Latest News from the Desk of Sooz:
You can currently get The Luminaries ebook for only $2.99! So if you’ve been wanting to try the series, now’s a great time.
We’re also doing a readalong for the series, and we just started The Hunting Moon this week—so it’s not too late to join!
And because The Whispering Night is out in a little over a month (somehow it’s election season and release season already), please consider supporting me with a pre-order. 💚
💚 - Sooz
Links Mentioned:
Max Gladstone’s piece on A Record of Choices
Early draft of The Executioners Three on Wattpad (not available for much longer!)
Transcript:
Hey guys, it's been a bit. We had sickness raze through the house, and it hit me hardest—which I always assume is because I'm the most exposed to our vector point (my daughter). Anywho.
I also had a book due, which was super exciting, because I turned it in yesterday! That would be The Executioners Three. It has now been through one meaty round of developmental edits, which, to be totally honest, it had already been through multiple rounds of developmental edits before I sold it. But…sort of the framing of the story kept changing, and it changed one more time on this last round, because I just couldn't…
I've talked about this before in the past chat. Maybe? I can't remember if I wrote about it or talked about it. I think I talked about it. This idea that Max Gladstone shared about books being a series of choices.
And this is a book that has been so many choices over the last…hmmm, when did I first start this? It would have been 2011! So 13 years ago, and it has dramatically changed.
It was initially a romcom YA, which I quickly realized—after getting about 10,000 15,000 words in—I am no good at! I'm just not someone who understands those stakes. I enjoy reading them very much, but I struggle to make the stakes and the tension high enough, and to build enough plot to keep the story going.
So then I added murder, which…I think that was around 2013 that I added murder. And I stepped away for a bit. Came back. Added murder. I remember sending it to my agent. She was like, “You know (this was 11 years ago) thrillers and mysteries don't sell in YA. So let's set this one aside and save it for later.”
Which is hilarious, because of course that is now the hottest genre. But such is life.
Then, maybe a year later…
I live in a town that is just, I mean, I cannot express to you the fall vibes. And people take Halloween very seriously here. And, you know, so we have a million corn mazes and pumpkin patches, and the leaves are beautiful. It’s like maple tree country. So it’s just gorgeous here. Fall (and especially October) are the greatest time of year. So I always feel this itch to write a fall vibes book, since living here.
And so I picked up, once more, this project. I don't even remember what it was originally called (my working title for it), and I changed the murder once more to be paranormal murder. Supernatural murder. And there were these ghosts happening in this small town. (Not to give the goose away—although the book does open with a very dramatic poem about these three executioners, and their methods of killing people.)
So yes, and then it follows my sleuth Freddie Gellar as she tries to figure out what's going on in her little town.
And it’s in 1999, which is super fun because she's 16 and I was 15 in 1999. So it's just lots of throwbacks to that. Although I also realize that, you know, younger readers aren't necessarily going to get all the references. So yeah, I tried to keep it in check. But I think anyone who is of a certain age—or at least familiar with the 90s—will get all the jokes and references. (You know, the Y2K jokes.)
But to go back to the idea of a series of choices: the thing about this book is that it kept changing the framing.
And what I mean by that is I wrote a draft—and like, really committed to the story in 2018, when I first started at IVF. I needed to not work on the Witchlands (which is a recurring theme here!). That series had just been going on for so long, and it's so complicated. And I wanted to write something really fun and a little bit more romance forward.
And so I pulled out this work in progress that I had been dabbling with every fall, but had not, honestly made a whole lot of progress in beyond having my cast and my setting, and then this executioner's poem.
So I pulled it out, and I really was inspired. And I wrote pretty much the entire book that fall.
And I was sharing it too on Wattpad. (For those of you who were following me back in 2018 and reading it on there: thank you!) That was really fun because it motivated me to keep going.
Of course, then I had a miscarriage, right as I was in the middle of writing the climax, and that pretty much ended my motivation and inspiration right there for a while. And by the time I kind of clawed myself out of that grief and got home…
Because it was a pretty long and drawn out process, unfortunately. I had to have a number of procedures, and I ended up having to go on book tour for Bloodwitch—which was great, don't get me wrong. I actually found that to be so deeply cathartic, going on tour about eight days after the surgery.
Which I feel I should mention is the surgery so many women are now being denied! Particularly in the south of the US, because it is the surgery that is also used in an abortion.
But I needed it because I myself was going to have life threatening complications if we couldn't do it.
In fact, that's the first of two times that I needed what's called a D&C in order to essentially save my life.
So yeah, I'm really grateful that in 2018 and then again in 2020, this was not something that was even a possibility—that I would be denied that healthcare. And I cannot imagine what women are going through now.
Anyway, that was a side plug. Back to the story.
Although you know, we vote in a month. So guys, please, if you're an American citizen, vote.
I put a plug in The Executioners Three for a long time and focused really just on the Witchlands. And we talked about maybe trying to sell it somewhere, because it was mostly written at this point. Ultimately, we decided, though, that it wasn't a good follow up to the Witchlands.
Which makes sense. It's a very good follow up to The Luminaries, because it is very high school and very teen—like The Luminaries. It's very, you know, it has these supernatural elements. It skews horror. And so that makes sense.
But yes, it would have been a sharp pivot from the Witchlands, in a way that The Luminaries certainly is too. But it is still a series with a large scope and scale, versus this, which is a standalone and the primary plot is this mystery and romance.
So we set it aside. But over the years, I did work with an editor who was part of my agency (my agent's company), and we polished it up. It went through a few rounds of developmental edits, but what I kept running into was this big logic hole.
Did I want the people of this small town to know about a murderous legend or not? I won't get into the details because I don't want to spoil anything. But in the original draft, it was a little bit loose. (You can read it on Wattpad still, for I'm not sure how long, but it is up!)
And it was a little bit confusing. Like, okay, so everybody knows about this legend. Aren't they gonna wonder when people start dying if maybe it has something to do with that?
So I kept reframing the book.
It's been an interesting challenge, because the bones and the actual plot events and scene-by-scene story components have not changed. Like, what will be published is all the same scenes that were in the original Wattpad book. The romance hasn't changed at all. I've polished the prose certainly, but it's the same exact skeleton with a lot of the same connective tissue.
But what did keep changing was this framing. Does everybody in town know about the legend or not?
And when you, when you change something like that—which is sort of like a big world detail—it ripples through every scene. So it was a rewrite every time I wanted to change it, even if the nothing else changed in the story.
So, yes, that has been the series of choices that keep happening with this book. I make the choice to have the town know. What does that do? Okay, then I discover, as I am rewriting it all that that leads to another huge logic hole…
So now let's try going the other way, removing it. Nobody knows about the legend (You'll have to read the book to see where I settled!)
But then too, in the course of all these decisions, I kept seeing cool new things that I could add to the story to help develop the world even more and play up the conflict and this sort of executioner, sort of murderous ghost element.
So, yes, those of you who read and perhaps loved the Wattpad version, don't worry! It has dramatically changed, but also not at all. Same skeleton, same connective tissue, same romance, same everything there—same scene-by-scene beats. But it's the framing of each one that is different now and the world is a lot more developed.
The village—the historical village where Freddie works and what her mom is in charge of in this little, tiny town—is a lot more fleshed out and built.
(And I'm really excited about that, actually! I am working with my favorite map artist right now, so she can build a really cool map for that that feels fun and sort of fits with the vibe of the book. You know, like, it's a historical village. What does a fun little map like that look like?)
It's been…how do I even say this? It's surprising to me that I still love the book as much as I do, given how many times now I have reframed it and edited it. But I do! Oh my gosh, I do.
It is now also fully finished—like there is a climax and a denouement and it is a finished, complete book. And very edited at this point. So yeah, it's shocking to me that I still love it as much as I do. But I do.
I think a huge part of that is that I think Freddie is a hilarious main character. She's one of my most fun to write in terms of voice and humor, and she and Theo (this boy from the rival prep school) just have a really awesome relationship.
And I realized too working on this—because I finished the draft kind of before the fall vibes really hit this fall—and so I was sad. I was like, Oh my gosh. Now what am I gonna work on every fall? What shall I do? I don't have my Theo and my Freddy and Divya and all of the the Prank Squad. (Because there is a subplot about these two rival high schools having a pretty intense prank war every year.) And what will I do without them?
It actually prompted me to start something else—ha! Because I need a fall vibes book, apparently.
But it also made me realize…Well, a few things.
One, it's nice to work on a book and not be rushed, right? I started it so many years ago, and I was able to sort of elevate it with each new iteration. With each new choice, it opened up even more options.
It makes me think of, if you guys have ever seen the mapping that goes in video game writing, where you have branching choices and you pick this…Okay, now it opens up these choices. Where does that take you? And it gets very complicated. Very fast. I mean, very fast.
And it feels like that when I am writing a book: I am making these series of choices. If we go this way, what choices does that now open up?
And I need to do that in order to actually finally reach a draft that I love most. I need to keep cycling through, seeing the new choices, seeing where that's going to take me, and trying it and then saying, Oh no, that didn't work. Go back. Then in the course of that not working, I now see another option, another path forward.
And it's nice working on a standalone because it's easy. Honestly, this book has one point of view character, and then Theo has a few framing POV scenes, and then that's about it. It's just one person, just like The Luminaries was just Winnie, and the occasional pop into somebody else's head. It makes everything so much more straightforward. There's only this one core mystery, although there are plenty of subplots and then a romantic plot.
But compared to the Witchlands, which is so many branching choices, my head wants to explode, it's just refreshingly simple. And it felt really nice to work on that for almost two months now—as well as dabbling in this new idea for a little bit.
But now it's time to actually get back to the Witchlands and all its complexities.
But I'm excited because I needed that break. I talked about needing more time, and why I needed more time, and why, as sad and frustrated as I was to have to delay the book a few more months, it was the right call to really get this ending where I want it to be. Because this is where all the branching choices of seven point-of -view characters across six books are colliding, and it's complicated! I want to stick that landing and leave readers really satisfied…
(But also perhaps wanting more in the Witclands. Do you want more in the Witchlands?)
So yes, this talk, I was not going to be a talk about The Executioners Three and the series of choices that go into a book—or how that leads to me rewriting so much. But here we are. I have now filled 15 minutes talking about that, and perhaps hearing about again—about my very messy process—will make some of you feel more comfortable with your own and willing to embrace it.
Because for so many years I really fought this. That I needed to rewrite so much, that I needed to go through, reframe, layer in things, pull back on things…That I had so many false starts and stops—you know where I would hit these walls. I mean straight-up walls where I could see a path forward, but every time I tried to write it, it did not feel good. And I could never just hammer out words…
So as much as I still wish that I could, I’m finally embracing this way of creating books—which is where I always end up going anyway! No matter how hard I fight against it.
But leaning into it makes me a happy writer and a faster writer too, because I'm no longer just sitting here pounding my head against the keyboard, wondering why I can't do it like everybody else.
So I shall wrap this up by saying: if you would like to sling me a pre-order of The Executioners Three, that would be great. I will link to that. We're gonna have a cover soon. It's awesome, awesome. (And I think the cover for the US and the UK are gonna be the same. So that's really cool. I'm really excited about that.) Plus, as mentioned, there will be a cool map.
And yeah, time to get back to Witchlight. Time to get back to my crew and the very, very, very epic ending that I want to clean up. I want to stick it better, as mentioned.
So thanks for listening. I had other things I wanted to talk about, but I shall save those for another day.
Audio: Rewriting and reframing