Judy Richter

Now that the fun and games are over, and I do mean that euphemistically speaking, the hard part of preparing my novel for querying begins. Writing and revising my manuscript was arduous at times, euphoric at others, and simply put, in totality, good old-fashioned, mind-numbing, hard work. My beloved, beleaguered K has suffered through every high and low with me, and will always be my hero. 

One of the high points of this journey so far was creating the Murder Board. Finding the raw materials for this project was no easy task, but K found a nondescript storefront offering Chinese imports and bought them out of whiteboards. All two of them. Not an easy task in this one-intersection beach town deep in the jungle. It even came with 62 magnets – exactly the number of chapters in my opus. Kismet? Probably.

How dope was it to see every scene laid out right before my eyes, with color coding to highlight POV’s to see which character needed more ink, and which less. I was in love with the optics of it all, feeling every bit as impressive as all those detective-types plotting out a murder investigation on the big screen. 

Before querying, though, I wanted to make sure I’d done everything possible to heighten the arcs, suspense, plot twists, readability, and, of course, marketability of my book. My beloved mentor/editor suggested I do a post-mortem reverse outline. Sounds doable, right? After watching several videos and reviewing a few craft manuals to get the gist of this undertaking, I wasn’t so sure. I finally settled on the 15 Beats analysis suggested in Save the Cat! Writes a Novel. The tagline of that book reads: The Last Book On Novel Writing You’ll Ever Need. And if you believe that…

I’ve made it through the first 5 beats—so far. A painful and almost overwhelming process at the onset. But I made it to the summit (the first of three, if you’re good at math), feeling a bit like a pissed off capuchin ready to attack any poor soul who dares to approach my inner sanctum (aka my studio). The universe has been in sync with my energy, delivering torrential downpours, tsunami warnings, and an obligatory lightning strike that took out the electronics of our gate. 

But hey, the sun is shining this morning, and the green parrots are squawking up a ruckus as I prepare to trudge through 10 more beats. 

Just beat it! As MJ would say.