I never throw away anything I write. Even if it’s terrible. It’s not just because I am a pack rat and have trouble throwing anything away (although I am and I do- as testified to by my messy office).
It’s because there’s no such thing as a bad idea. A bad idea is just an idea that hasn’t been fully developed. It’s also because writing, like any other skill, is learned and improved on over time. An idea I might not have been able to properly develop ten years ago, might just be a trigger for something better today.
So… and here’s where I am putting it all out there .. I thought I would take you with me on a dive back into my archives
The whole idea was prompted by a blog I wrote last week over of the Take Five Authors site. I was talking about prologues. I’ve only ever written one – in a book that was never published. So I went back and had a look at it.
I’m going to share it with you. Please … be kind.
In my head the book is called Lust in The Dust (no sniggering – that’s actually the name of a 1958 comedy western which even I haven’t ever watched). It was submitted (and rejected) under the name Secrets in the Sand.
It’s loosely inspired by a film called The Sheik, starring the legendary Rudolph Valentino. It’s a 1921 silent film and truly dire. But, at the time, it was a huge hit, as was The Son of The Sheik.
In the film – and in my book – our English heroine is captured by a desert Sheik and whisked away to his harem. Of course she falls in love with him. My book is a contemporary novel, so the heroine is an archaeologist and the harem is actually a secret ancient tomb. I added a suspense sub-plot involving black market antiquities… but there was a scene in which our hero appeared mounted on a white horse à la Valentino.
It had a prologue. Here’s the first version…
Prologue.
“Women aren’t kidnapped into harems anymore,” Kayla said out loud. Even to her own ears, she didn’t sound too certain.
“Don’t be silly. This is the 21st century.”
That didn’t help much either. Not when she looked at the figure ahead of her, blocking the end of the dry riverbed. Either side of Kayla, the rock walls rose sharply against the searing blue of the desert sky. There was no way she could climb out of the narrow wadi. If she wanted to get to the antiquities office, she had to go past the horseman.
He had appeared just a few seconds before, a dark silhouette against the glare of sunlight where the cleft opened onto a wide path. He seemed to come from nowhere. One moment, her way back to the ruins was clear. The next, the menacing apparition loomed ahead of her.
I know – terrible isn’t it? It was more a flash forward than a prologue, because I was looking for a ‘hook’ to drag the reader in and thought being kidnapped by a man on a white horse was just the thing. I realise now the flash forward was there because the opening chapter wasn’t exciting enough. It had no hook.
After that version was deservedly rejected by some very well know literary agents, I did a re-write…
Prologue.
The tomb entrance was a black scar against the rich red rock. The chamber beyond had none of the ornamentation that graced the ancient tombs of the nearby city. The workers who carved this tomb were not artisans, merely faithful servants of a dying master. Now they waited with heads bowed, for permission to carry their lord’s body to its resting-place.
The woman was veiled, in the Bedouin fashion, only her eyes visible. Those eyes were blue. She looked across at the workers. Even after all these years, they would not meet her foreigner’s gaze.
“In sha’Allah.” She spoke Arabic well.
This is better. This is a true prologue – a scene that occurred before the novel actually starts. It is the start of a dual timeline novel. Reading the opening chapters again, I have discovered the book really does have some merit. I rather like the idea of the reflection of two women, a hundred years apart, who are very different yet share both character traits and experiences. This early attempt needed a lot more research and more writing skill than I possessed at the time. It also needed my red coloured pencil.
Since then, I have travelled many times to the Middle East and spent a lot of time in museums. I have read a lot and written a lot. I have learned a lot. I think today I could write this dual time line novel and make it a good one. With research, I could plot a suspense story around black market antiquities. And, I do rather like the idea of writing a cross cultural romance.
My 2016 version of Lust in the Dust would be very different and a lot better than my 2003 version. It might even be worth publishing.
That’s why I never throw away anything I’ve written – no matter how terrible it is.