Chita, or One Minor Character, One Major Problem

"Mrs. Hauser, I want two weeks pay like always."
The voice belonged to Chita, the home care nurse who'd been watching over Angela's mother the past month. Mama had suffered a massive stroke that spring, and Chita became Doctor Robert's first choice for a nurse. Why she suddenly felt a need to discuss her weekly pay escaped Angela. She gave Chita a check every other Friday for two week's work.
"Of course I'll pay you for two weeks," Angela said. "Why wouldn't I?"
"I'm gone. You don't know this?"
"Gone? What do you mean?"
"You don't be talking to your sister?"
"Not today. No."
"She goned me."
"She what?"
"She goned me. You know. She makes me go."
"You mean, she fired you?"
"What?"
"She took away your job?"
"Yes. I tell you this. She goned me."
Angela could hardly believe she might be hearing correctly. ...

Where on Earth is Chita supposed to be from? I was so distracted by the choice of names that I never noticed until right now that we do know when Mama had her stroke: "that spring." Really?! The woman had her stroke just a few weeks ago? Because they don't act like it at all. With her "long white hair," I would have assumed she had the stroke five years ago. Angela wants to smother her with a pillow after only a few weeks? Bev fires Chita after only a few weeks? These are some crazy impatient women... But back to the ill-conceived Chita.

Is she a Gungan? She cannot possibly be Hispanic. She seems to have a mish-mash of "not Middle America" dialects. Which makes me think that, like Jar Jar Binks, she is a poorly conceived, more-horrifying-than-funny minor character who would cause anyone in her right mind to shut the book and throw it in the trash.

Jar Jar Binks, the goofy character from Episode I of the Star Wars saga, at least comes back to justify the need for him to be so stupid in Episode II. The idiocy of Chita never remotely serves a purpose. Bev could have just as easily fired a home nurse who spoke intelligently. The author could have learned what a "Spanish accent running full throttle" really sounds like. But, mainly, there are other ways to get Angela to show up on Bev's doorstep.

The above excerpt is almost her entire time in the novel—a short blip in a long story—but Chita's appearance is the kind of pothole that will rip off a wheel or a speed bump that will gut your car. The one person who really sounds moronic is the writer.

Gardening

My husband has begun reading the novel. We're not sure if he'll finish. Having started the novel, he felt he could finally come to the blog. And now the blog has gotten it into his head that there is nothing redeeming about the novel. I assured him there is no payoff. He's read 40 pages. That's enough for me. When we all sign the front inside cover of a copy as a memorial to time lost on this novel, he can sign his name.

So there we were yesterday, him reading the blog and me trying to enjoy doing nothing, when it popped into my head: Gardening. Why are BOTH of these women gardening in the story?

You might think this is a trivial complaint, but this is a trivial blog. Bev lives in her mother's house. That is her garden. What is Angela doing meddling with the landscape? Shouldn't this be something they fight about?

There are a myriad of reasons why a woman getting a divorce would be out spending gobs of money at the garden center and toiling away in the backyard, but these reasons do not surface. Again, it's thoughtless writing. You needed Angela to leave the house, so she goes the nursery. But we never see Angela planting the flowers she purchases. We actually don't even see her at the nursery. We just know she spends the entire day there and a young man tries to help her carry the load to her car based on what she says later.

We see Bev in the garden. Is she working out all the frustrations of her life, trying to do something productive or beautiful to counter all the dirty adult diapers and lack of response from Mama? No. Bev just happens to be gardening.

Could it be that both characters are gardening because you were gardening while you wrote this novel? And both characters are you?

That was my husband's first thoughts on the novel. "They're all pieces of her personality. Angela, Bev and Carolyn—they're all [the author]."

"Who's Carolyn?"

My husband seemed dumbfounded by this question. He's 40 pages into the story. He's just read about Carolyn, a.k.a. Miss Nevada. I assure him he will forget her name and the title of the book in another 50 pages.

So you only write what you know, which means that your characters aren't very good caregivers or wedding coordinators or mistresses or teenagers because you are none of those things. You go shopping at nurseries and buy plants, though. So now your characters do, too. Exciting...

We've figured out what the payoff should be: All of the characters are one person. They are all Mama. She is actually in a nursing home already and dreams the whole thing. She has no daughters, no grandchildren. She is just babbling in the corner to that portrait of Jesus. The end. Ta-daaa...

The Front Cover

May 19, 2009

Hi

I'm just writing to let you know I found the actual cover image the people at Lulu created.  I'm attaching it to this note so you can see it.  I think it is very simple but poetic.  I think it works well for the story.  I am happy with it.  I let them know I'm happy, but I asked them to move my name to the bottom of the page and write, "A novel by [author]."   I hope they will do this.  But the cover problem is solved.  Let me know what you think of it.

I was also happy with the back cover.  They printed my synopsis for the novel.  Excellent.

That's all the news.

love,

[author]

First off, for the sake of people everywhere who might be wondering, "Should I pay Lulu to design my book cover?" the answer is NO. If you are a writer, you should not design your cover. (Sure, you might be talented or have a great idea, but my past experience as a Jane-of-all-trades has taught me that doing too many things for one project waters down the final result. You should not be the writer, editor, and designer for the same book unless you plan to give yourself the full amount of time each of those jobs requires.) And while I'd like to think that a publishing company knows better than anyone what is going to sell, this publishing company does not. After all, they will publish ANYTHING. They publish on demand. Do you need a cover designed for your book? Contact me. My 5-month-old son can grasp objects and push buttons. He could design a better cover for less than $80.

May 5, 2009

Today I tried to get my book published on the Lulu publishing site. I'm not sure if I succeeded. They asked me to download the file for my book and I did that. Then they wanted me to download a copy of the book jacket.  I did that, too.  A moment later I was paying $80 to have them custom design my jacket. They say this will help the book sell better than if they use the jacket I came up with.  After that I was tossed to a page that showed my order and I don't know if that means they plan to publish my book or not. There were no other pages after this.  I have no idea what is happening. I guess I won't know for another couple weeks or more. I hope they e-mail me to let me know what is going on.

So obviously, you, the author, have a lot of problems. I didn't even know where to start. We had already talked on the phone about this. You told me about self-publishing websites like they were the new. Next you'll tell me there's this great new site for social networking...

I can see nothing has changed since the phone call. You still have no idea what you are doing. One downloads from and uploads to a website. Are you downloading a template or are you uploading your manuscript and design?

What will an $80 custom-designed book jacket get you? Are they going to read the manuscript? How many rounds of revisions do you get? What sort of input do you have? A library of royalty-free images does not make for a winning design.

You're hoping they will email you to let you know what is going on... They have your credit card number. They're done with you. On to all the other unemployed fools hoping to make a buck peddling their crap on the Lulu marketplace.

On the phone, I would ask you why you didn't contact me about designing the book cover. My husband would be offended you hadn't thought of him—he's been designing even longer than me. But you've known me almost 30 years. Why didn't you think to contact me? "I didn't want to be imposing," you'd say. There's a way to not be imposing and still get a great cover.

All these months later, I now realize you didn't think to ask me to design the cover because you knew I would say I needed to read the manuscript. And then I would know what crap this novel is. Then I'd tell you not to publish it. And then what would you do? So instead you paid Lulu to design the book cover. Then you paid them almost another $300 so you would have the privilege of speaking to someone at the compnay over email.

Oh, wait, wait, wait. The above paragraph implies that you are aware you're dealing with a self-publishing company. You are not. You are under the impression that Lulu is the name of your magical agent who has finally signed you to a big time deal. You can't ask people you know to design the cover because that's not the way this business works. You can't tell your agent you have someone in mind. You just trust your agent and your publisher's judgment. Lulu will take care of you. Lulu promised to promote your book on Amazon. Obviously, Lulu is already lining up those interviews and book signings.

I tried to be nice when I responded to your "I don't know what's going on!" email in May. I wrote:

Lulu only publishes your book when someone has paid for a copy of it. If you paid them to design the cover, approve the design, and upload the rest of the content (who's laying out all the pages inside?), they will publish it after an order is placed.

You did not respond.

A few days after sending you the crappy snapshots I took to serve as your author's photo, you send me the email that starts this entry. You've attached a docx file. I try a dozen different programs, but nothing on this computer will open it. I send it to other people. All we can get is a tiny preview. I'm dying to know if the yellowish-green strip across the top says "PROOF" or if that's really part of the design. I write back...

Hi,

My computer doesn't know what to do with a docx file, so all I can see is the tiny preview. But I'm happy to hear you're pleased with the results of their design.

Love,

[me]

Every few weeks, I search Lulu and Google for your book. I have to see this cover. One day it finally shows up on Lulu:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/offing-miss-nevada/7056098

Really? You paid money for that? Is this close to what you originally designed on their site or wildly different? Because I'm pretty sure any monkey could have typed your name and the title into default settings, made a random selection from the color wheel, and called it a design. What is that? And you paid them! Why can't they put "A Novel by [author]" wherever it is you want them to put it? Isn't this supposed to be custom-designed?

(Listen up, search engines...) You paid Lulu. For a custom cover design. Why isn't your name where you say you want your name to be? No one should ever pay Lulu for a cover design. Ever. If you, the random person who stumbled upon this blog, need a cover designed, contact my husband. If you need an editor, contact me. If you need your cover to look like poop, I have a baby with dirty diapers. I'm serious about all three of those offers. http://madelinestrum.com/contact

Emailing the Author

Is it cowardly to publicly post what I can't tell you to your face? I don't think so. I would love to tell you all of this. To be there to have a drink and let you cry on my shoulder that writing does not come as easily to you as you would like.

But you do not listen. All my life you stressed how important it is to be a good listener, but that's only because you know you are a terrible listener. Maybe if you had been listening earlier in life, you would not be at this point—stubbornly trying to hock the first draft of your first novel.

So here I am, publicly stating what is really very private. Unfair? Perhaps. But I'd like to know I'm not crazy. And the only chance for that is to come here and release all the thoughts taking up real estate in  my head.

To try to be more fair to you, I emailed you after my last post.

Hi,

In the past, you've never welcomed any of my suggestion with great enthusiasm, but I still feel compelled to throw in my two cents on this idea of cutting 10,000 words. I think you could easily cut 250 pages. Pick one sister to be the main character and delete everything from the other sister's point of view.

I'm not sure which aunt of mine told you that the story was too long, but I'm sure she would support the notion that reading everything a second time didn't add much to the story overall.

Yeah, cut half the material and you'll actually end up with twice the story.

Later.

Love,

[me] 

You wrote back after a few days.

Hi

I got both your messages.  I'm not sure what you mean when you say there were complaints in the past.  Complaints from whom?  I didn't get any.

You may be right about the cutting the novel by cutting one sister's story. I'll have to give that a try, but I think it would really spoil the story.  I think cutting it down to 89,000 words is good enough.

Nothing else new.  Stay in touch.

love,

[author]

Ummmmm... Huh?

Hi,

> I'm not sure what you mean when you say there were
> complaints in the past. Complaints from whom?  I didn't get any.

Huh? Now I have no idea what you're referring to.

> You may be right about the cutting the novel by cutting one
> sister's story.

I'm not saying you cut a sister's story. Just pick one to be the narrator's perspective. Then you'll have a whole 200-250 pages to really dig into the problems these characters face.

Later,
[me]

It's been four days. You have not responded. Not even to ask me if I heard about the freak earthquake in your town. You must really not want to hear anymore about suggested changes to your novel. Which is unfortunate. Because I'll just keep publishing them here.

Cutting 10,000 Words

Last night I called to talk to you. Earlier in the week I emailed to ask what I should do with the book now that I've finished reading your novel. But in the phone call, you asked if I had started reading it yet.

You sounded excited. Like here might be one person who was going to tell you she loved it. All week, I had been expecting you to sound annoyed.

So, I said I finished it. You said you must not have gotten that email.

"Did you enjoy the part with preparing for the wedding?"

I haven't discussed that part on this site yet, but you were referring to the subplot of a wedding that Angela is planning for a couple who fights whenever they are in her office. Enjoy? "Not really," I said.

"You're not giving me much hope here for reaching a younger audience," you said.

Ignoring how you didn't asked why I didn't enjoy that part (or the rest of the novel), I instead reminded you that I'm not really the "younger" audience anymore. I'm almost the same age as your main characters and hitting the tail end of the 18-35 demographic. But you don't want to think you're "Mama" now and not "Angela" or "Bev," so you blew off my comment.

"I'm working on cutting 10,000 words," you said. "I'm hoping this gives me a better chance with agents. Your aunt said it was too long. That there's too much dialogue. It reads like a screenplay. And that Bev doesn't sound tired enough."

You rambled. I couldn't even ask which aunt you were talking about. When you stopped to take a breath, I went with the more important question: "What are you sending to agents? The description from the back?"

"A blurb from the back, yeah. My synopsis."

I groaned. Audibly.

"Anything else new?" you asked. You were done talking about your novel. It's obviously not meant for me because I am neither going through a divorce or caring for an elderly parent. Otherwise I would relish it, as the back of your book says.

So now what? Do I let it go? Do I tell you that you really have no hope with the novel in the condition it's currently in? That you're wasting all your time and money? That if you just add the word "tired" a dozen times, it will make Bev only more unlikeable?

Cutting 10,000 words is not the solution. Starting over, picking one main character, and actually dealing with the problems is the way to go.

The Title

I've never liked the title. Doh! If I put it here, you could search and find this blog. And then your bubble might be burst. Argh. How am I supposed to write about how much I dislike this title...?

I've read other stories and seen movies where I completely forget about the title. But this... The title implies that a beauty queen is going to be murdered. That back of the book says nothing about this beauty queen. Or a pageant. Or a murder. What's going on here?

The first main character nicknames her husband's crush "Miss Nevada." No one within the novel gets the joke. (Yeah, seriously.) Once or twice every hundred pages there's a reference to Miss Nevada and we wonder, Who?

This is the title character. Angela wants to kill her—but not really. She's not really plotting her murder because then she would be DOING something. But there it is in the title, regardless. "Offing." Like this is 494 pages of plotting to kill "Miss Nevada," a woman who is not a beauty queen and has no deep ties to the state of Nevada.

"Offing" is such a strange word. How many people actually would look at that title and think this is a story about killing someone? Would most people look at that title and think, What?

I've finished your novel and can assure everyone it has little to do with Miss Nevada or offing her. Angela seethes over the presence of this woman in her life, but 99 percent of the novel is spent following Angela and Bev through a series of ridiculous situations that have nothing to do with their mother's long-term care or Angela's failing marriage.

Like everything else, the title needs work. It rolls around awkwardly on my tongue and sounds a lot like "awful."

Describing the Book (The Back Cover)

I realize by now that if someone were to stumble across this blog, she might think that "Problem 1" and so on is a reference to what I think is wrong with your novel. But really, I'm only trying to address the problems you outline in your own description on the back of the book. *sigh* The back of the book is its own calamity.

In this first novel, [author] tells a tender, sensitive tale about a dysfunctional family facing a variety of problems. The biggest problem involves the main characters, sisters Angela and Bev. They are taking care of their elderly, bedridden mother. Angela wants Mama moved to a nursing center. Bev wants her to stay at home where she can care for Mama and pursue a passion for positive thinking. The sisters fight about this problem all the time. Set in the posh town of La Greer Park, Angela works as a wedding coordinator. She has problems with her own marriage, since she suspects her husband has cheated and this is what makes her move in with Mama and Bev. Add to this relationships with teenaged children that don't always please Angela. It's a novel that will be relished by anyone taking care of an elderly parent, as well as anyone facing divorce. It's a timely novel with many twists and turns that force a person to think long and hard about the value of marriage and family. This story is told with a unique voice that will be remembered well after the final page is reached. It's a story that will teach a valuable lesson about love and what we all need to know to be successful at it.

Um... What's this book about?

Is this the description you've been sending to agents? And we're supposed to be surprised you had to self-publish?


Okay, okay. I said I wanted to be able to help someone else avoid the same pitfalls if possible. So, here we go... The first sentence is ridiculous. Not only because you use "tender, sensitive tale" like this is a parody of a back cover, but also because you seem to have so little grasp on what this story is about that you simply say they are "facing a variety of problems."


The next sentence—"The biggest problem involves the main characters..."—sounds like it was taken from a third grade book report.


At this point, it should be clear that the entire description needs to be rewritten. You are trying to sell this book. Rather than tell us you are a masterful writer, write a real summary in that unique voice you claim to have. If you want sentences that rave about who will relish this story and how memorable your writing is, then find a reviewer.


Oh my god. Does it actually say "many twists and turns"? That's false advertising.


Before you posted this description online, before I received my copy, I knew this book was going to be outdated. It annoys me to no end that you claim this is a "timely" novel.


"It's a timely novel with many twists and turns that force a person to think long and hard about the value of marriage and family."


I don't want to think long and hard about a novel I'm reading for entertainment purposes. I know you filed this under literature, but have I mentioned it reads like an un-funny comedy? Your characters face real problems that they choose to not deal with. THEY don't even think long and hard about the values of marriage and family. You need to go back to the drawing board with this story before you can sell it.


For the sake of trying to be helpful, I think the description (and I'm blogging, so this should be a terrible rewrite, too) should read more like...

As a wedding coordinator, Angela refuses to guarantee happily-ever-afters. She will get you the wedding day of your dreams, but the rest is out of her hands. When she discovers a letter from her husband's high school crush alluding to their secret reunion, though, Angela has to figure out how to make that happily-ever-after happen for herself.

Bev wants to be happy. But as the stresses mount from being a single mom to her teenage daughter and a full time caregiver to her vegetative mother, she needs more than positive thoughts to see her through the day.

It seems neither Angela nor Bev will get what she wants when Angela moves in. The sisters fight about everything. Whether Mama should be in a nursing home, how Angela should handle her marital problems, and how to deal with their teenage children. Can they resolve their differences before...

Yeah. That's about as far as I can get. Your story is lacking past the set up. Hence, this blog.