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If you join me here, youāll be taking a weekly deep dive in the psychology of drafting long form fiction. Who knows, the process may surprise you. What comes easily and what is hard? What kinds of choices am I making and why?
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I was deep into draft #3 of my novel, Madame B. when my agent said something that has stuck with me since.
āWhat does she want in this scene?ā she asked, referring to my protagonist, Nanette.
To be honest, the question irritated me a bit. Itās a party scene that builds to a big crescendo and, frankly, I was pretty pleased with the pace Iād set.
It takes place during their first week on Ibiza, when Nanette and her husband Daniel attend a blowout party hosted by the publisher of Danielās disastrous, unfinished magnum opus (the scene is at ~ page 30). Itās 1965 and things are about to get hairy.
Thereās tension enough, I thought, because of Danielās obviously fraught relationship with his work - the very reason theyāre on the island in the first place. My goal in that moment was to introduce a variety of characters who are particular to that specific place and that particular time and to build toward an unexpected scene climax (which impacts the trajectory of the book as a whole).
The party is raucous and sexy and surprising, and I was going for maximalism. For intensity and immersion.
After all, sometimes you have to set a scene, right? You have to create a sense of atmosphere and place readers squarely in space and time. At that stage of the story, Iām still just getting things going, I thought (defensively).
āBut Nanette should want something in every scene,ā said my agent. āEvery single scene.ā
āReally?ā I said, trying to disguise my impatience.
āReally,ā she said.

What do you think?
Why not pick up the book youāre reading right now and consider the last scene you read: does the protagonist WANT something in that scene, however minor it may be?
There are so many rules about how to write good fiction, and we all know rules are meant to be broken. But when should they be followed? Would following this rule about a constant accumulation of small and large desires in each and every scene make readers turn pages more readily? And does literary fiction always follow this āruleā?
Ultimately, I added a simple desire to that party scene: Nanette tries to corner Ralph the publisher to see if she can get some intel on what her husbandās up to. Heās been acting erratically and sheās wondering what heās hiding. It was a minor edit, just a tweak here and there. Nothing about the general trajectory of the scene itself changed.
The funny thing is, this one addition DID shake things up in a good way. It introduced a small but real charge that contributes to a sense of rising tension. I started thinking more about building āsuspenseā and how, why and when this happens.
Making readers turn pages
Iāve been in Europe with my parents (which explains the above picture from the Soaneās Museum - its history is fascinating, by the way). On my very first day, I wandered about the High Street popping into all the local charity shops (one of my favorite activities in London - I often find great vintage stuff).
Looking for books, I went into Oxfam; Iād been thinking about tension and suspense and the British author Sarah Waters had come to mind. I lazily scanned the shelves under āW.ā
Lo and behold I found a Ā£2 copy of her 2009 novel, The Little Stranger - this felt like providence. Iād read it years ago and loved it - while Iām generally not a fan of the supernatural, this book is a masterpiece of suspense. Itās filled with steadily rising dread and the twist at the end took me totally by surprise.
Knowing the resolution while re-reading was a great way to remind myself about how to create, sustain and escalate tension. If youāre at all interested in early 20th century British history, class conflict and crafting suspense, I recommend you read this book without reading more of a summary than the one below. Enjoy the surprises (and definitely donāt read anything about the movie, which is full of spoilers)!
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters: One postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country physician, is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once impressive and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. Its ownersāmother, son, and daughterāare struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become intimately entwined with his.
Heading home
Iām on the plane now, heading back to Key West after five months away. In just a few days, Iāll be in my new writing space (yay!), which is a little concrete shed surrounded by tropical plants in the garden of a cottage a few blocks from my home.
Iāll be working on figuring out what to do about my Sho Fu Den story⦠My interest in looking at class and immigration in America in the early 1920s has been driving all my ideas about plot, but now that alarm bells are ringing about my chosen topic, that might have to change.
Or does it???
A bit of tension is always appreciated in a beautifully set scene - I think they both are necessary for me at least as Iām a bit of a distracted reader who also appreciates poetic and visual sets so throwing crumbs towards a carefully laid tension or mystery gets me through books more easily
I love second hand shops too! I always think of my grandmother who would bring back ātreasuresā from the āsecunditasā as they are called in Chile. The writing process is so interesting -thanks for sharing it with us :)