Revisions, Hack Writer Style

In this post, I showed a draft Chapter 1 of a book project, a science fiction murder mystery.

Occasionally, I will revise on-the-fly either to conform to the outline I have running in my head, or because, even if I am clicking along, there is something about the writing that bugs me (and ‘bugs me’ is a technical term).

I kept going back the this chapter, because the writing bugged me. Then I figured it out: the main character, as written, may have garnered sympathy but not a whole lot of empathy. If taken out of context as the opening chapter of a book 2, Lexus is just a junkie looking for an excuse to get high.

There’s the age-old problem. How do you get a reader to emphasize with the main character?

I am not sure of the answer for this novel, yet. I am a naturally empathetic person, I will think about why somebody does something by putting myself in her place. I guess that is what I attempted here. I am not exactly enamored by the first sentence, but it is a grabber of sorts.

The revision:

Chapter 1

My PTSD therapist told me, before he died and broke my heart, that, despite my aggressive desire for justice and a physiological and pathological need for constant sex, I was a caring, nurturing woman.

Then he died and for some reason, I could not cry at his funeral, and I never forgave myself for that.

Until now, because I have been thinking of him, and crying. It is a cloudy night on top of Mt. Si, where my Investigator office is, and I am at the precipice of a sheer drop, a good spot to view the forested towns below.

I miss him terribly. He did not deserve to die from an Uplink flashback, when his neural receptors caused his brain to link to itself. He died before he could Uplink with a real person, which would have prevented his nervous system from a cascading failure. It is a horrible way to die.

It should have been me.

I wish he was here, and I could talk to him. Four Husbands and two Wives, yet I feel alone, a deep sense of sadness, and I am paralyzed with dark, circular thoughts.

It is, of course, my fault. Everyone is the same but I have changed, drastically. I came out of the regen tank to fix my war-wounds for once and all, as a little teen sexpot. Not even a younger version of myself, I look like a little sister, if I had a little sister. Shorter. Lithe and svelte instead of curvy and athletic.

I am a pixie. All I need is wings.

I contemplate jumping off my mountaintop, falling unto the rocks below. Splat. No wings here. Just another broken vet offing herself, a grim post-war statistic: a little chit-mark in the right column instead of the left.

Suicide, while classic, would be dishonorable. I do not fear death but my honor is all I have left. I don’t have my body. I don’t have my wisdom. I don’t have my spouses. I gave my virtue to the Empress. All I have left is my damn honor, my warped sense of personal justice tied up with my duties as an Investigator.

I take a deep breath, and now feel the cold rain on my face as I look down at the rain-soaked forest landscape and realize I am feeling sorry for myself.

Well I have a cure for that. If my spouses won’t tend to my needs, I will seek intimacy elsewhere. I sub-vocalize to my Investigator PDA.

—Arune?

A pause. I sigh. Pause is bad. Arune is my old warship. The only reason he would not respond instantly is if he was out of range.

—Sorry Lexus, I’m on the moon with Tiff and Britt. Back in three days.

—Okay. I love you; call me when you get back.

Arune and Britt, two of my current lovers, while Tiff is a potential lover. Just like that, my list of lovers for the evening snipped short.

I am in desperation territory because the rocks at the bottom of Mt. Si are now calling to me.

—Empress, my love?

A pause. Oh no, please no.

—Lexus, my darling, my Concubine, my Princess. I have taken a trip to the moon. Be back soon.

The moon. What the fuck? Why would the military, and the Empress, go to the moon? Logically, it makes sense, the part about being together. Britt is a Military Police Lieutenant, Arune is a warship, and Tiff is his pilot. So yeah, the four have met before and I am sure they will meet again. But the moon? All that’s on the moon is some launchers and dusty old nano-factories that nobody wants to turn on, and some privately funded research bases.

I mentally shrug. I made the conscious decision to disengage myself from the Military. I don’t need to know, so nobody tells me what is going on. And when it comes down to it, I don’t want to know.

Now I am in trouble. My fellow Investigators, of course, would always tend to me, if I asked. Scott and I have never made love, but the unspoken opportunity is there. But Scott is in Portland on a sudden assignment.

Ivan is downstairs sleeping. He is exhausted from completing four insurance dictated autopsies. He didn’t even leave his office, crashing on the couch. Ivan is not a young man. To wake him up with my need to be touched and kissed would be very selfish.

And that leaves my boss, Bambi. My relationship with her is complicated. On one hand, she is like the daughter I never had, and my best friend in the entire world. On the other, I find her attractive.

Bambi is not into women. I could seduce her, but that would make me the Shit of the Century. I refuse to burn my friendship and my career to satisfy my lustful desires.

Look at me—I am all grown up. A giggle escapes from my lips.

I am at the end of my rope.

Well, when the going gets tough, the tough go on a snorf binge. Snorf will let me turn the insidious compulsion that owns me into a manageable burn.

As long as I don’t die from an overdose.