Ah, the Benefits of 20-20 Hindsight

New novelist Jeri Westerson (Veil of Lies) has a rather nice new interview with Julia Spencer-Fleming available in her blog, Getting Medieval. My favorite part comes when Westerson asks Spencer-Fleming, author of the new book I Shall Not Want--the sixth entry in her Reverend Clare Fergusson series--to revisit her debut work, 2002’s In the Bleak Midwinter.

If you could go back with that red pencil, what would you change in that first book?

JSF: This is a timely question, since I just started listening to I Shall Not Want in audio. First, I wouldn’t have everybody and his brother “levering” out of chairs. I really ran amok with that word. Second, I’d correct the egregious mistakes I made while in the heat of the scene (Clare dismisses her congregation, an act that’s reserved for deacons in the Episcopal church) or because I assumed what was true in Maine was true in New York (Department of Human Services for Children and Family Services). This last is an example of a great truth; it’s not what you don’t know that will trip you up, it’s what you mistakenly think you do know.

I’d pump up the police procedure more. I was still uncertain how much I could blend a procedural with an amateur sleuth, and as a result some of the investigative steps are sketchy. Finally, I’d give Clare some more in-depth reasons for doing what she does in the big action sequence. Several critics have pointed out she acts in a reckless manner that borders on TSTL (Too Stupid To Live). I feel I could change that if I had built up the backstory of the event more. But when I was writing In the Bleak Midwinter, I kept paring things away, because I was worried that at 107,000 words, it would be too long to publish! (It wasn’t. My latest clocks in at 127,000 words.)

The full interview can be found here.