First off, thank you to Kaley and Books, etc, for inviting
me to blog here today. I’m excited to talk about my new release, A Girl Like You. In the opening to my story,
my main character, Emma, overhears herself referred to as “the ugly friend.”
Yikes! That’s a lot for a girl to take in. On the outside, Emma remains cool
and collected. But overhearing that one careless remark sets her on a journey
that changes her life forever. I loved writing this book and I hope you’ll
enjoy reading it.
Like any novel, A
Girl Like You went through numerous rough drafts before I finally got the
story “right.” And by getting the story right, I mean finding the correct
ending. I always knew the story would end happily (as all my books do) but I
wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to give Emma the ending that not only felt
right for her, but was right for the other characters in the book as well. It
wasn’t until I was almost three fourths through my first draft that I knew how
my book would end, which means I then had to go back and make sure the ending I
came up with seemed logical from the first page. Which meant more rewrites.
Every time you rewrite a scene or update a draft of your
novel, it leads to potential bloopers. Those little details that don’t get added
in, or those little things that no longer make sense because your rewrite
doesn’t need them.
I thought it would be fun to share a blooper from A Girl Like You.
Set up: My main character, Emma, goes to a bar to meet her
friends.
Page 2, original sentence:
I signal the
bartender. He ignores me and moves to another customer.
What’s so bad about that, you ask? Well, on the very next
page, this happens:
“We invited your sexy
boss to go out with us tonight,” says Torie. “He should be here any minute.”
This seemingly benign
statement causes my beer to go down the wrong way.
See the problem?
How can Emma be drinking a beer when the bartender never
took her order?
Of course, a reader could assume that somehow Emma was given
a drink, but I hate details like this that don’t make sense. Unfortunately, I
didn’t catch this blooper until the final galley stage when it is nearly
impossible (and expensive) to make corrections. Luckily, I was able to add in a
few words to the original sentence to allow it all to make sense:
I signal the
bartender. He ignores me and moves to another customer before finally taking my
order.
Whew! Scene saved.
Maria Geraci writes
contemporary romance and women’s fiction with a happy ending. The Portland Book
Review called her novel, The Boyfriend
of the Month Club, “immensely sexy, immensely satisfying and humorous.” Her
fourth novel, A Girl Like You, will
be released August, 2012 by Berkley, Penguin USA. For more information, please
visit her website at www.mariageraci.com
