Time to start the thesis

My manuscript should be lying somewhere in a big pile of manuscripts at Text Publishing by now. I agonised over the synopsis and ended up changing it at the last minute and now I'm too chicken to go back and look at it again in case I see a big, ugly mistake staring out at me. It's gone now & that's that.

So now I have no excuse for not starting on my 'exegesis' (or thesis in normal language). I'm meeting with my supervisor next week to discuss it because to be honest I can't even remember what I'm supposed to write. Not only that, I haven't yet made a final decision on what other YA novels I'll discuss in relation to my own work. I have to choose at least one, preferably two. Last year I'd decided that I was going to use Surrender by Sonya Hartnett and Tulip Touch by Anne Fine. But I've been reading a fair bit of YA stuff lately and I'm wondering if they are the best choices.

Both Surrender and Tulip Touch feature characters who definitely have 'issues'. But other novel's I've read this year, including Freaky Green Eyes by Carol Joyce Oates and Solo by Alyssa Brugman are perhaps more in tune with my style of writing and the overall tone of Girl in the Shadows.

I think I'll just do some more reading in the genre and see what other gems I can find before I make my final choice.

Synopsis

To enter the Text Publishing young adult fiction competition, I have to come up with a 100 word synopsis for Girl in the Shadows. So far, I've put together three I'm reasonably happy with but I'm not sure which one works best. What do you think?

Synopsis A
What happens when you look in the mirror and see a face that isn't yours? You hope it's a nightmare, a horror story. But it's real. It's the part of you that you don't want anyone to know about. And it's not going anywhere.

When Tash first sees a strange girl's face staring back at her from the mirror, she and her best friend Mal think it's a ghost: a restless
relative, perhaps, or something more sinister. But the truth is more sinister than any ghost story ever could be. And it will send Tash to the edge of madness.

Synopsis B
Tash has good looks, brains and freedom: the perfect teenage life. But when she looks into her mirror, a stranger’s face stares back at her. Her best friend Mal believes it’s an evil spirit. But the chilling truth is not supernatural: it’s flesh and blood.

Spell books and ouija boards cannot fix a problem that comes from deep within the soul. It will take a journey to the edge of madness for Tash to face the truth inside her heart and see the evil that lurks in her home. And Mal’s love and courage to pull her back into life.

Synopsis C
What happens when you look in the mirror and see a face that isn't yours? Tash has everything a teenage girl could wish for: good looks, brains, beautiful home and freedom from her busy parents. But when she looks into her mirror, she sees the face of another girl staring back at her. Her best friend Mal believes it’s the spirit of a restless teenager looking for a new body to inhabit. But the truth is more chilling; and tarot cards, ouija boards and spells cannot fix a problem that comes from so deep within the heart.

Just a few things to tidy up

I've got feedback from my sister and also a younger reader (someone from the target audience) and so far, so good.

My sister picked up a few things for me to tidy up. Mostly it was things where new scenes didn't quite mesh with the old. But nothing too major - probably only about 5 hours work maximum. The younger reader really enjoyed it, too, which is a big bonus. She also gave me some great feedback to work on. Just a small thing - what happens to one of the minor characters - but important for me to follow up on.

So everything is on track for entering into the Text competition.

But now that I've officially re-enrolled in uni for this semester, soon it's going to be time to face the beast that is known as the 'exegesis'. Still haven't worked out why it's called that. Maybe because it's a task of Biblical proportions... But I suppose I'll just tackle it the same way I approached the novel manuscript. One step at a time.

Manuscript finished!

Yep, I've done it (again). Finished the manuscript & sent it off to my sister for a read through. She hasn't read it before but I've talked to her a lot about different writing issues I've faced throughout the process, so it'll be interesting to see what she thinks of the (almost) final product.


At least I know she won't be horribly cruel & all criticisms will be handed down gently.


I've also organised to re-enrol in uni for semester 2. This means it's time for me to face the dreaded exegesis (that's thesis in most normal people's language - why the uni chooses to refer to it with some obscure biblical term is beyond me).

Hopefully writing it won't be too painful an experience. But if there is any pain involved, it will definitely be recorded here.


Of course, the other big next step is to do a final preparation of the manuscript before I submit it to the Text competition. As soon as my sister gets back to me with her comments, I'll be into that to meet the 31 July deadline.

On the home stretch

This week I tackled the major time issue within the narrative and the solution turned out to be much easier than what I'd thought.

I was preparing to extend the span of time within the central part of the story. But that really wasn't going to work. Then I considered each of the scenes, and the time when they could/should happen, and I realised I was imposing unnecessary restrictions on myself.

I'm big on a story having internal logic. It doesn't matter how fantastic or unbelievable the story is, as long as it has internal logic, I'm happy to go with it. But I realised that internal logic wasn't really an issue in my narrative, it was me trying to impose an 'average' rather than accept that, in this case, 'average' didn't apply.

Hmm, this probably isn't making much sense. What I'm trying to say is, that when it comes to any health issue, including mental health issues, there are likely scenarios, a reasonably predictable path for how the illness will unfold. But that doesn't mean the illness will unfold that way.

The common cold, for example, usually lasts about 4 or 5 days. But some people will get over a cold in 2 days, others it may take 10. With depression, usually it's an illness that evolves slowly over a long time period, but it can hit quite quickly, especially if it's triggered by an event.

Tash is suffering from a mental illness. It's taking a rare, although not unknown, form. It is both a reaction to a recent event, as well as to events that she has buried and no longer consciously remembers. I want there to be some logic in the way the development of her illness is portrayed, because I want readers to believe it and to understand her suffering. But that doesn't mean it has to be a classic, text book case.

Every individual suffers in their own way. Their suffering may share common aspects with others, but, in the end, no matter what illness or personal crisis you are dealing with, in the end it is entirely your own experience. So as a writer, I need to step back and accept that Tash's illness is manifesting and progressing in a way that is hers, and only hers.

After all, staying true to your characters is one of the most important aspects of internal logic.

On schedule

So far, so good. I managed to get chapter 1 to work properly without having to do a complete rewrite, so the levitation scene stays. I was thinking about a few alternatives, but none of them seemed to fit properly. I was a bit worried that the levitation scene was a bit cliched, but I think I've got around that. I mean, it really just is something teenage girls do.

But I've toned it down a bit because I'm working on making Tash's descent into terror more gradual. Instead of her trying to deal with the girl in the mirror by herself at first, with the book starting when she had already been seeing the girl for a few weeks, the first appearance of the girl now happens within the action of the narrative. This also means Mal can be there right from the start.

It all seems to be coming together now. I hope it continues that way because the deadline gets closer every day.

A deadline presents itself

Last week I read through my manuscript, made some notes and then did a scene by scene exercise where I wrote down a brief description of each scene in the manuscript. It didn't take long to get the scenes down - only about three hours - and it's a really useful way to find holes in the manuscript and scenes that are out of time sequence.

The exercise has shown me that I definately need to extend the 'time' of the narrative. Originally, all the action happened within about 10 days, but now with the new scenes I've written, that's not going to be enough. That means I have a couple more new scenes to write to fill in the gaps.

Another thing I noticed that parts of the original manuscript that remain don't have the same tone as the new sections. And that there are some scenes that I really don't need any more.

So, looks like there's one final rewrite to go. And it has to be finished by the end of July to meet the 31 July deadline for the Text Publishing YA competiton. The first prize is a $10,000 publishing contract - now that's enough to get me motivated to finish!

Maybe it's time the rewriting stopped...

It's time to start tying all the bits and pieces together. This manuscript has changes so much from my original draft that it's almost a completely different story! And there comes a point where you have to stop rewriting, take a deep breath, take stock of where the story is and make a decision about its future.

Doing the masters course has really helped in the development of this manuscript. But I think it's time that I stopped the constant rewriting and started to hone the final draft. Otherwise I could be stuck in a kind of groundhog day rewriting loop, and that is a place I don't want to be.

So this weekend, I'm printing out the whole manuscript and reading it from start to finish. Let's hope I like what I read...

And the rewriting continues...

I set myself a goal to write for 20-30 minutes each day, and I've been doing pretty close to that. Mostly I've been working on adding detail to the manuscript and also writing a couple of new scenes.

I chucked the whole convict doco storyline that I started working on in January- it was awful!
The girls are still working on an English assignment,but it's a much more interesting one that involves an artist who paints beautiful but quite macabre paintings. It's much more suited to the tone and themes of the manuscript.

I'm also making some changes to the structure. The biggest change is that all traces of diary entries, notes etc from Tash are pretty much gone. Instead I'm writing in some new scenes where Tash's behaviour gives a pretty clear indication of where her head is at.

I originally wrote the diary excerpts because I wanted Tash's voice to appear unadulterated in the story, without being filtered through Malia. But it wasn't working. I thought of writing whole chapters from Tash's perspective, but this is a story about Mal & her growth in trying to fix a problem that isn't hers.

I don't want to get too Jungian, but it all does come down to archetypes. And for this story, Mal is the Rescuer. Tash's time to tell her side of the story will come...just watch out for the sequel!

Slow and steady

Things aren't exactly going to plan this year. I'm not having the time I'd really like to devote to this manuscript.

But what I can do is 30 minutes a day. It's not a lot but it's enough to keep the manuscript going. And it's going through more changes! But they're all for the better so at the moment the plan is to stick with it and make a little progress each day.

Who knows - I may be closer to finishing than I think :)

New year, new research

I've been quite slack on the rewriting front.

The good news is that I've rewritten the first chapter and really sharpened up my first page and it's working well.

The bad news (for me) is that I now realise that to make the rewrite work, I have to actually research and write the 'group assignment' that the girls have to do for their English assessment.

Sounds crazy (& like too much work) I know. But the reason is that I've worked out a really good structure for including Tash's point of view in the manuscript - and it involves including the group assignment...

Thus, I have to take myself back off to the library and research and write the equivalent of a Year 10 English assignment, which will probably take about 20 hours research to come up with the 2000 words I need it to be. What a pain!

But I know it's going to work really well, so I just have to bite the bullet and do it.

This weekend, its off to the state library for me - lucky that place has fabulous views of the river and an excellent coffee shop :)