The new draft I mentioned in January was short-lived. Within a week, I was working on another new draft based on more feedback from the publisher. While the latest draft is not complete, the first third or more is finished and this addresses the bulk of the concerns that were raised. (Or so I hope!) I’ll be making these first 100 pages available to a couple of beta readers to get their input.
A lot has been going on this past month with the coronavirus, emergency shutdowns etc. It’s a pretty stressful time for everyone. So with that in mind, I offer a few pieces of advice for those who are so inclined:
▪ Practice gratitude. Let’s not mince words, we are in a shitty situation. Possibly the worst the world has faced in generations. Nonetheless, every day I find things for which I am grateful and I write those down. Today I am grateful that I finished revising a major scene in the book, that I’m back home in Michigan with my wife and that my father (who’s 89 and living in Florida) is in good health. Also, I had some leftover Taco Bell. To each his own, right?
▪ Get outside. No matter where you are, if you can get outside in nature for fifteen minutes, that helps. If you can exercise, so much the better.
▪ Go on a news diet. Today I skipped the NY Times, WSJ and all other news. I feel much calmer.
▪ Reach out and stay connected. You may be under a lockdown situation, so are others. So reach out to friends and family over email, phone, text, slack etc. (Hence, my excuse for sending this update.)
As always, thank you for your support of this project. If you want to drop me a line and tell me what’s going on your world, how you’re coping, what you’re reading etc, I would love to hear from you. Don’t hit reply, instead add a comment to this web page or send email to me at ZUrlocker@hotmail.com or whatever email address you have on file for me.
--Zack
PS. Here’s a picture of our dog Roxie who passed away last fall, but can still cheer us up. This was taken on the first day of spring in Michigan last year.
It’s been a while since the last update, and I’m happy to report that a new draft of the novel is complete. I put it aside for a couple of weeks, while I was busy with a work project and finished re-reading it yesterday. The story has come together much better than the earlier drafts. On the advice of my publisher, I stripped out quite a few complications that were cluttering things up.
That said, there’s still work to be done. It’s possible that things were pared back a bit too much. I need to spend some time beefing up the opening chapters to give them more breathing room and adding more depth to the main character, detective Jack Waters. But it’s the first time I’ve re-read a new draft and not been embarrassed. So definitely good progress.
I don’t when the next round of edits will be completed, it’s likely going to take a few months. I will also likely tap into a couple of beta readers to provide an objective perspective. The publisher has set a very high bar for this book and I want to make sure it is as good as it can be.
In the meanwhile, thank you for all your support and encouragement. This has been a tougher project than I ever expected, so thank you also for your patience.
--Zack
PS. I attended BoucherCon, a mystery writers conference in October and met a many authors including fellow Canadian David Morrell, who wrote the book First Blood, which became the basis for the Rambo series.
I promised the publisher I would submit the new draft by the end of June and I’m glad to report I was able to beat that deadline by ten days. The latest draft is 82,000 words or 300 pages, which seems about right. (By comparison, this is longer than most works by Raymond Chandler or Agatha Christie, but on par with more contemporary works by Anthony Horowitz or Michael Connelly.)
While the core historical fiction murder mystery is the same, there are two major new sections in the book. The scientists at Blakely Labs have been working on something called a Z-Machine since before the war. The Z-Machine is one of those odd contraptions that, if successful, enables man to go beyond the normal realm into so-called higher dimensions. Jack Waters uses the Z-Machine to travel back to 1945 to the liberation of the Mittelwerk underground factory. And at a later point in the book, well, let’s just say he travels someplace else and leave it at that.
This draft proceeded at a rapid pace as a result of a detailed outline. I also had a bit of a secret weapon with my co-author Roxie. She’s not a great typist, but she has a way with dialogue. I’ll be taking a couple of weeks off writing as I wait for feedback from the publisher and do some more research. After that, no doubt another draft…
Thank you again for your support. If you have questions, comments or feedback feel free to send me email to ZUrlocker@gmail.com
—Zack
As I alluded to in the last update, there was a bit more work required on the outline after reviewing it with the publisher. After a couple more weeks of staring at the screen, frowning and jotting down notes, I was able to break out of outline jail. Getting back to the writing has been a joy. Nonetheless, the time spent on the outline helped me to really get to know the characters.
It’s still the same 1950s noir murder mystery with detective Jack Waters investigating the death of a scientist at Blakely Labs. However, there’s a stronger historical component this time around. There’s a new character Jordan Waters, Jack’s twin brother and partner in the detective agency. There are also some important new scenes that show the brothers back in Germany, 1945 at the liberation of the underground Mittelwerk factory. This is a pivotal scene that explains much about the characters and Waters’ connection to the dead scientist.
The outline has 70 scenes, some of which are explained in a paragraph, some are a half page or longer. Although revising the outline was difficult, it has made the writing process quite a bit easier. So far, there has only been one minor deviation from the outline and that was to delay one scene until after a couple of others. Generally speaking, unless I’m waiting for feedback, I’m writing 7 days a week. Sometimes it’s on an airplane, sometimes it’s late at night, but there are no days off. On a good day I can clock between 2,000 and 3,000 words.
Currently, I’m about 42,000 words (roughly 150 pages double-spaced) into the new draft, or 42% of the way through the outline. At this rate, this draft should be complete by the end of June. The publisher asked me to do a check-in before getting too far, so I’ve submitted the completed portion of the manuscript. However the writing starts up again tomorrow morning. The next batch of scenes resume in 1950 at the site of the murder as Jack Waters learns more about what the scientists at Blakely Lab have been up to. As to be expected, it’s pretty dangerous stuff. And weird.
Meanwhile I’m passing along a book for other aspiring writers called “Into the Woods: A Five-Act Journey Into Story” which I heard of on the British Podcast “The Bestseller Experiment.” This is a very well written analysis of story structure by BBC TV producer and script editor John Yorke. Unlike a lot of books on screenwriting, this is not a how-to formula. Instead he explains why certain structures are used and their impact on the story.
Thank you everyone who has supported this project. I’ll keep you posted on progress in the coming months. Let me know if you have questions about the story or the process.
—Zack
For anyone seeking a bit of inspiration in their own writing, BXP is the best podcast I’ve found on writing: informative, entertaining and motivational. What more could you ask for? It’s the ongoing story of two middle-aged blokes in their quest to write and and publish a bestselling novel called “Back To Reality.” They’ve done some great interviews with a number of authors I admire, including Ian Rankin, Joe Hill, Michael Connelly, Taylor Jenkin-Reid and more.