100 things, writing, be careful of what you're talked out of writing

[jana_denardo]

Still forgoing the banner. I should probably figure a way to downsize that picture.



There are times when I would like to give my writer self a kick in the pants. Those are the times when I’ve let myself get talked out of an idea I really liked. Well, not so much talked as ridiculed out of at least for the one that weighs most heavily on my mind. There have been others but the one that really stick with me is the psychic detective. I started writing my psychic detective stories (there were three) in the late eighties, early nineties and then I got derailed temporarily by medical school and my residency.

In the mid-nineties I joined up with a couple of writers groups and while some people liked the psychic detective, those who didn’t were the loudest. At first, I didn’t care. I loved her. Who cared if there weren’t any other stories like it?

If the detractors had attacked the storytelling or my grammar, that would have been one thing. Instead, they attacked the idea, the characters and my own beliefs in the supernatural. Science was worked into the story, a good deal of the early science of DNA fingerprinting, which was also met with a little derision as too dry to interest any one (yes, this was the days before CSI changed people’s perceptions about investigating). But the idea of a psychic was met with laughter. To paraphrase, no real detective would ever listen to a psychic. It would be laughed out of court. No one would ever believe this story or buy it.

I pointed out that the police do use psychics. I showed references to Noreen to prove the idea wasn’t entirely ludicrous. It degenerated from there. Edits to me were articles about how people who believed in psychics were idiots (this was from the worst of the bunch who oddly now, nearly two decades later I live in the same region as and work with his wife and six years later he still pointedly has never spoken to me). Eventually after talking to the moderator of the group, I switched to a different story.

Broken hearted and bruised, I was already stressed by the rigors of starting a medical practice and while I wanted to be published, I didn’t have time to swim against the tide. I put Shanakill away for good. It wasn’t worth the grief I got.

Now in the twenty-first century, go to Goodreads, go to mystery guild book club, and count how many psychic detectives there are. Watch them on TV. Going through the Goodreads giveaways makes me a little melancholy sometimes when I see all the psychic detectives.

I’m not saying that the story was good enough to have been published back then but what if it was? I could have been at the start of the trend instead of something derivative. After many computer crashes between then and now, I’m not even sure I have those novels any more. It all makes me just a little sad.

Comments

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

That is kind of heart-breaking.

[jana-denardo.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I don't think you ever read this one. I can't remember. I do remember the harrassment clearly.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

You've mentioned it to me a few times.

[jana-denardo.livejournal.com]

we would have been doing the cauldron around that time i was in the group.

still think we ought to consider createspace for that

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm.

What does that entail?

[jana-denardo.livejournal.com]

we'd have to look into it and into marketing self-pubs

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm.