“Time has transfigured them into Untruth”

I’ve really enjoyed today’s progress on The Sphinx Scrolls because it involved writing a new chapter for Ratty, who is a delight to write for. He’s back in England investigating something Ruby said to him enigmatically in Guatemala. She had quoted a line from a Philip Larkin poem about a medieval tomb on which two stone effigies lie hand in hand. Ratty had taken her to that tomb on their one and only disastrous date together back when they were undergraduates. After reading the poem to her and then suggesting that he and Ruby might spend eternity together like that she had scarpered very quickly.

“Time has transfigured them into Untruth” is the line from the poem that gets him thinking. She is trying to make a subtle reference to something important that Ratty would be able to understand but which would wash over the other person present. It has something to do with the significance of the Mayan stele he is trying to sell, and it’s enough to make him decide not to go through with the deal. And I have to do some research myself to find a way to fit all the pieces together. The tomb in question isn’t far from I live, so if I have time I might swing by there tomorrow and see if there’s anything useful for Ratty to notice that could shed some light on what Ruby means.

The new chapter has pushed the word count to almost 170,000. It’s comforting to see the novel grow once more after having cut so many tens of thousands of words some years ago. At least I can be sure that the sequences I cut back then added nothing to the story – they went off at right angles from the plot line, then simply doubled back to where they started. Cool scenes in themselves, but completely unnecessary to the success of the story. Whereas these new chapters (which mostly deal with subplots) I’m putting in here and there serve a dual purpose:

1. They interrupt the main plot at suspenseful moments to create a need to keep reading in order to find out what happens, and
2. They add layers of mystery, depth and intrigue to the story.

This particular new chapter I wrote today helps to delay a big plot revelation and feeds the reader a new mystery to keep those pages turning. I hope I’ll have the Philip Larkin connection all figured out by the weekend, otherwise I’ll be keeping my character Ratty larkin’ about in a cathedral in a state of befuddlement. And that’s not unlike how I expect to be when I start researching the tomb tomorrow.

A new chapter emerges

I had a lively debate with my better half this morning about whether there was any point in inserting a new thread into the story if I didn’t know exactly how it was going to play out later in the book. She thought it made sense to take the time to work out exactly when and where this new storyline would appear and how it would affect the main plot and the characters. In a book of 166,000 words I simply can’t calculate the intricacies of those events in advance. But I have a tried and tested system of redrafting that involves the introduction of a new theme, followed by a systematic edit sweep of the whole novel during which I bring in instances of the new theme wherever it seems appropriate, and I adjust dialogue, actions, and plot devices as I come across them.

When I get into a routine of daily writing I find that the book comes alive in my head to the extent that complicated plot situations resolve themselves while I’m driving, having a bath or even fast asleep. It’s not unknown for me to wake up with a brilliant new twist or scene to add to the book. So sometimes the impact of a new theme in the story can be arrived at subconsciously.

Characters speak to me when they are fully developed. They each have their own voice, their own vocabulary: great characters have sufficiently distinctive turns of phrase that you know who is speaking without being told. You can chuck them into a situation and let their own dialogue flow from them according to the personality traits, attitudes, fears, ambitions and motives that you as the writer have already given them. Changing a theme or adding a subplot requires changes in dialogue, but the characters are very helpful in dictating those changes themselves.

So back to the ‘lively debate’: OK, so I might end up writing pages that end up being cut in a later draft because they don’t lead to anything worthwhile. It’s happened to me before and I’m sure it will happen again (see my comments about ‘bonus features’ in novels in yesterday’s blog). But if a chapter doesn’t work it won’t harm the final product because it won’t be in the book by then. The worst that will happen is that I write something that doesn’t work and have to cut it.

Anyway, I wrote the beginning of a new thread in the story today. It’s a 600 word short chapter, and it was horribly difficult to get right. I rewrote the first paragraph dozens of times, trying to establish a tone and style that was appropriate for the scene. I think I’ve got there in the end, but it’s getting late as I write this and my judgement is getting cloudy, so I’ll probably review it tomorrow and rewrite it again. The scene is about the significance of a broken stele (an ancient stone tablet engraved with enigmatic writings). The owner, Lord Ballashiels (known as ‘Ratty’) wants to sell it to the sinister Professor Otto, but something Ruby Towers, the archaeologist, said to him has made him realise its true importance. When he tries to back out of the deal tensions rise and Ratty fears for his safety. So what is the significance of this Mayan stele? What is this new thread which will obviously play a major role in the novel? Why does Otto want it so badly and why has Ratty changed his mind and decided not to sell it?

Let me go and take a bath, and then I’ll sleep on it.