REVAMPING HOLMES - Episode One

REVAMPING HOLMES: Recreating Your Inadvertent Character Template

Entry #1

This was originally planned as a workshop but it got cancelled. Sad, I thought. But then I got an        e-mail from someone who had just received the message that she would be workshopless and said she’d really been looking forward to what this workshop was going to do.

That made two of us who were sad. Well, that was two too many. Considering I have a terrible time coming up with ideas for blogs – as the long absence of any clearly shows – I thought, why not resurrect the various workshops that ended up getting the ax or were never picked up by any group. The blog was the perfect place for them!

AND SO…

Revamping Holmes! Episode One

Sherlock Holmes has been making a comeback of late. He’s never been out of print, of course. Conan Doyle’s tales of the extremely analytical sleuth are available in collections, the novels as stand alones, and the short stories show up in English text books – at least that’s where I first encountered Holmes outside of old movies. Possibly because I had watched those movies, I always pictured Holmes as looking like Basil Rathbone. It never occurred to me that such a familiar character might not be the way Rathbone played him…or as nearly every Masterpiece Theatre production of the Holmes tales has portrayed him.

And it really should have donned on me. One of my favorite movies is WITHOUT A CLUE. In it, Holmes is played by Michael Caine and Watson by Ben Kingsley. Holmes has the deerstalker, the caped greatcoat, the pipe with the curved stem and deep bowl. He’s cool under fire, he can dazzle with a list of all the elements that led him to the perpetrator of the crime. But it’s all a sham – all stage dressing -- for Dr. John Watson is the true sleuth, the one who notices all these things. “Holmes” is fictional, and played by the out-of-work actor Watson hired, Reginald Kincaid. Kincaid is a womanizer, a drunk, a coward who is relieved to be told that Moriarty “knows you’re an idiot” and that Watson is the true sleuth. I love this show for the bits like seeing “Holmes” play the violin and then find he’s miming it and a Victrola is playing a recording of a violin being played. Reginald is the exact opposite of “Holmes” but as an actor he carries it off well, even attempting to use Watson’s methods when Watson is believed shot by Moriarty and drowned as he didn’t surface after being fired on.

Both Holmes and Watson had undergone a revision in the movie. Watson assumed Holmes’ traits while at the same time appearing to be the Watson who trails Holmes in recording his exploits for the eager readers of THE STRAND. Holmes didn’t change places with Watson but became a bit of a buffoon --  but within the redrawn template of an actor whose last play had closed after one performance.

Still, it didn’t dawn on what this was showing me as a writer.

Then along came SHERLOCK HOLMES with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law in the main roles. This time I got it.

Why?

Well, because the writers went back to the original stories and looked for elements that were part of the character but not part of the way the Holmes and Watson had been portrayed before.

Admittedly, the way “Watson” writes the tales makes him appear a bit stodgy – actually a bit like Conan Doyle appears to have been. But then he’s also true to being a Victorian. Not, however, a Victorian soldier having seen service in the Afghan War…the second Afghan War of the 19^th century, actually. Conan Doyle didn’t do a turn in the military until after the first batch of stories had been written when he volunteered for the Boer War in Africa, thus he missed giving Watson personality traits that were provided for Jude Law to shrug into to portray Dr. Watson. As a former Army doctor who had been wounded, Law’s Watson has a soldier’s bearing, a neatness that shows the economy of a field officer, and is a man of action, things that were missing – but were possible – for Watson’s character based on the facts supplied about him in Conon Doyle’s tales.

The same holds true of Downey’s Sherlock. There is no deerstalker, but a rather crushed soft hat – a counter point to Watson’s bowler. No caped coat. His pipe is a simple straight stemmed “corncob” style of clay. He is bohemian, which seems right to me for someone with an active mind and an addiction to drug stimulants between cases. When Downey’s Sherlock picks up a violin it is to pluck at it while thinking, rather like one would tap a foot or drum fingers or another mindless occupation that frees the mind but expends restless energy.

As a fellow about to lose his friend and companion (and flat mate) to the arms of a loving wife, even the attempts to undermine Watson’s decision to wed, while petty, appear to be a logical progression. Left to his own devices, Sherlock is self destructive when bored. But when he isn’t, he’s brilliant. (Well, admittedly, Holmes can be self destructive while not bored and attempting to puzzle things out as well, but still brilliant.) He has to be in any incarnation (remember, in WITHOUT A CLUE it’s Watson who is the real sleuth) – that’s what has fascinating readers since SILHOUETTE IN SCARLET was first serialized in THE STRAND.

The Downey/Law duo aren’t the only recreation of Holmes and Watson though, for the fellows penning DOCTOR WHO episodes for BBC currently were talking one day when they were en route on a train to or from the DOCTOR WHO sets in Wales. One mentioned that it would be fun to update Sherlock Holmes, set him down in the 21^st century. The idea intrigued them both and, since the recharged DOCTOR WHO programs were doing extremely well, they had the ear of folks in development. The result was SHERLOCK, the second season of which is showing on PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre in the States and aired weeks ago in Britain. (I’ve got it on pre-order at Amazon, too.)

In SHERLOCK we say farewell to the Victorian era entirely. It’s the 21^st century. We have Mycroft Holmes, Inspector Lestaud, and Mrs. Watson intact though. Mycroft still has a mysterious position in the government – a seat of power that isn’t an elected one. Lestaud is with CID (Criminal Investigation Department, in case you were wondering) at Scotland Yard. And Mrs. Watson owns 221 Baker Street, although she merely rents out flats (like 221B) rather than be a housekeeper as well as landlady.

Because this is the 21^st century, Sherlock isn’t sending telegrams but says “I prefer texting”. He’ll even text Watson if the doctor is in the next room. There are no longer hordes of young boys roaming the streets picking pockets or picking up odd jobs to help support their families, so this Holmes can’t use the “Baker Street Irregulars.” Instead he uses the homeless to keep an ear turned for the type of information he’s looking for. As in America, Britain has outlawed smoking in public places so Sherlock wears a multitude of nicotine patches to get the “hits” his mind demands. In the second episode in the second season he was nearly manic with withdrawal…it appeared at first that he was demanding that Watson supply a drug but Watson only broke when a worthwhile case was about to be turned down like so many others – he tossed Sherlock a pack of cigarettes he’d hidden in their living room.

The 21^st century Watson is, like his predecessor, a former Army doctor who was wounded in the Afghan War…the current one this time. Rather than sell short stories, this Watson has a blog about Sherlock Holmes, telling about the cases. It gets them clients, of course. But while Sherlock does the brilliant deductions, it’s been Watson who has saved the day, particularly in the first season. The second season has seemed to focus on Sherlock’s emotional state – first with Irene Adler and then with a fear that he is wrong about things needing to be logical after believing he has seen a demon dog-like creature near Baskerville. As this series' “seasons” equate to three 90-minute long programs, it appears that they save the major villain for the third program each time. Holmes first met Moriarty in the 3^rd episode of season one and goes up against him in the 3^rd episode of season two as well. This Moriarty is not the professor of mathematics that the original was but rather a  self-made crime lord, Jim Moriarty, who enjoys toying with Sherlock, killing or threatening (as Watson ended up wearing a vest wired with explosives the first season) people.

What all this shows – other than that I like watching nearly anything that has Sherlock Holmes in it – is that a familiar character can be restructured in various ways and still remain true to what he needs to be.

The goal is to put up a new blog entry next Tuesday where exploring how a writer can change what has become a same-old-same-old character template – either of their own inadvertent construction or of a genre they are interested in slipping into.

See you next week as well then?

Beth

www.RomanceAndMystery.com

SO YOU WANT TO WRITE A NOVEL: A GUIDE TO WRITING YOUR FIRST BOOK by Beth Daniels – available in trade paper and e-book formats for Kindle and Nook 

WRITING STEAMPUNK by Beth Daniels – available in trade paper and e-book formats for Kindle and Nook

   

The TYPO PLAGUE

I've been absent from the blogosphere for awhile now. I was busily rekeying a title from my backlist to re-release. Rekeying is a pain...a really royal one...but considering not one person in my family has a computer that will accept the old 3 1/2 diskettes, there was no way around it. I certainly couldn't get the darn thing off the disk.

Not only is rekeying time consuming...and the sort of thing to bring out the worst in one's vocabulary when the book being rekeyed keeps closing on one...but rereading it to catch the typos is also a time consuming pain.

Particularly when you think you've found all the spots where fingers went heywire and then after loading the file to Kindle and cruise through it to see how it looks on a page -- BANG! there it is! A typo you missed.

This means, it's back to the master document, find the goof, fix it, reload, begin scrolling through the Kindle preview and...

Yup. Another typo.

I think I have re-uploaded this 15 times now. The first seven were getting the opening pages to look right. Once they fell into place it was those dratted typos.

This kills a lot of time, so it's a good thing there was nothing I wanted to watch on TV tonight.

Once the Kindle version was ready to go it was on to Pubit! to load the Nook one. At least I was fairly sure there were no typos by this time. Certainly didn't spot any when I did the preview, but I certainly wish that this system wouldn't kick out all the page inserts because I end up with "Chapter Five" at the bottom of a page and Chapter Five itself beginning on the following page.

My sister-in-law swears by her Nook, but I think I'll stick with my Kindle since Amazon's system appreciates all that time I took to make everything spaced out nicely. Not that I think it looks perfect either, but until I make a million bucks and can hire someone to professionally create these, I'll just have to be satisfied.

Now if only my fingers would learn to hit the right keys!

The Good, The Bad, and The Editing

I'll admit it. I base my success each day by the number of words I can burn onto the computer screen. Seeing them add up, stretching ever nearer that final goal of 90,000 words (which is my current goal) gives me a boost.

Unfortunately, those don't always turn out to be words worth keeping.

At times I find they are repeating what was already said, just using a different selection of words. Hmm, which to keep and which to reject, that is the question.

Other times it turns out I got carried away with description...and not in a good way. Delete, delete, delete.

My characters have bouts where they stand around and just talk and it's nothing more than shooting the breeze because it doesn't give any further information, it doesn't lead to action (unless putting me to sleep is what they intended), and while sometimes it is amusing when they toss quips back and forth, if it wasn't a productive (and this time not in word count) scene then it needs to be jettisoned.

Sadly, some of my favorite scenes exit for this reason.

But I'm not here to just hang out with my characters. I'm here to tell a story -- their story -- and ingrates that they are, the story that needs to be told should -- darn better! -- make them each a better person by the close.

Yeah, even if they aren't REAL people.

And so the other day I lost 200 words. Actually, I lost more than that, it's simply that what I put in their place was shorter and more to the point and thus the story was improved, but the word count tally took a step in the wrong direction.

Must not focus on that, must not focus on that.

Guess what though...I do focus on that! I'll bet that when a team loses a game they can't really be convinced that they learned to work better as a team that day...just at the end of the game when there wasn't a chance of turning the tables sufficiently to assure the win. No they say “we lost!”…200 words. Yeah, I do fixate on this. Shouldn’t, know I shouldn’t, but do anyway. Human nature?

It's all in our perception.

Sort of like trying to determine if all the partial manuscripts stuck in various files here on my computer are (sigh) half done or (yeah!) half done. I've never been able to figure which is the positive on those glasses that are half full or half empty though either. They simply need to be filled up, don’t they?

And this manuscript needs to be filled up -- but not with useless words. Not with words that will need to be edited out -- lost! -- later on. Oh, sure, there will be times when my characters get on a kick and kidnap me to take along for some fun, but for the most part I need to be firm. 

"Exactly what does this have to do with the storyline?" I must ask them sternly. If they look at each other and shrug or give me the grin that is supposed to seduce me to their way of thinking, I must be strong. 

Perhaps buy a whip and learn to make it sing. I'll bet with the sound of that crack! in their ears, the characters will fall in line and get back to work.

And in doing so, give me words that are worthy of being kept, thus ensuring that the freak-out over lost word count won't even have a chance to bud much less bloom into full flower.

Can dream, can't I?

Beth

The joys and frustrations of editing

Perhaps I'm thinking more about editing because I have a workshop that begins on Monday (Feb 6) called EDITING THE HECK OUT OF YOUR MANUSCRIPT at Savvy Authors (http://www.savvyauthors.com/ hint hint).

Perhaps it's because after having been away from the story I've been working on for a week, I've had to backtrack and reread to see where I left things and to get the feel of the story again.

At any rate, that backtracking lead to adding 226 words on a day when I thought I'd have a chance of writing ten times that amount in new words.

But the editing did do some things that needed to be done.

1) typos were caught, particularly the ones that the computer doesn't always consider a typo, like when my fingers are flying but not at the speed my brain is going and while I'll have typed a coherently (and correctly spelled) word, it isn't always the RIGHT word...or it turns out I left a word or two out, leap frogging to try to catch up to my brain

2) description was honed and expanded, particularly in action sequences where it really needed to SHOW what was happening and had been a bit too vague

3) verbs were sharpened as well

4) a previously unexploited element was worked into the story better -- which meant going back quite a few chapters to drop in some info and a short scene

And this was in a session where I thought I'd simply be rereading and picking up where I left off. Imagine what I'll find when I'm actually in editing mode.

Editing mode comes when I've read the story over from start to finish a couple times and, while catching a few things along the way, have gotten the enjoyment of reading the story out of my system. It isn't until I can look at it without going "oohh, yes, I like this part coming up" that I can actually do a good job at editing anything.

Oddly enough, I do my best editing when I've looked at the manuscript three different ways. No, I'm not talking about analytically, grammatically and dispassionately. I'm talking about on-the screen, printed out on paper and in book form.

Actually, a friend told me about the book form system. What's done is the manuscript is turned into a trade paperback and printed in single space, justified.

Strange that it looks so different considering it's the same words, the same story, but it does. I've caught things in this format that got right by me when editing it on a print out or on the monitor.

Yes, it takes a bit of formatting, but that can be handled simply. A change of paper size, a switch to single space and full justification, and loading it to a system such as Lulu.com's. Since you won't need to design a cover -- because this is going to only be a personal copy, not available to the public -- just go with the uninspired generic one with title and author that the wizard supplies. Yeah, you'll have to pay for this, but think of it as an ARC. Depending on how long your book is in pages once printed in book form, plus shipping, chances are you'll only be out $10 -- could be less, could be a bit more. It might take a week to arrive which gives you time to work on the query letter and any pre-promotion plans.

When it arrives, it's time to read once more. With a pencil in hand. If no errors jump out at you, there's always the backup of having a writer friend read through it with a pencil ready to mark it up. Do your final changes to the manuscript based on these final changes and the editing process is behind you.

Or it is until an editor wants a few tweaks, but that's an entirely different kettle of preparation for publication.

Beth

Where did you learn to write fiction?

Where did you learn to write fiction?

Odd question? Once, remember, there were no online workshops and the schools we were forced to go to didn't have creative writing classes, just ones about writing essays.

Today there is a plethora of online workshops -- heck I teach quite a few of them myself. And children in elementary school are writing short stories and illustrating them.

I date from before that time, unfortunately. Before the educators realized that dreaming up stories was as much an art as painting, sculpting, drawing, or dance or music. The closest I got to a class that was all about writing was journalism. Wonder whether that is where the tabloids came from -- writers longing to write fiction and told it had to sound like news. William Randolph Hurst did tell Frederick Remington to just draw the pictures and he'd write the war (Spanish-American) to go with them. Okay, so it's not verbatim, it's the gist of it though.

Okay, so I didn't have a specific course at school that taught me how to write fiction. And there certainly weren't a lot of writers organizations holding conferences (local, regional or national) that had workshops on their program (not that I could have afforded to attend as a teenager or even in my early 20s). But I still learned to write.

It was through reading and reading and reading and reading and reading. I learned through osmosis, by just being NEAR the written word and paying attention.

Not saying that I went through things word by word or line by line and exclaimed and made note of dialogue elements or description or pacing or any of those things. No, I just sucked it all in subconsciously.

And then began spitting it out on a page.

What took longer was learning how to make what I was writing fit into the marketplace, to understand that there were certain things that editors looked for to feed to their customers, the reading public.

"The hero can never ever say 'I love you' to the heroine in the middle of the book" I learned. "Description gives a reader a place to rest, particularly if the story is galloping along at a fast pace" -- which apparently my submission was doing. And perhaps the most encouraging "This isn't working for me as it stands but if you do this...and possibly this...and then...because..." Ah! Yes, got it.

And I "got it" because there was that "because" given. It was explained to me why something would work better. No one said, "show don't tell" because I was naturally "showing" because that is the way all the books I'd been consuming told a story. No editor said "action verbs rather than passive verbs" (which is good, because I wouldn't have known what the heck they were talking about based on my schooling) because I was using action verbs because they were in the stories I read. It was the nuances of plot that sometimes got away...mostly because by the time I was finishing and editing stories for submission there were things I was hearing, things like "we'd like to see something different." That wasn't necessarily true. What editors wanted to see was the same thing done with twist that they hadn't seen yet. Well, I don't blame them. They've got to get bored reading the same type of story over and over again. It's what sort of twist they were each hoping for that was the mystery. Perhaps even to them, which is why they were vague about it. "Something different" did not mean that the hero could be an actor, a musician, an artist (frequently mistakenly typecast as gay), a sports hero or...I found when I sent a proposal in...a college professor ("readers think they're overly intelligent, extremely smart" -- and doctors and lawyers weren't?).

Of course the market changes every ten years. It does the turn slowly until all of a sudden we find that tales of innocent heroines give way to "bodice rippers" which are then tamed down and women the equal of the hero are in vogue and then are replaced by kick-butt bad girls who take down paranormals or a return to innocence with the Amish and prairie romances. You can see similar movements in mystery, sci-fi, and fantasy, too. Evolution ain't dead in the book world, it's simply changing things by increments.

That's the tough part to learn, the tough part to stay on top of. The part that reading everything you can get your hands on or workshops or leaked information from organizations, sometimes just can't keep you up to snuff on.

Fortunately, we've usually got ten years to find it and work with it before it's old hat and out the door.

New Tricks for Old Dogs

Actually, the title I just gave this sounds like I'm going to force my feet to learn dance steps. Instead I'm trying to get my mind to adapt to something new -- social media (well, it's new to me!) -- and sort out what I want to gain from it, and thus what I have to put into it.

Blogs are one of those things. Actually, blogs are the easy part. Sorting out Facebook and Twitter are another. I've had to put Linked In and Goodreads on the back burner. Realized I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Yes, I know, terribly hack cliche, but hey! I looked like one. Mentally, anyway.

I'm slow to jump on most bandwagons. Conservative Midwesterner with more decades under my private bridge than I care to admit. I waited to see if the Internet took off -- really didn't think it would. Surprise!

Gravitated to online shopping really well but then after over a decade in retailing, I really don't like going into shops -- not even book stores. It's so much easier to go to exactly what I'm looking for via a Search.

Email appealed to me once I got the hang of it because, unlike so many others, I hate to be on the phone. If I have to make a phone call about something, the procrastination is worse than when I try to sit down to write! And that's pretty bad some days. My cell phone is only turned on when I want to make a call. I've got like a gazillion minutes saved up.

But social media? Isn't that rather like walking around with a cell phone on at all times and leaping to take every call that comes in? Or worse (to my mind) texting on those tiny little keyboards. I really don't have to be in touch with the entire world (okay, maybe not the WHOLE world) every waking moment. I've been a hermette too long and I like being a hermette.

I have a sneaking suspicion that now that I've pushed away from the dock in my social media ship that there will be one heck of a lot reading time lost...oh, and writing time, too! Social media is bound to become a procrastination element, isn't it? That's why so many complain that they don't get anything accomplished. Or so I understand from reading articles about it all.

However, finding my way around in this new world is pure heck on my equalibrium. As a safety net I bought books. Most are on my Kindle (BIG step to electronic books!). Trouble is, while I attempt to follow what it says on a page the Kindle gets tired of waiting and goes into snooze mode. I swear I can hear it snoring. At least with a book made from dead trees I could pile heavy articles around the edges to hold them open. What, I'd like to know, am I do with all those hefty paperweights now????!!!!

And why isn't there one of those combination question mark/exclamation points (the name of which escapes me at the moment) available in all fonts and on all keyboards?

Yes, I digress.

I'm really, really, really, really, really, really good at that.

And so, having now posted a blog entry -- as all the books told me to do -- and one that no doubt gives glimpses of my personality (is that good or bad? What page will tell me???!!!!) -- I have fulfilled one item on my spreadsheet of DID I DO THIS TODAY things.

Perhaps my recent crawl to spreadsheets will end up being another topic some day. So sad to be a pen and paper person in the electronic world. Weren't those sunspots supposed to wipe it all out and put us back in the pretech age? I'd cross my fingers over that except that heightened magnetics would wipe all all my half written novels, too.

Sigh.

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