Cut it out

After two years of writing my first draft of ‘The Almost Lizard,’ it was a huge relief to get the end of the book, despite knowing the massive job that was to follow. There was the initial pleasure of seeing the whole thing printed out in over 300 pages of Microsoft Word glory, creating a non-transportable slab of my work. A product, almost.




My biggest fear whilst writing it was how long it was turning out to be. I’d always planned to write a big story. Back when I was in the planning stage I adorned my bedroom walls with the plot – a general chronology, plus sheets on each character and their development, important dates for continuity and neat little lines that I wanted to incorporate into the story somewhere.



My protagonist is called Dan/Daniel/Danny (depending on which part of his life you are reading at that time), and the book is sectioned accordingly. I completed my wall sheets shortly before starting at a new job, where I made a friend in training called Dan. After work drinks carried on to my house, where (him being a muso) a traditional exchange of CD collections took place. I could only have known him for two weeks and he admitted afterwards to being a little concerned at the rather stalkerish looking sheets on my bedroom wall, emblazoned with his name (and apparently some fairly accurate statements about his life) and various nefarious incidents in a spider-diagram formation. Give him his due, he politely didn’t mention it, but I remember cringing after he’d left. We’ve discussed it since and he definitely found it a little bit sinister, so I’m relieved that I was able to prove that the stalker wallpaper pre-dated the time that I met him.



But the point is that it was a carefully planned novel and I always knew it was going to be lengthy. Inspired by the sorts of elaborate stories put together by John Irving, I wanted to tell a life story (albeit a life-story of a life cut short). Then I decided it was going to be an autobiography, and then all of the elements fell into place. I compiled all my files at the end and was relieved that the sum total was only 188,000 words. Methodical as ever, though, I’d missed one file which I discovered only when I printed the ‘complete’ first draft, which cranked the total up to 225,000 words.



Who is going to be interested in 225,000 words from an unpublished author?



The aim had always been to reduce it to a more agent-accessible 150,000 words, and the hacking process should hopefully get rid of some of the shite. I’m half way through now and I’d estimate about 20,000 words have fallen by the wayside. I was shocked to find that there was little padding in the book, though. I’d anticipated some late night ramblings that could have been culled, but it actually seems I’ve been pretty direct in telling the story, which just happens to be too long.



And this is the part that sucks. To appeal to the writing industry, you need to have something compact and marketable. You can’t go steaming out there with some epic novel when no-one knows who you are and won’t invest in you – apparently. Steve Toltz is a nice current exception to the rule, and there are plenty of other people out there writing the lengthy novels (Norman Mailer & Don DeLillo, for example) and doing very well with it.



The issue is of risk, though. I was once told by an agent that although my writing was good, I was unmarketable unless I’d won Big Brother or scored a winning goal for England. And that was with a novel that was on 112,000 words.



Which makes me think that we need to take things into our own hands, seeking similar reformations that have taken the music industry by storm. As writers, should we be going it alone, or in small packs, and doing it ourselves? Should we be getting ourselves published and organising readings, and bombarding people with reasons why they should read our work?



There’s a lot to be said for the traditional route – for approaching an agent for the validation that your work is good, or a publisher if you’re feeling a bit more direct. It suggests that you’ve been through a process and people can see the appeal in what you do. But that doesn’t mean they’re always right, or that we’re asking the right people. The issue with self-publishing is that some writers with X Factor numpty levels of delusion about their abilities can find their way onto bookshelves without the need for so much as a first edit. But if you think you’re good, and others (not just your immediate family and friends) can see that you have something, then perhaps it time to start thinking about challenging the way things are.



So if the agents and publishers won’t take risks, then the writers need to. That’s my logic. In the next few months I am working on ways to create a buzz around myself and my work. It may work, or it will (most likely) just get lost in the tides of other failed self-promotion exercises that take place in real-life and online every single day. The point is, should I really try and lose 75,000 words from a story when it’s only to appease the conventions attached to first time authors?



A solid edit is essential. A fairly objective reading of what you’ve done without being too precious is a must if you’re going to write something worth reading. Several edits, really. But if after all of that, the story just turns out to be a long story – there should be nothing wrong with that either.



After this edit I’m sending it to people, mainly with the question – what can I lose from this? I can hopefully engage some useful criticism from writing communities (that aren’t the rather odious mutual-back-scratching, time spent online over quality of writing, futile exercise that is Harper Collins’ Authonomy site – more on that another time) and see where that leaves me. I guess if an agent is put off by a lengthy tome then they’re probably not the ones to go for.



Just in case, though, I might get working on a novella.