Decisions, decisions decisions!

I seem to be questioning every decision I make on this revision. First person, or third person? This scene first, or that scene? Which motivation makes the character stronger? More believable?

Is this normal? I mean, normal in a “normal for a writer” kind of way…

One of the hardest questions for me to answer when people find out I’m writing a novel is “What’s it about?”

My next novel is going to be genre fiction, so I can say “Aliens that destroy the Earth” or “An evil wizard who must save a princess from an even more evil wizard.”

I’ve been working on the pitch, and I think it’s progressed from “abysmal” to “rotten.” I may have even improved it to just plain “bad.”

I was going to share it here, but I just can’t. Not yet, anyway.

I think the problem is that as I write this story it’s starting to sound like a “romance.” How can it be a romance? The main character is a guy. Does RWA even allow male POV characters?

No offense to the many talented romance writers who frequent this blog, but I’m just not sure what to do about this.

I suppose I could call it a “romantic comedy,” because I believe I have endowed it with a fair amount of humor, but most romantic comedies (again, no offense to my loyal romantic comedy-writing fans) seem to be built on silly caricatures and absurd situations, while I’m playing my characters and story pretty well straight.

The humor in the book is rather subtle and dry. Not really the kind of slapstick people usually think about when they pick up a romantic comedy.

Am I thinking too hard about this? Of course I am. It’s what I do.

I like the story – I know what it’s all about. I just need to figure out how to distill my excitement down to a couple of powerful sentences.

Watch this space – I’ll figure it out and post the pitch once I can get it up to “mediocre.”

All this talk about pen names has been fun, but it brings up the interesting question of name recognition. As an author, I currently have none. But as a person, I’ve been around the better part of four decades, and I’ve rubbed shoulders with quite a few people in that time. And many of the people I have met fit into my target demographic.

I think about all of the people who already know me, and wonder if they would be more or less likely to buy (or even look at) my book if they recognized me as the author. I’ve read where some multi-published authors claim that their friends and neighbors and even family members have never picked up one of their books. Yet I think if one of my buddies were to write something, I would probably be at least curious.

How about you? If you saw a book written by an old acquaintance from the way-back years, would you be more or less likely to check it out?

So Autumn has been talking about pen names, and she made up a few for me, just for fun.

I’ve actually thought about using a pen name, because Don Carey is a common enough name . There’s Don Carey the war vet and Don Carey the police chief and even Don Carey the fictional high school (aka “Don’t Care High”). I think there’s already a Don Carey the published author. It’s just not unique enough.

Pretty much the same story for Donald Carey.

My middle name is “J”, but I think Donald “J” Carey is a little too stuffy, and I think Don “J” sounds awful (no offense to Don J. Black).

Now, what does the “J” stand for? well, it doesn’t stand for anything. It is what it is – J. A family of my friends, when they found out my middle name, took to calling me “Donald Jonly,” as in J Only.

What do you think? Would you buy a book by Donald Jonly?

There are no flaming corpses anywhere in my story. There’s some kissing, but it’s not a romance. Somebody might die, but it’s not a murder mystery. No spies or dragons or spaceships or homicidal maniacs, either.

In short, it’s just a regular bit of fiction without a gimmick to prop it up. To succeed, my story will need to have a solid plot, engaging characters, and descriptions that take the reader effortlessly into the character’s world.

I believe I can manage the first two pretty well, although I won’t really know for sure until the first draft is done. What I do know is my descriptive prose is Missing In Action.

I know this because one of my early readers told me. It was my sister, and she was brutal! And she was right. She’ll be one of the first to get the full draft when it’s ready for critique. Unless of course she takes to hiding from me when that time comes.

Anyway, in consolation I tell myself that vivid descriptions aren’t necessary in a rough draft. However, I know that this will be a tremendous weakness in my writing if I don’t take care of it somehow.

The answer, I know, is study and practice. I’ve been trying to write something lyrically descriptive every week in a little writer’s notebook I started on the advice of the LDS Publisher. Maybe I’ll post something from it for critique later on.

For now, I have a few questions to ask of the writers in the blogoshpere. First, do you fill your first drafts with colorful prose, or do you wait and add it later like icing on the cake? Second, what are some tricks you use to sharpen your descriptive writing skills?

Thanks in advance for your many wonderful insights. And for not leaving my questions to echo in the vast, empty nothing of my delusion.