Revising Your Novel Means Reading (A Lot) Yipee!

When my literary agent, Paula, sent back my manuscript with a request for more edits and revisions, she suggested that before revising my novel  I  “take a breather, and read more (newly published comps.)”

At around the same time, Paula referenced some @StephenKing advice on Twitter as follows: “For every novel you write, read 100 more.”

Reading — & More Reading

Yipee! No need to tell me twice. So for the last couple of months the allocation of time for my days (and evenings) has looked like this:

50% : Thinking about/drafting new edits and revisions tied with spending time with hubby, Joe (who says he’s not getting any younger, and for some unfathomable reason says he enjoys my company.)

12% : Tennis  (got to keep moving those body parts before they turn to flab)  & Watching Oscar-nominated movies, and TV series like The Sinner & Harlan Coben’s The Stranger ( because all authors want their work turned into Netflix series!)

3% : Blogging & Noting Ideas for New Blogs to maintain author platform — although “regular” blogging for the time being means actually posting once a month rather than once a week (for those of you who haven’t really noticed!)

35% : Reading, more reading & even more reading — in the last couple of months I’ve read about 17 books, many of them “newly published comps.” For those not familiar with this phrase as used above by my agent, it means reading in the genre in which one is writing. So, for me it meant searching out psychological suspense and thriller novels with a hint of domestic noir about them.

Although not all of them fell into this category, I learned something from each one.

Best Novel of 2020

Long Bright River falls more into the police procedural category rather than psychological suspense, but I read it initially because I discovered it was set in Philadelphia. I love Philadelphia, have loved it ever since we lived there in the 90s, and would live there now if I could.

Author Liz Moore sets this novel about two sisters –Mickey a Philly detective and Kacey, her drug addict sister — against the background of the opioid crisis in Philadelphia. Specifically, she sets her story in Kensington, a Philly neighborhood where my husband, Joe was born and raised, and which I’ve visited so I could actually picture particular streets and landmarks.

This five-star read may not have been the best choice to read while bogged down in revisions of my own manuscript. It seriously made me think about quitting my own fiction writing since I’m pretty sure I can never write characters so vivid and empathetic that they make you cry in public (like on a three-hour flight between New York and Florida!)

It’s why I nominate it for best novel of 2020 even though I know we still have 10 months to go to the end of the year.

Redemption Road by John Hart is another novel where setting (a Georgia county run by corrupt “good ole boys”)  figures prominently in the story. It gives this serial killer thriller a Southern Gothic flavor that heightens the creepiness and evil of the antagonist as well as some of the corrupt law enforcement characters who abound in this novel about a female detective.

Newly Published Comps

The Other Mrs by Mary Kubica was a great find. Published just last week, it includes all the elements of a rattling good suspense thriller. The story follows a couple, Sadie and Will Foust, after they move from Chicago to an island off the coast of Maine. The murder of a young wife on their street leads to Sadie becoming a person of interest, but also raises doubts about Sadie’s husband.

Kubica is a master of ratcheting up the suspense with expertly-planted tiny, but telling, clues. A major revelation towards the end literally sent a chill right up my spine even though I was reading this one on a steamy Florida evening.

Rewind by Catherine Ryan Howard, an Edgar Award nominee last year with The Liar’s Girl, also features a wife, a well-known Instagram influencer, who seems to find herself in a troubled marriage. Taking a break from it with an escape to a remote spot on the Irish coast, she plunges into a life-threatening situation.

The most interesting element about this one was the author’s attempt to escape the conventional structuring of past and present storylines by using the language of a recording device. Thus, past and present storylines get timestamp chapter headings of “Play,” “Pause,” “Rewind” and “Fast-Forward.”

None of them made any sense to me but I was able to follow the story by following the character POVs — and I truly applaud the author for trying something different with timestamps.

Serial Killers Close To Home

Lisa Unger’s The Stranger Inside was a terrific read for me because the female protagonist is an investigative radio reporter (mine is an investigative magazine journalist)  who is on maternity leave, but chomping at the bit to get back into in-depth reporting. Her opportunity arises when a serial killer she has reported on appears to strike again in her neighborhood.

In Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier, Georgina (Geo for short) is a fast-rising company executive who is arrested and testifies in a plea deal as to her unwitting role as an accomplice in a killing, years before. The murder was committed by a boyfriend who is imprisoned, but subsequently escapes and turns out to be a serial killer.

The female protagonist, who is wonderfully flawed, serves her time, but upon her release finds herself in a nightmare situation when bodies start turning up near her home. The M.O. resembles that of the murder for which she was in prison.

I devoured this one almost in one sitting. Because of my own psychological thriller, I loved the idea of a protagonist who, maybe unwittingly, became involved with a psychopath. Then, I reached the ending — and a plot hole of truly sizeable proportion. It was such a huge surprise to me that I emailed the author to ask if I had missed something.

Turns out, not. Hillier graciously emailed right back and said that, yes, the ending, maybe, required some “suspension of disbelief.”

That was okay with me. I know I am hyper-critical when it comes to reading thrillers in the same genre in which I write. 99.9% of the reviewers of this novel on Amazon and Goodreads made no mention of the questions raised by the ending.  Anyway, the plot hole did not spoil the reading of most of the book for me. I totally loved it till the final few pages  — and even then I loved, loved, loved the premise for the (literally) incredible ending.

So, it did nothing to stop me from going to Amazon to pre-order this author’s very next thriller, Little Secrets.

PhotoCredits for photos in Best Novel of 2020 section: catholicphilly.com; inquirer.com

Please let me know if you enjoyed this blog by clicking on the Like button below.