Last year I mentioned that I read and loved Jasper Jones, a wise and funny coming-of-age novel set in Western Australia in the 1960s, written by the precociously talented Craig Silvey.  Jasper Jones has enchanted many besides me, so much so this novel, published in early 2009, remained in Australian best-seller lists in 2011.

I like reading about authors, so I Googled  Silvey and discovered that his first novel, Rhubarb, was published in 2004 to considerable  fanfare. Five years is a long time between drinks, especially for such a young man.  

Why?

I’ll let Silvey explain:

Jasper Jones began as a name that wouldn't let me go. I tried, but I couldn't shrug it away, and it began to occupy my thoughts at a time when they should have been elsewhere. I was in the midst of a slow moving second novel and living my own private sophomore slump. In short, I was panicking.
 
I had this insistent story buzzing with energy, but I was married to a sluggish behemoth that was burgeoning out of my grasp and gradually becoming more oblique in its scope and purpose. I had a decision to make: impulsively follow Jasper Jones down to his glade in the dead of night, or see this thing through which I instinctively knew wasn't working. For a fastidious little man who stubbornly needs to shepherd things to their bitter end, the decision was a difficult one. But Jasper Jones was beckoning me all too urgently, and, like Charlie Bucktin, I followed Jasper through the town of Corrigan with trepidation.
 
It’s a dreadfully difficult decision to abandon a work in progress, something you’ve invested so much time, imagination and emotion in, but like a love affair gone sour it’s usually wiser to step away, not to scramble to resurrect something that’s clearly not working.  In Silvey’s case his decision to follow Jasper was vindicated in spades. Jasper Jones looks on its way to becoming an Australian classic.   

Then only yesterday, I read a piece in the literary pages of the Sydney Morning Herald about journalist and author Carrie Tiffany, who has only just published her second novel—her first, Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living, won or was short-listed for many literary awards—after seven years.  In the meantime, while working full-time as a journalist, she wrote and subsequently binned an entire other novel because she wasn’t happy with it.  Wow!

Bucking the stereotype Tiffany is quite happy to continue with her day job, which she finds interesting. She actually says in the article. “I’m not sure about a career as a writer. I’m not interested in novels set in coffee shops.”

I am so grateful to these authors for showing there is another way; that we can take our time and produce a book we are happy with. If it's good enough the publishers & readers will still take notice.

In this era of the Kindle revolution I’m constantly reading blogs which are notionally about writing but actually more about marketing.  We are told to ‘build platforms’ and churn books out quickly so we can capture our readers, to write thrillers or romances because thriller and romance fans are the most voracious readers. Reality check-we can’t all be bestselling authors. There simply aren’t enough readers in the world.  And I don’t want to, nor do I possess the skills to, write thrillers or formula romance.  

After Happily Ever After? was published I received  fan letters begging me to write another novel soon.  I guess I’ve disappointed my little fan club, but at the time I’d already committed to writing another non-fiction book. That said I’ve been plodding away on my second novel for a while now and am technically more than a third of the way in.

Unfortunately I recently had a Craig Silvey moment.

Actually I lie. It wasn’t a moment; it was a long standing feeling of disquiet that something wasn’t working. I’d fallen out of love but—as is often the case—it took me way too long to admit it. This week I discovered exactly what was wrong.

I was rereading Writing the Breakout Novel,^* a decade old book by literary agent Donald Maass, when I reached Chapter 3: Stakes.

Maass defines stakes as ‘what could be lost’ and asks the writer to consider the following questions from a reader’s point of view:

“So what?” and “Why should I care?”

It is easy to create a need, a yearning that matters to your hero. What is more difficult is to make the need, yearning or goal matter as much to the reader.

I realised that was my problem. The writing was competent; the characters well-rounded, it was funny in parts, but the stakes were not high enough. Back to the drawing board...

Only a couple of days later I stumbled across a seemingly unremarkable article in a women’s magazine that told me what I needed to do.  Bingo!  I’ve found a way to make my heroine suffer more. She’s in for a rocky ride.

In other words I’m going to start again. Sorry to my legion (*cough*) of fans hanging out for my next work.

It’s not a complete waste. I’m keeping the same characters and setting, just changing the storyline. I’ll be able to rewrite some scenes to accommodate my characters’ new reality but sadly others (funny and clever others, sob!) will end up on cutting room floor. ‘Kill your darlings’ is the expression, isn’t it?

Still maybe some discarded scenes will find their way into future novels (written in my dotage at the rate I’m going). Who knows?

Has anyone else done this:  discarded a work a long way in?  And what is your opinion about output:  Do we need to produce a book (at minimum) every couple of years, or will our readers wait for us?

*I was almost embarrassed to buy this, as it seemed like I was ‘overreaching’ somewhat, but it was recommended in another respected writing guide.