Sometime in the next year, I’m going to be writing a spec script for a biopic. I’m very excited to do this: the subject is fascinating, the time period is interesting, and the story is worth telling. This wasn’t my idea: I was approached to collaborate by someone who specializes in this subject. (My specialization in college was the Romantics. I have a bookcase full of books on Jane Austen and the Brontes. And yet I’ve never wanted to write Regencies. Hm.) But my partner’s an historian and didn’t feel she could write a story, while I’m a storyteller and worry about how to write history.

Writing a biography is a new challenge. Lives don’t wrap up neatly like novels do. My first question when I get down to serious plotting is what’s the throughline, what’s the arc, what’s the journey this character goes on? But people’s lives don’t work like that, generally. I mean, if you were to map your life according to the hero’s journey model, would it work out? (Maybe if you stretched . . .) So when I tell this man’s story, when I fit his life into history . . . I’m not quite sure how.

I’m not quite sure how to structure it, either. Does the story start with his parents, with his birth, or later? Do I frame it within flashbacks or just go straight through chronologically? Do I end it with his death, or earlier? (Or even later?)

One of my favorite books is Slaughterhouse-Five—”Billy Pilgrim has come unstruck from time” is one of my favorite opening lines ever—and something my teacher pointed out when we read it in high school is that while Billy jumps around to various points in his life, his experience in World War II is strictly chronological. I’m thinking that might be a structure to follow, that his experience in war time is what his life built towards before and changed everything afterwards.

I’m nervous about this, but excited. I’m not looking to even start writing until February or so but I’ve already got this man under my skin. (I’m trying to keep some professional detachment, though it’s not easy: he’s exactly the personality type I find irresistible. But I read something this morning in a film review that I’m going to hang over my desk when I’m writing: “Biography should challenge, not sanctify.”)

Wish me luck.

Firstly: the next novel is currently at 72,000 words and is being read by some close friends for plot coherency. I think I’m in a good place with how it’s developing, though every time I look at my countdown doohickey to the deadline I squeak a little bit.

Secondly: A friend of mine is going to try her first original novel.

I had a hand in this.

I’m immensely pleased.

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This is a story where relationships take center stage. The reader really gets to know and care about each of the characters; even the secondary characters are well-developed and important to the story. Jamie and Ben are complex characters with deep emotions. This story is also extremely erotic. The chemistry between the characters sizzles. Jamie and Ben are hot enough to burn. This is an appealing story about the enduring power of love and friendship.

*sighs happily*

I can’t help it. They make me bounce around with happiness.

Elisa Rolle’s rather poetic review on Livejournal and reader reviews on Torquere Books.

Below is a screen capture of the current MS. Isn’t revision fun?

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