Marlys
I was asked recently to discuss my fourth book (out of fourteen published) on a panel at our local library. The subject was researching and writing books set in Boulder County. THE MIRROR is a stand alone and by far the most successful of my published works and, after many years, still in print and the only one of those early books never optioned for film.
It is and was the odd tale of a young woman, Shay, and her grandmother, Brandy. exchanging bodies and time. It sold to major book clubs as well as science fiction, romance, Western, and mystery book clubs and was even stolen by Turkey, a country that stole whatever it wanted to by ignoring international copyright laws. My agent hated the manuscript because it was not in a popular niche and was nothing like I’d ever written before.
Everyone knew even back then that you have to write the same kind of book over and over so a reader knows what she’s buying (or something). I’ve got a couple of college degrees in history and I’m serious about it. Fact for the history book or paper is everything, but not in fiction. I take what I want to make a story ring true and then make up the rest because I can. Because it’s fiction. Some in the audience were angry that I picked part fact to mix with fiction because I wanted to. The heroine changes places with her grandmother after looking into an Oriental mirror, for Musesake.
(I do actually know it’s a great compliment. It’s wonderful to have readers like these–so taken with a story and the characters, they want to believe in the impossible.)
I played with it in my head off and on while I wrote other books, had kids, Boulder grew. I knew it had to be multiple viewpoint and would have to be in parts. I had to learn a lot more about writing. So began a nightmare beyond belief–sometimes exciting but it drove me nuts. A little less than halfway in, I realized I needed a gimmick, saw a movie where Betty Davis (I think) forced her dead son’s fiancee to don her wedding gown and step into a mirror to become his dead bride. I was so desperate I went back to add a mysterious oriental mirror and had to reshape everything.
There were characters in three different times I arranged in parts, the grandmother, her daughter, and granddaughter. A few characters in all three parts (times), the grandmother and daughter exchanging bodies driving the daughter/mother in between and me nuts. I’d begin a scene in one time and realized the character I was writing about was dead by now. I had the walls of my office covered with time charts–who was where when. What was going on in each scene. Who was seeing it. I felt guilty because my poor children lived with a maniac and thought nothing of it. And then there was research–how did prostitutes in the late 1890s ward off pregnancy? Not wise to discuss this at the family dinner table. A whole section of books on the seedy side of the West had been stolen from this same library I was speaking in. Cards were in the files–but the books had disappeared from the shelves–stolen. Probably so perverts like me couldn’t use them.
A complicated book like the Mirror is not written in a day, it need s time to evolve, to possess its writer and once finished and deemed timeless, cannot be followed by one after another every year–as sales people and publishers and big money would demand–write another Mirror–but do it now and fast and make it move like Clive Cussler and Tony Hillerman and Margaret Cole and with Charlaine Harris’s sense of humor. And throw in some Chic Lit while you’re at it–but keep it original, ya know? So what am I going to do about that?
I am into shady ladies right now. A little fact mixed with a lot of fiction. And you know what? On the site of that library where I spoke was one of the hottest houses of ill repute in all of Boulder. That’s the truth. In a way it’s kind of spooky.
P.S. The latest issue of a Mystery Writers of America publication quotes a New York literary agent as saying Chic Lit is out. (God knows what’s in.)
I enjoyed reading this post. I grew up in Niwot, eight miles from Boulder. I wrote a short story "The Cottonwood" which took place in one of the dry creeks outside Niwot.
Please visit my website and blog, and I welcome any comments or suggestions.
kdwilson.com
Posted by: keith wilson | December 24, 2007 at 07:34 AM
Keith,I'm delighted you enjoyed the post. Boulder County sort of gets under your skin. So many stories, so little time. Marlys
Posted by: Marlys | December 25, 2007 at 10:51 AM
Hi Marlys,
I'm thrilled to have found you on this site! I will be hosting a book club meeting about 'The Mirror' in a few short weeks and would love to jazz up the discussion with some input from the author herself.
Is there a transcript of the panel discussion you mentioned above that I could get my hands on?
Or, even better, is there a question you would pose to the group to kick off a lively discussion?
Thank you!
Erika
Posted by: Erika | July 25, 2008 at 06:47 AM
Hi Marlys,
I'm thrilled to have found you on this site! I will be hosting a book club meeting about 'The Mirror' in a few short weeks and would love to jazz up the discussion with some input from the author herself.
Is there a transcript of the panel discussion you mentioned above that I could get my hands on?
Or, even better, is there a question you would pose to the group to kick off a lively discussion?
Thank you!
Erika
Posted by: Erika | July 25, 2008 at 06:48 AM