Saturday, November 20, 2004

Two Things

I wrote to my editor about my jacket and the cover art I objected to. I included pictures of what women were wearing in 1943. On Monday, when he got the email, he called me and said he would pass it on to the art director and what I said made perfect sense to him.

I told him I didn't like the colors too much. He said he did. He thought it made the book stand out. I mulled this over and showed the jacket to several people. They liked it. The thinking was with these colors the book wouldn't be confused with chick lit. Mine are yellow to orange in the title letters and teal for the frame which houses the silhouette of the woman and a backdrop of a city. I decided to keep the colors.

The Surprise Character

I know who she is now. She was identified by the detective's client. This happened yesterday. I was shocked to learn who she was. I ended chapter 5 with this revelation.

This morning I woke early and before I went back to sleep I kept writing opening lines of chapter 6 in my head. But I didn't use any of them when I went to work this morning.

Since chapter 5 ended with a name I had to open chapter 6 with more information about who this victim was. In learning this I've set myself a lot of new problems. I still don't know why she was found where she was or why she was murdered. Needless to say, I don't know who killed her.

Next week will be short. Three days. It would be nice if I could answer some of these questions before Thanksgiving. If I don't it will be nagging at me. So what? That's part of writing a novel. Any novel. Not only a mystery. I think all good novels are mysteries to the author until they're completed. Then people read all sorts of things into what's on the page and this becomes more of a mystery to the author.

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