The Crazy Old Lady [Commentary Version]

You know how a lot of DVDs come with a Bonus Feature called the Commentary version? I love those things. Sometimes I love them more than the movie. I have learned a lot about process and creative innovation from them and about how really creative people think. I have a couple of DVDs that have such excellent commentary versions on them (“Legends of the Fall” and “The Usual Suspects” come to mind) that I re-watch the commentary from time to time just to jump start ideas of my own.

Since the runaway success of my little novelette The Crazy Old Lady in the Attic I have had a lot of reviews from readers which say they wish it was longer. Of course those words are always music to a writer's ears but I do understand that the difference between what a writer writes and what a reader reads is sometimes vast. I am one of those writers who is constantly striving to keep my story interesting and moving forward. Especially if the story contains an element of suspense, you don't want to lose the momentum. I remember when I was writing The Old Mermaid's Tale there was one scene I worked on for WEEKS! I wrote it over and over and over trying to make it tight and clean and gorgeous (for those who have read the book it is the one where Clair asks Baptiste to dance with her in the little beach bar.) Anyway, after sweating blood over that scene, and shedding no small amount of tears, I gave that whole section of the book to one of my beta- readers. She was giving me feedback and I asked her about that scene. She replied, “Oh, yeah, that was a sweet moment.” I was flabbergasted because, of course, to me it represented weeks of toil. But the reader was correct, it was just a moment to her.

So, thinking about the reactions to The Crazy Old Lady in the Attic, I thought wouldn't it be interesting to do a “Commentary Version?” I would let the story stand as it but then go through it and insert my own commentary – either in italics or in indented text – telling what I was thinking at that point and why I wrote it the way I did. In fact, it might even be interesting to add some “deleted scenes”, too. I know I wrote a rather sweet love scene between Mattie and Stan their first night in Boston but then cut it because I felt it broke the momentum. I also wrote a much more lengthy version of Mattie's first meeting with Trent in which she remembered him and her feelings about him when she was in high school.

Would such a thing have appeal? I don't know but I think I'm going to give it a try and see what happens.

One thing I know is that I have learned an awful lot from those DVD commentaries. I especially love it when they talk about having to improvise on the spur of the moment or improvisations that work their way into the script by accident. It reminds me of a film project some classmates were working on when we were back in college. It was a student film with a pretty lame script, I was just an observer, and one of the actors had a very, dry, witty sense of humor. He kept injecting dialog that was so good the guy who wrote the script kept adding them for subsequent shoots. However they always feel flat and at one point the director said, “You know the ad libs just aren't as funny when you write them down.” No kidding.

Writing is a mysterious process. Sometimes I labor over a few simple sentences and sometimes I start typing and the words come pouring out in such a cascade my fingers can barely keep up. You never know what will happen. This week I have been giving myself a lot more time to write. Now that the royalties from my books are lightening the burden of earning a living I want to take writing books as seriously as I have always taken my design business. I love both of them but it's nice to have the freedom to chose what you will work on next.

Well, I’ve learned a lot from my readers' comments and I'm taking those to heart. I have 2 more short stories that are about murders and I want to work on them, flesh them out, build on them and let them blossom into something larger if I can. And I'm going to work on a new version of The Crazy Old Lady in the Attic [Bonus Features] which includes commentary and deleted scenes. you never know what might happen....

Thanks for reading.