Thursday, January 20
Wrath
Right: I'm also currently reading a novel you've never heard of -- yet. It's called "Wrath" and it's a murder mystery/detective story set in Denver (so far). It features a Denver cop, a farting dog and God, Coors Field and, I'm told, later the St. Louis Arch makes an appearance. It's got great dialogue, a quickly moving plot, well crafted chapters (for the most part), a few rough spots and it's pretty good overall. Not only am I reading it, I'm editing it for Jared Fiel, a friend of mine (you can see his blog over in links), former co-worker and fellow Chico State grad (although I went through a half-dozen years before him). Jared wrote Wrath during the past two National Novel Writing Months. He wrote it in '03, as I recall, and then rewrote it totally during '04, then spent another month adding/fixing during our local post-NaNo GreNoFiMo efforts. And I've had it for a week or so now, and have edited the first 70 (or 220?) double-spaced pages or so.
It's fascinating editing someone else's novel, I'll tell you that. It's certainly a labor of love, and I'm learning so much about what makes a book good as I go through each chapter, each sentence carefully, pen in hand, sometimes reading whole sections twice. I'm being pretty harsh with it, too, as Jared knows (or so I've told him a couple of times now, giving him the chance to back out but he's bravely letting me go forward), asking questions about things I don't quite understand, questioning the motivation of characters, wondering aloud if a character would do this if before he did that, asking if Denver has a police academy, or nothing that ten pages ago this person had a partner and now she doesn't, and so on. It's very helpful to my own writing, too, which (selfishly, of course) is a main reason I'm doing it (plus it's a nice favor for a friend). By being free to be harsh/helpful on Jared's work, perhaps when I do this process to my own current novel next, I'll be just as helpful/harsh to my own work. And it will be better for the effort. Jared plans to take it to some editors and agents and a book conference in April (or is it February?). So, friendly readers, look for Wrath at better booksellers everywhere sometime in the fall of 2006. Plus you can buy Jared's current book (and see my glowing review) at Amazon.
