Gina Rosati, Author of Auracle (2012)
Auracle’s Dead Darlings
Gina Rosati
Whether it was William Faulkner, who was quoted as saying, “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.” or Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch saying, “Murder your darlings,” the bottom line is that edits are a bloody business.
In her phenomenal book about writing and life, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott refers to the trouble with first drafts … the majority of writers, even the seasoned professionals, do not write a marketable product the first time around. There must be edits, and sometimes tough decisions must be made.
I started writing Auracle based on the idea, “what if a girl could astrally project and witnessed an accidental death, then the victim took over the girl’s body before she returned.” scribble*scribble*scribble = 100+ pages of backstory + painstaking description of every little sight, smell, sound, taste, feeling. I love fairies and anything should be possible in the astral realm, so I stuck in some fairies and gnomes, elves, ghosts, mermaids, and hey, what about a talking tree! A tree spirit living in a willow tree can explain all the rules of the astral realm to Anna! I’ll name him Trax, because … it sounds good to me! And let’s show how hot the hot guy, Rei, is by having him clean out a fish tank … shirtless! Yeah, baby! In addition to all that, I believe my first draft was a world record contender for the overuse of modifiers, exclamation points, and ellipses, and I made sure to cram as many kissing scenes as possible into these 300 pages. We can never have too many kissing scenes!
Okay then.
I was blessed to find an agent who liked my writing voice and saw potential in the story, but she told me that after the first hundred pages, the story sagged. Would I consider rewriting the last 2/3 of the book? I took a deep breath, cut 200 pages, pasted them in my ‘Maybe Later But Probably Not’ file, and rewrote.
Nothing is ever wasted. Every word you write strengthens your writing skills. After many changes, Auracle sold to a wonderful editor who really connected with the characters and story. My editor sent me a thoughtful, thorough ten page editorial letter, and I knew lots of work was in front of me.
Much of the backstory and detail was consolidated so the beginning is tighter, leading us to the action much quicker. Modifiers were traded for stronger nouns and verbs, although I should still be part of a 12 Step Program for Ellipsis and Exclamation Points Anonymous. What can I say … I’m very excitable!
That was the easy part. My editor then made the very wise suggestion that the fantasy elements were cluttering up the paranormal element of astral projection. Fairies, gnomes, ghosts, mermaids, elves … exit, stage left. The darling I had the most difficulty killing was Trax, the wise old willow tree who was a father figure to Anna. My editor pointed out that Trax was a device who explained things about the astral realm that our hero, Anna, should be figuring out for herself. I saw my editor’s point, but here is why I was reluctant to let Trax go ~
Research!
Which leads us to the question, what is a darling and why do we kill them? A darling is something that a writer is really attached to, something that we think is utterly brilliant and creative and nobody has ever written anything this epic before. It’s something we love so much, we want to tattoo it to our wrist. Which is exactly why it must die – because we love it so, we’ve lost the ability to be objective about it. The willow tree in Auracle still has some personality, and as much as I still love my tattoo, when I go back and read the earlier drafts of Auracle with Trax chuckling and dispensing advice like an arboreal Dr. Phil, I want to hug my editor and thank her for saving me from myself!
Auracle’s Blurb
| 16 year old Anna Rogan has a secret she’s only shared with her best friend, Rei; she can astrally project out of her body, allowing her spirit to explore the world and the far reaches of the universe. When there’s a fatal accident and her classmate Taylor takes over Anna’s body, what was an exhilarating distraction from her repressive home life threatens to become a permanent state. Faced with a future trapped in another dimension, Anna turns to Rei for help. Now the two of them must find a way to get Anna back into her body and stop Taylor from accusing an innocent friend of murder. Together Anna and Rei form a plan but it doesn’t take into account the deeper feelings that are beginning to grow between them. Short Author Bio |
Gina Rosati lives in southern New Hampshire with her husband, two teenage children and two chubby guinea pigs. When she's not writing or reading, she volunteers at her local middle school library, beads, crochets and eats way too much candy.
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ha ha .gr8 post
ReplyDeleteAwww. Poor Trax! Poor Gina, because I didn't even know Trax and even I am sad at his demise. Sigh. I like reading author posts like these. It helps me connect to Gina, in this case, and when I read Auracle (which I will, no doubt about it), I will hopefully be able to see the author in the story. That just makes me love a story and its characters even more. Thanks for these posts, Nikki. I think these are my favorites. Still love the reviews, though! No worries! Oh, and hopefully Gina will write another book, and Trax can join the world of the living again. With maybe a few fairies and selkies and whatnot thrown in!
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