might inspire in others.

The Seattle News Building had been built in 1925 by the newspaper’s founder and the paper still occupied the first five of its seven stories. The top two housed a CPA and a law firm. It’s facade was weathered red brick, darkened now by the rain, with limestone cornices and elegantly arched windows. Every doorknob in the place was polished brass; every door solid wood; every floor tongue and groove oak. It felt solid and eternal, like it was beyond the dirt and decay of the every day world.

He climbed the steps to the arched entrance and pushed through the heavy glass door with the paper’s name etched across it.

The lobby was floored in pink granite and paneled in mahogany. Tropical plants lurked in the corners and ornate brass chandeliers hung from the ceiling. It looked like a genteel hotel. Ahead and to his left was the counter for the Circulation Department; beside it was the counter for the Advertising Department. This was where most people, from paper boys to businessmen, actually dealt with the newspaper staff. A handful of people were lined up to talk to one of the clerks. To the right, a group stood waiting for the elevators, mostly clerks from the administrative offices on the fifth floor, chatting about their weekends.

Jason walked past the elevators and took the stairs. He was only heading up one floor.

The newsroom wasn’t anything like the movies—something of a cross between the floor of the stock exchange and a smoky bar, with a hundred phones ringing, reporters and editors screaming at each other while copy boys darted in and out of the chaos like street urchins.

In reality, the newsroom could have been the workspace at any large company. First, it was smoke-free like every other business in the state. Second, the newsroom only got really intense when a story broke late enough to crowd their deadline. Right now, the deadline was fifteen hours away and the atmosphere was almost serene. Phones chirped, laser printers whirred, people talked. It sounded very business-like.

For some reason he’d never quite figured out, it always smelled dusty.

Marcia sat at her desk across from the elevators, the telephone pressed to one ear. He waved at her as he passed. She lifted a hand and smiled, then he was past her and making his way through the warren of desks to his work station. About two thirds of the paper’s reporters were already there, catching up from the weekend, answering emails, or working on new assignments. He exchanged greetings with a half dozen before reaching his own desk, setting his laptop and briefcase on the floor and booting up his computer.

Debbie looked over from her desk immediately to his right and flashed a smile. She’d woven her dark hair into a braid that fell between her shoulder blades. Her make up was almost invisible. Like most of the reporters, she dressed simply: a teal sweater over a white button-up shirt, khaki slacks and flats. A hooded waterproof jacket hung over the back of her desk chair. Jason liked her and respected her work. She had a sweet, wholesome, girl-next-door look that hid a mind like a tiger shark.

“Hey,” she said.

“I-5 was a zoo today.”

“So I heard. Must be Monday.”

“All over,” he said. “You talk to Miles yet?”

She shook her head. “Stevenson issued a statement this morning. Did you see it?”

“Not yet, but I heard about it on the radio. It sounded like the usual ‘I have nothing to hide’ crap.”

“Pretty much. It should be in your email.”

Both reporters knew that the real victory lay not in what the Councilman said or didn’t say in his press release, but in the fact that he’d felt a need to respond to their charges so quickly. It meant they’d struck close to the bone. It meant he was worried.

This was what every reporter lived for, blood in the water.

“Anything from the construction company yet?”

Debbie shook her head. “Not a peep.”

No sooner had he sat down than his desk phone chirped. He picked it up before the second ring. “Reynolds.”

“Can I see you in my office?” He recognized Miles’ gravelly voice.

“Be right there.”

He returned the phone to its base and glanced at Debbie. “Miles wants to see me.”

“Probably wants to give you a gold star.”

“Probably two.”

Miles wasn’t really the feel-good, positive feedback type.

“Wish me luck.”

“Always.” Debbie smiled as he left his desk.

Jason made his way across the newsroom to the City Editor’s corner office. Miles probably wanted to discuss a follow up to yesterday’s article about everyone’s favorite City Councilman. Fortunately, Jason already had an article sketched out profiling Stevenson. Debbie was working on a similar story about the son-in-law’s construction company. He also had been gathering material for an article about the history of graft in the city government, particularly the Public Works Department.

He’d let Miles make the final decision on what to run. He was the editor; he would anyway.

Mile’s door stood open when he arrived. He tapped on the door and poked his head in. “You wanted to see me?”

Miles sat at his cluttered desk, but he wasn’t alone. Two other men were sitting in the client chairs facing the editor’s desk. Both were in their mid to late forties; both wore wool suits in earth tones, comfortable shoes and conservative ties. The one to Jason’s right was a little taller and heavier than the other. He had dark hair graying at the temples. The other had sandy-colored hair buzzed so short it looked like a shadow on his pink scalp.

Jason pegged them as cops.

“Excuse me. I’ll come back later.”

“No, come in, Jason. Please, have a seat,” Miles said, his tone unusually mild-mannered. “These gentlemen would like to talk to you.”

Jason stepped into the room. All his defenses were on high alert. What did they want? Was Stevenson retaliating already? It seemed a little heavy-handed, even for him.

The dark-haired cop heaved himself to his feet and extended a hand. He was about four inches taller than Jason and fifty pounds heavier. Jason could see a mark on his neck were he’d nicked himself shaving this morning. “Det. Kyle Peterson, King County Sheriff’s Office. This is my partner, Det. Ron Dahl.” The other man had also gotten to his feet and offered his hand.

Jason shook hands with both men, keeping his face neutral. “What can I do for you?”

Peterson took the lead. “Why don’t we have a seat?”

Jason glanced at Miles for a clue where this was headed, but his boss’s expression was unreadable.

He pulled over another client chair and sat to the right of the two detectives. With Miles, the four men formed a small, irregular circle like a group therapy session.

Det. Peterson took a deep breath and gathered himself.

“We have been asked to contact you on behalf of the San Juan County Sheriff’s Department. Normally, we wouldn’t bother you at work, but we tried several times at your apartment over the weekend and weren’t able to catch you.”

San Juan County? So this had nothing to do with Stevenson.

“I spent the weekend at a friend’s.”

Peterson nodded as though he’d suspected as much.

Jason thought about the message left on his voice mail. That had been the Sheriff’s, too. “What’s going on? What does the Sheriff want with me?”

Peterson took a deep breath. “Mr. Reynolds, there’s been an accident involving your father.”

The breath caught in Jason’s throat. For some reason, he suddenly became aware of the Old Spice one of the detectives was wearing and the whir of the hard drive in Miles’ computer.

“Is he okay?” a voice asked.

Peterson shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” that same voice asked. It sounded like his own, but he didn’t seem to be the one asking. He was somewhere else, watching it all happen.

“Sorry, we really don’t know any of the details. We’re just helping them contact you. You’ll have to call the San Juan Sheriff’s Office for that. ”

The detective handed Jason a business card with a phone number and extension written in ink on the back. Above the number was the name Sgt. Daniel Hayden.

“When did it happen?”

“Again, I don’t know any of the specifics, but we received the call from San Juan Saturday morning.”

Saturday morning. Two days ago. His dad had died two days ago and he hadn’t even known.

“I’m terribly sorry. Is there anyone we can call? Any family in the area? A minister maybe?”

Jason shook his head. He couldn’t shake the image of his dad lying alone in a morgue somewhere for two days while the authorities tried to track him down. There was no other family; his brother and mother had both died years ago; there was no one else to be there for him. Two days.

“We’ll make sure he gets home safely,” Miles said. “Thank you, Detectives.”

The detectives rose in unison, and slipped quietly toward the door.

Jason took a deep breath. “Man, your job just sucks.”

“Yeah,” Det. Peterson paused near the door. “Sometimes it really does.”

********

Jason looked down at the card the detectives had left with him. He had to look somewhere. The phone number was still there, written in blue ink, the handwriting firm, but sloppy, like it was jotted by someone used to taking quick notes. A reporter or a cop. He turned it over and looked again at the printed name: Detective Kyle Peterson, King County Sheriff’s Office and his phone number. The reporter in him decided the detective seemed a righteous guy. He would be worth trying to develop into a contact.

He flipped it once more and took in the handwritten number on the back. It hadn’t changed.

“I suppose I should make a phone call,” he finally said.

Miles was watching him closely from his seat behind his desk. His chin rested in his right hand. “You can use my phone, if you’d like.”

“Thanks anyway,” Jason shook his head and rose to his feet, the card still held in front of him. “I’ll call from my desk and find out what’s going on. I’ll probably need to go up there.”

Miles peered at him. “You going to be okay?”

Jason nodded.

“I’ll talk to HR and get you some time off. You have some vacation coming, don’t you?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll take care of it. If there’s anything else I can do to help, just let me know.”

Jason thanked him and headed for the door.

“And Jason?”

He turned back.

“I’m very sorry about your father.”

“Thank you.”

He made his way back to his desk, walking across the newsroom like his mind was on a two second delay. His body acted on its own. It was his body that returned a “’morning” to Rick Coburg as they passed outside Miles’ office, his body that made the legs move across the carpet and maintain balance, his body that avoided running into desks and dividers. His mind wasn’t involved.

Then he was at his desk, sitting in his chair. It was just all disconnected.

After a moment, he picked up his desk phone and punched in the number written on the card. He needed to talk to Sgt. Daniel Hayden.

Someone picked up on the first ring.

“Sgt. Hayden.”

The voice was female. Brusque and business-like, but definitely female.

“Hello?” she asked.

“Um,” Jason hesitated. His mind seemed to be working with the speed of jello. “I’m trying to reach Sgt. Daniel Hayden…”

There was a pause on the other end. “I’m Danielle Hayden.”

Now he was embarrassed. “I’m sorry. The note is hand-written; it looks like ‘Daniel.’”

“Don’t worry about it; happens all the time,” she told him. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Yes. I think so. This is Jason Reynolds,” he managed to say. “I’m supposed to call you regarding my father, Lee Reynolds.”

“Mr. Reynolds,” her voice softened. “You’re a hard man to track down.”

“I know. I wasn’t home this weekend,” he told her. He took a deep breath. “I just finished speaking with a couple of Sheriff’s detectives down here. They gave me your number.”

“Yes. I asked them to. Some news shouldn’t come over the phone.”

“Can you tell me what happened? Was it a heart attack? He’d had some heart troubles a couple of years ago.”

But the medications had been working and he’d changed his diet, quit smoking, drinking, all the stuff the doctors told him to do. He’d been doing fine. At least he’d said he was when they’d last talked. How long ago had that been? Two weeks ago? Three?

“We’re still investigating, but it looks like he had a boating accident sometime early Saturday morning.”

“What kind of boating accident?” Jason frowned. There were a lot of things that could go wrong out on the water.

“All indications are he fell overboard and drowned.”

The sensation of unreality, that the entire morning was some kind of twisted dream, was overwhelming. “There’s got to be something else you’re not telling me.”

“I’m sorry?” she sounded genuinely puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“My dad practically grew up on the Sound. He’d spent his whole life on boats, both working and for pleasure. Him falling overboard and drowning is about as likely as you or me running into a parked car on the drive home tonight.”

The pause on the other end stretched into discomfort. When she spoke again, Sgt. Hayden’s tone had lost its friendly sympathy. “Like I said, Mr. Reynolds, we’re still investigating. It’s possible something like a heart attack caused him to fall overboard.”

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and forced himself to calm down. The lady probably wasn’t even involved in the investigation. She was just some poor slob assigned to notify the next of kin. It would do him no good to piss her off.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I guess I’m more upset than I thought.”

“That’s understandable. You’ve just had a shock.” But her voice kept the formal tone.

He took another deep breath. “Do I need to come up and make an identification?”

“That won’t be necessary. But you will have to arrange for the funeral and such things. It’s nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow or the next day; the Medical Examiner over in Friday Harbor should be finished by then.”

Jason closed his eyes. They were doing a post-mortem on him. Of course they were. They did a post-mortem on every unusual death. It was standard procedure.

“The ferry runs every twelve hours. 7:00 am and 7:00 pm from Anacortes.”

He thanked her.

“And Mr. Reynolds? I am sorry for your loss. Your father was very well liked in this town.”

“Thank you. And again, I’m sorry if I offended you earlier; I’m sure you’re covering every base.”

Again there was a pause on her end, but shorter this time. “Let me know when you get to town, Mr. Reynolds.”

He told her he would, set the phone back on its base and leaned back in his chair. For a few seconds he just sat there not really thinking about anything, his eyes idly watching the geometric patterns develop on his computer’s screen saver without really seeing them.

His dad was dead.

His dad was dead. Deceased. Passed away.

Dead.

No matter how often he repeated it to himself, it still refused to become real. His dad was too big, too tough, and too strong to let something as flimsy as age or heart disease do him in. The man hadn’t even seen a doctor the entire time Jason was growing up. It was like someone telling him that Mt. Rainier had crumbled to dust, or the Pacific had dried up. He would have to see it with his own eyes before he truly believed.

Tomorrow. He would be able to see it with his own eyes tomorrow.

But first, there were things he needed to do. There were preparations to be made, both for the trip back to his home town and once he got there. He needed to pack some clothes, enough to last for a week, maybe more. He had to arrange for a funeral. Was there even a funeral home in Port Salish? He needed to settle his father’s affairs, pay bills, file life insurance claims, figure out what to do with the house, the boat, the truck. There were probably a dozen other things he hadn’t even thought of yet.

He just needed to start.

Instead, he stared at the screen saver playing across his computer monitor.

“Hey.” Debbie looked over at him. “You okay?”

Jason made his mouth form the semblance of a smile. “Sure.”

He didn’t think she believed him.

“What did Miles say in there? You look like you’ve just gotten the ass-chewing of the century.”

He shook his head. “My dad died. I just found out.”

“Oh god.” Her hand landed on his forearm. Gave it a squeeze. “I’m so sorry. Had he been sick?”

Jason shook his head. Not sick enough to keep him from going out on his boat.

She gave his arm another squeeze.

Both looked up as Miles approached Jason’s desk.

“I just got off the phone with HR,” Miles said and looked at Jason. “You’re officially on vacation through Friday, meaning I don’t expect to see you at this desk until next Monday. If you need more time than that, let me know. We’ll work something out.”

“What about the Road Department stories?” They had to follow up. It was the only way to keep the pressure on Stevenson.

“Debbie can handle it. Copy her on your notes and make sure she has a way of contacting you if any questions come up. Okay?”

Jason and Debbie exchanged a quick glance. Both nodded. That would work.

“Copy Debbie your notes and get out of here,” Miles told him. “The paper will survive. Go take care of yourself and your family.”

Jason didn’t tell him that he had no family left to care for.

Revision: The Layer System

So you’ve finished it, the short story or poem you’ve been sweating over for days. Or maybe you even have about 100,000 words of a novel sitting on your word processor. Congratulations! Take a moment to pat yourself on the back, treat yourself to an ice cream, or something. Enjoy the moment because as soon as you’re done it’s time to get to work.

It’s time to revise your work.

Think of yourself as an auto mechanic who has just built an engine from scratch. It sits there in the engine compartment, all shiny and clean, and hey, when he turns the ignition key it actually starts and runs, he feels pretty good. But the master mechanic is not satisfied with creating an engine that merely runs. He immediately begins making adjustments: the timing, the fuel/air mixture, etc. He is not satisfied until he has coaxed every ounce of horsepower and efficiency from that engine.

Our goal as writers is to make sure our writing is as finely tuned as that mechanic’s engine.

So how do we do it? By revising and editing.

I have spent the last few months doing this very thing to my new novel and thought I’d share with you my technique. I call it revising by layers.

Revising something as large and complex as a novel can be an intimidating task. There are a lot of moving parts: plot, subplots, major characters, minor characters, themes and descriptions. Trying to get each and every one as close to perfect as possible, all at the same time, is almost impossible. That’s why I break it down into smaller parts, each involving a separate pass through the manuscript.

First, I revise for plot, making sure that every twist and turn logically flows out of the previous decisions, no matter how surprising the twists. This also means making sure the time line is accurate. In Deception Island, I decided I had the protagonist back in action too quickly after suffering a gunshot wound, so I wrote a few new scenes to give him a little time to recover. Of course, this meant pushing the time of everything occurring afterwards back a day. Everything that happened on Sunday, now was happening on Monday; Wednesday was now Thursday. It meant changing every day reference from that point to the end of the book.

The second layer I look at is characterization. I go through the entire manuscript and make a character list. Every character that is given a name, whether they have a speaking role, or not, goes on the list, along with a note about their role in the story and any description I may have given them. The purpose of the character list is twofold. First, I have a habit of occasionally changing a character’s name partway through the work. This list corrects that and makes sure Joe is not described as a redhead in chapter two and as a blond in chapter ten. It also avoids having characters with similar names (such as Dan and Don) which could cause reader confusion.

The third layer of revision is what I call (for want of a better term) continuity. This is all about getting the details right. If you describe the hero’s house as having a brick facade in chapter one, you don’t want to describe it as wood in chapter eight. You also don’t want her driving east every day on the way home from work, then later in the story have her marveling at the sunset. Much of what I found is not quite as obvious, but still enough to break the illusion for a reader. I had one character’s office on the ninth floor in one place, then the nineteenth in another. In another spot, I had the hero complaining about cold, wet feet in chapter twenty, but described him packing hiking boots in chapter two. I had to change chapter two so he didn’t have boots to make the later scene make sense.

The fourth layer is where I start getting down to the artist part of writing. In the heat of writing the first draft, I often resort to cliches or other easy methods of writing. Which is perfectly okay. Sometimes I don’t want to slow down the overall creative process in order to think up an original simile for a particular description. That’s what revision is all about, reading the manuscript closely and weeding out overused devices and replacing them with more creative ones. I, personally, find that in a first draft I overuse the verb “nodded” in dialogue. (as in 350 uses in 200 pages) What I do is use it as a place-holder during dialogue. Someone in the situation, doesn’t reply to the other character immediately. There is a brief pause, which I fill by writing “he nodded.” But 350 times? I had to use the “find and replace” function to find them all, then decide whether “nodded” is really what I mean, or replace it with something more creative.

The next layers are all about tightening up the story. If I have used five words to say something and can do it in three, change it. If something doesn’t either advance the plot or add to the depth of character, cut it out. Sometimes entire scenes will need to be taken out. As you read, ask yourself: “will removing this scene, sentence, phrase, or word, prevent the reader from understanding the story?” If your answer is “no,” it probably needs to be cut.

The best tool for revision is distance from the work. The object is to see and judge what you have written, not what you intended to write, or thought you’d wrote. The best way to do this is to take a couple of weeks off between revisions. Read something. Work on another project. Do whatever you can to get your mind off the project, so when you do return to it you do so with an objective and critical mind.

How many layers are there? How many times do we need to go through the manuscript before it’s ready for the publisher? As many as it takes. There is no set answer to that. Every writer is different and every manuscript is different. We revise it until we can’t make it any better.