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Mind & Body Update(s)

Posted 2:23pm Sat Jul 04, 2009 by Aaron Dunlap

Let it be known that everything I ever say is going to happen with that stupid book I wrote turns out to be a lie.

Since the last time I updated you, here's what's happened (in no particular order):

1. M+B is dead, long live M&B.
I have sacrificed much in the effort to keep the book titled "Mind + Body." People would pronounce it "Mind Plus Body" and I'd say, "No, it's Mind and Body."

"Then why is there a plus?" they ask.
"Because it looks cool," I'd say, hesitant to explain my true rationale.

Y'see, before there was a book, characters, or anything close to a plot, there was a book title and a book cover. I was maybe 14 at the time, but when I first decided to turn this story in my head into a real story, I had a vision in my head of the cover. It would be a shooting range target with two sets of crosshairs superimposed: one targeting the brain (mind), the other targeting the heart (body). One of those crosshairs would make a + in the title, "Mind + Body."

That idea fermented and cemented in my brain for years and acted as the impetus for me eventually writing the thing. Once I'd actually written it, and had John make a cover for me, I tried to explain my vision to him and he produced something less cheesy and more quaint. By that time, though, the + wasn't even an option. That's how it always existed in my mind.

But feedback indicated that the + is stupid. People think it means "plus," and even if they don't, it still seems like something a 14 year old would think of (*cough*).

So now, when referring to the book, I format it as Mind & Body. Once I started doing that, I started getting responses to query letters.

2. Rewrites (times a thousand)

With some feedback from literary agents who read the thing, I've come to the conclusion that I'm an egomaniac who falsely assumes everything he does is perfect the first time.

As you may know, when I wrote M&B in the first place I was posting every chapter online on a set schedule. This turned it into a sort of online serial novel, and seriously affected the pacing of the story. Some days I wouldn't feel like writing, so I'd put up a chapter of filler. I was always worried about people not being able to keep up, so I was constantly going over past events in the story, and I wanted people to keep coming back every week so everything ended in a cliffhanger that I'd occasionally go out of my way to produce.

Basically, I wrote it like a TV series.

Foolishy I assumed that I could just wrap a dustjacket around all that and call it a novel. That didn't really work, though.

If you're reading a book, you probably read the previous chapter 14 seconds ago and so don't need a "previously, on Lost" recap, and you probably don't appreciate a chapter in which nothing happens.

I also realized a few other problems, like the fact that absolutely nothing happens in the second half of the story, and that the big shocking reveal in the middle of the story isn't that shocking, and it takes too long to get there. Also, in the last half I set up a mystery that's never resolved, as I intended that to be covered in the sequel. That's just cheap, though.

So I dropped my current plan of just tidying up the existing chapters with better writing and began a process that I'm referring to as The Rewrite.

I'm making some serious changes to move the story somewhere more appropriate for a novel. Essentially, I'm adapting Mind & Body from an online serial novel into a real novel.

This is a tricky process, but I'm actually having a bit of fun with it.

The basic story is still going to be there, and a lot of the original writing will be there. What I'm most interested in is adjusting the pace of the first half, and the direction of the second half.

For an example of what's going on with the first half, there are two separate chapters pretty close to each other where Chris and Amy basically do nothing but talk about what's going on. Nothing happens between these two chapters, so I just replaced those two conversations with one.

As for the second half, I'm changing a lot as far as what mysteries are resolved. The story has quite a few mysteries and surprises, and I think I was a little off-target when I decided which ones to unveil and when. Looking at the story with an outsider's perspective, it seems that the ending doesn't really address any of the mysteries from chapter one.

This is a product of my wonky writing style, which was largely improvisational. Now that I can step back and look at the story as a whole, I can see these holes, and do my best to fix them. This time around, there should be better resolution to the matters of the key mysteries.

All that, and generally removing a lot of clutter and filler produced (again) by my wonky writing style.

When this is done, I'll submit it to a few literary agents again and possibly get this monkey off my back so I can get started on something else, sequel or otherwise.

Tobb

I always thought you added the as a toss to internet culture.

Aaron

Does internet culture like plusses?

I've never seen any reference to typographical internet specificities in something mainstream without it seeming trite or awkward, like those local news reports where they try to tell parents about the internet slang their kids are using, and it's a bunch of made-up stuff kids never use.

LGDSAKSH = Lets Go Do Shrooms And Kill Some Hobos

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Mind + Body © 2008 - Aaron Dunlap. Some rights reserved.