Friday
Apr162010
Hang on... I wrote that???
Friday, April 16, 2010 at 7:53AM
Here's a jokey exchange from Facebook the other day....
James Gracie Damn you. You had me up until 3am reading The Villa of Mysteries. Just had to finish it.
Me Well if it's any consolation I wrote that eight years ago and barely remember it myself. I am thereby absolved of all blame.
I'm sure everyone thought... yeah, right. But it's true honestly. And I think it's true for lots of authors too. We have a very strange relationship with our past work. They're ships or lost lovers that passed in the night. Once they're gone, they're gone. You remember their names but not an awful lot more.
This is one reason why I frequently struggle when readers come up to me at an event and ask questions about something I wrote five or six years ago -- or eight, in the case of The Villa of Mysteries. It's not just that the detail of the book is missing. It's the context -- the why it got written.
Why is this? I suspect because in order to write a new book it's important to clear your head of everything that gets in the way. That includes the thing you've just turned out. Yes, if it's a series it's vital to maintain continuity -- how people look, act, speak. But that's something for the book diary (you are keeping one, aren’t you?).
The past book itself has to go. It wasn't like that in the early days. I used to agonise over the things -- what should I have changed, how could I have made it better? Now I'm old enough to realise that's pointless. On very rare occasions you get a chance to take a second look at a book when it comes back into print ages later -- I'm doing that with Death in Seville which will be substantially rewritten from the original Semana Santa when it reappears in November.
But mostly writers live in the present. The only work that matters is the one you're writing (except when you go on the road and have to talk about something you've probably already forgotten).
So glad you liked that old book of mine, James. But I meant it. I can't remember it much at all. And I am therefore absolved of all blame for your sleepless night, though I'd quite like the credit if that's OK.
James Gracie Damn you. You had me up until 3am reading The Villa of Mysteries. Just had to finish it.
Me Well if it's any consolation I wrote that eight years ago and barely remember it myself. I am thereby absolved of all blame.
I'm sure everyone thought... yeah, right. But it's true honestly. And I think it's true for lots of authors too. We have a very strange relationship with our past work. They're ships or lost lovers that passed in the night. Once they're gone, they're gone. You remember their names but not an awful lot more.
This is one reason why I frequently struggle when readers come up to me at an event and ask questions about something I wrote five or six years ago -- or eight, in the case of The Villa of Mysteries. It's not just that the detail of the book is missing. It's the context -- the why it got written.
Why is this? I suspect because in order to write a new book it's important to clear your head of everything that gets in the way. That includes the thing you've just turned out. Yes, if it's a series it's vital to maintain continuity -- how people look, act, speak. But that's something for the book diary (you are keeping one, aren’t you?).
The past book itself has to go. It wasn't like that in the early days. I used to agonise over the things -- what should I have changed, how could I have made it better? Now I'm old enough to realise that's pointless. On very rare occasions you get a chance to take a second look at a book when it comes back into print ages later -- I'm doing that with Death in Seville which will be substantially rewritten from the original Semana Santa when it reappears in November.
But mostly writers live in the present. The only work that matters is the one you're writing (except when you go on the road and have to talk about something you've probably already forgotten).
So glad you liked that old book of mine, James. But I meant it. I can't remember it much at all. And I am therefore absolved of all blame for your sleepless night, though I'd quite like the credit if that's OK.
Reader Comments (7)
Well I'm totally absorbed in your Cemetery of Secrets and, as a newcomer to your books, you did recommend I start with that title so I'm guessing you remember a bit about it. It's an excellent read.
I remember a bit more about that because it's the first book I wrote in Italy, though it was started in 1999 so it was a while ago. Glad you're enjoying it.
David, you may well forget individual books, but (unless your work is even bloodier than the lady whose Roman holiday you destroyed with your violent writing suggests) as a series writer, you have characters who recur. How do you handle continuity?
As always... the answer is the book diary. I just used to copy passages describing characters from one book and keep them so I could go back and read them again if necessary. But honestly -- after ten books with these people I don't need that any more. The regulars are in my head. I can hear them speaking as I write.
It's not so much voice that I have problems with as detail - was his father a banker or a lawyer, is that knife scar on the right or left arm etc. I started to keep a little two column spreadsheet of character details, but haven't been good about keeping up with it.
I'm sure you're going to say "the answer is the book diary"...
Two of the reasons I took up this strange profession....
1. Never again to have to wear a tie
2. Never again to have to look at a spreadsheet
Yep - it's a book diary for me. The other thing I'm rigid about is copying over the exact text about characters from earlier books - not what I think is their description. Readers only know them by the words, not what we know. Seems to be a way to remind myself of that.
I'm revising a book that I wrote in 2005. Editors liked it but didn't love it. It was missing something. So when I went back to it last month, I had to reread the whole thing because I couldn't remember what happened through most of it. My three first readers could (a good sign) but I couldn't sum up anything but characters and a few key scenes.
But I also have a terrible active memory for books period. I enjoy them and absorb them. Can't call anything up unless prompted. Give me a test on a book and I'll ace it. Otherwise I've got nothing.