“A 2024 Unsung Heroes Writing Update”
I was driving to work one morning in early 2024 and doing a lot of thinking about my Unsung Heroes books. This routine is nothing new for me. Thinking about the books is one thing, but the truth is that I hadn’t actually worked on them for quite some time. As I discussed a few months back in my blog post “A 2023 Writing Update (https://www.toddlynchwriting.com/blog/a-2023-writing-update),” I continue to do a lot of writing, with most of it coming in the form of blog entries where I discuss my thoughts, personal experiences, and interests on the matters of writing, reading, parenting, sports, and life lessons. While my goal isn’t to be a full-time blogger, I enjoy writing the posts seeing how they provide me an outlet to reflect on and, to articulate my thoughts about subject matter that I find meaningful. I’ve learned a lot about myself from working on the blog. I have opinions regarding the material I write about, along with many things in this world, but I also realize that I’m not a qualified expert on most of it. People tell me they enjoy what I post, which is another reason why I’m happy to do it. The larger picture of the blog is that it’s been a roundabout way of making me a better writer. I like to think of the time I’ve spent researching, reflecting on, and writing my articles as being similar to the time a person might spend in a weight room, fitness studio, or, and not without a bit of irony, a basketball court. Grinding away in the lab is the way I imagine my 14-year-old son would describe what I’m doing. For whatever a person may call it, the step back I’ve taken from my books has allowed me to clear my head and gain what I suspect (and hope) is fresh perspective into my Unsung Heroes world. After all, the books are what have brought me here, and what I hope will eventually lead me home.
A call to arms: an editing challenge.
There’ve been a number of substantive changes I’ve considered making with my Unsung Heroes books for quite some time. Not reinventing the wheel exactly, but removing large portions of backstory, reworking Chapter One in Book #1, restructuring some timeline events, and shifting the paradigm for the greater story itself from a six to a three-book series. On the particular morning I mentioned above, I was only going to have about 20 minutes to spare before work, and so I was weighing my options on whether I’d have enough to time to stop somewhere, power up my laptop, and be able to accomplish anything productive. Knowing my birthday was approaching and that I’d be off from work for it, my plan had been to wait until that time to reopen Pandora’s Box. Almost two years had passed since I’d last made edits to the story, and I suspected that the challenge I was facing would not only be ambitious, but intimidating. Figuring it might be beneficial to get some quick perspective on my project, I brought my laptop into a coffee shop, ordered a drink, sat down, and stepped back into my story. Within one minute of reading what, at the time, had been my first chapter of Book #1, a realization came over me so sudden that it stunned me to my core since in all of the years I’d spent working on the books, I’d never before recognized what now seemed so obvious:
None of this opening chapter belongs here anymore. The whole thing is backstory. I needed to know it to write the book, but now that its purpose is served I can (and should) let it go.
After reading through the entirety of Chapter One, I skipped forward to Chapter Five, or, as I’ve long thought of it, my more appropriate Chapter One. Fortunately, the backstory elements I discovered there were well defined and represented a much smaller portion of the total writing. During the short time I had available, I was able to trim them away with relative ease. I gave the new introductory chapter a fast review, and as I began gathering my things to head to work, I was surprised by the feelings building inside of me. My heart rate was elevated and not because of the half cup of coffee I’d consumed. Strong emotions were running through me; ones I certainly hadn’t been expecting to feel. I was blindsided by the stunning recognition that this project I was facing—the one which had been weighing so heavily on my mind—now had an entirely new feel to it altogether. I can do this. I told myself. I can fix what I know needs to be addressed.
Inspiration is one thing, but writing epiphanies are another.
I don’t remember everything that I was thinking when I left the coffee shop that day, but I recall having the awareness that I was talking to myself under my breath. I do this when I’m deep in thought, and whenever it happens around Jen, she’s always quick to notice and make fun of me. I’ve had writing epiphanies before. In my first ever blog post (https://www.toddlynchwriting.com/blog/a-writing-challenge-for-the-ages-getting-started), I described the moment when the idea came to me for my Unsung Heroes books while I was an optometry student living in Chicago. On another occasion, I woke from a dream in the middle of the night with my heart pounding, my pupils dilated, and my brain operating in full fight or flight mode. I’d had a vision of a story, and I’d seen it play out like a movie across multiple phases of the main character’s life, beginning with a horrific childhood experience, progressing to the way he used the experience to his advantage as a soldier in the military, and eventually to the later years of his life when he finally came to terms with all that had happened to him. I’d gotten out of bed to write down what I’d seen in the dream, and I ended up drafting something like 12-15 pages of notes freehanded. The point of sharing these examples is to illustrate that I’ve had mental breakthroughs before, and one definitely took place that morning in the coffee shop.
What’s so important about the first chapter of a book?
Something I’ve learned along the course of my writing journey is how essential it is to capture a reader’s attention early in a book. This seems to be especially true in the world of publication. I touched on this concept briefly in my aforementioned 2023 Writing Update post. The longer it takes to hook a book publisher or literary agent on a manuscript, the higher the risk of them putting the material down. I’ve certainly read successful commercial and literary fiction where the opening chapter was not what knocked me off my feet, and I do see the value in building up storylines to hit the reader with heavier punches as the plot unfolds. Part of the challenge in today’s world is that there’s a seemingly endless supply of material between the established marketplace and the proverbial slush pile, which means aspiring, unpublished authors (like me) need to be careful about waiting too long to let their stories take flight. The original first chapter of Book #1 in my Unsung Heroes series was a flyover of the town where my story takes place. The reader was given the perspective of passing through the streets and neighborhoods as if they were floating on a breeze, all while making a series of observations about some of my leading and supporting characters who are going about their daily routines. The point was to familiarize readers with the ambiance of the small town’s atmosphere, which serves as an integral background component to the greater story itself. I’ve always been proud of the writing in my original first chapter. The truth is that I’ve probably spent more time working on it than any other in the series. For a long time I’ve come to think of it as my squeaky wheel, and the extended break allowed me pinpoint the noise’s exact location. I realize that no book is perfect (mine included), and while there’ll always be more areas in need of conceivable fixing, this particular one felt like a big find to me. Eliminating the backstory elements here and elsewhere in the novel has been a lesson learned in the writing pearl of “show, don’t tell” which, in another ironic twist, was the topic of another blog article I wrote back in 2021 (https://www.toddlynchwriting.com/blog/show-dont-tell-beyond-the-books). The bright side with putting some of my own advice into practice makes me feel like I’ve learned something in all of this. Even if it took a while.
Current and future goals.
I ended up spending about three months making revisions to Book #1. In addition to some of the backstory elements, there was a short list of other “squeaky wheels” that I’ve wanted to address for some time. Now that they’ve been made, I feel more settled with the writing. I recently submitted a small group of targeted queries on Book #1, and so we’ll see where that leads me. The truth is that even if a traditional book publisher or literary agent doesn’t decide to take on the project, I know I’ve already accomplished something great. My writing goals for the future include additional entries to the blog, but in the coming months I also hope to continue pushing my Unsung Heroes story forward with new writing. I’m approximately halfway through my three-book series, and I have big ideas in store for finishing the second half of Book #2, and then moving on to Book #3. Some of my blog writing might slow down as I begin this next chapter of the journey, but if it does, then it will be for good reason. Either way, I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted on how things are going.
As always, thanks for reading! I appreciate the continued support that many of you continue to give.
- Todd
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