Years ago, an editor asked me if I would be interested in completing a novel for an author who had died. He was forty and passed on very suddenly of a heart attack. He’d written four chapters and left behind an outline.
Trish and I knew him–though we’d never met in person. He and Trish had the same editor and agent. We’d exchanged e-mails and participated in the same mystery novel blog on GEnie, back in pre-Internet days. (They didn’t call them blogs, though.)
I worked on the novel for a few months, and from time to time I felt the author, Dave Pedneau, standing behind me, watching, and sometimes I thought he was laughing! It was kind of eerie. So I wrote faster. Finally, I finished the novel, but there was one thing I hadn’t figured out. Oddly enough, I didn’t know what the title meant. He used law enforcement acronyms for his novels, like B.O.L.O. (Be On the Lookout), or A.K.A. (Also Known As). But this one just had the letters: N.F.D. with no parenthetical meaning and I had no idea what it meant. I couldn’t tell from the story, either. Finally, just before I turned it in, I asked a cop at the gym if he knew. He frowned, then said: “Oh, that’s easy: No Fricking Deal.” Though ‘fricking’ was not quite the way he put it.
That was the title of the book! Suddenly, I knew why Dave had been laughing.
There is a little synchronicity here, too. A few years ago, I was teaching private yoga lessons to a very well off woman. She was religious, also kind of prim and proper, and always had her housekeeper or cook around when I was there. One day I was waiting for her to get ready and looked at the books on a shelf. There weren’t many, maybe a dozen. Just as she walked in the room, I spotted N.F.D., and blurted, “Hey, I wrote that book.”
She picked it off the shelf, looked at the cover, and asked: “What that title mean?”
Rob
Deboshree,
I didn't find it very difficult to complete the book, because he had an outline of the story. Plus the first four chapters gave me a feel for his writing style and helped with the development of the characters.
By that time, I'd already written several novels based on screenplays. That usually requires writing three pages for every page of the script, and many of the pages contain only a bit of dialogue and camera directions.
The one I was most worried about was SPAWN. I started reading the script and in the first scene the protagonist is killed and goes to hell. I thought, "Oh, oh. This is going to be a different kind of novel."
Butternut: fascinating stuff. Hope you'll be able to say more at some point!
Yes, the mother's interview was conducted posthumously. The detailed information the psychic has come up with is fantastic.-I would love to tell you more, but I'm not sure if she is going to share her source or not. It may end up looking like well guided research.
Hehehe..that was something!
Tell me..how did it feel to complete someone else's book? Did you feel more pressure than usual? Did you feel the need to give your best more than ever? How was it?
too funny on the book title story – and i'd love to know also whether or not the psychic interview was done after the man's mother had died – both great stories!
Your blog! It's all there.
Wow, how weird, and funny, when Rob had to explain the name of the book.
Trish – Thanks for the comment regarding the book. I think your intuition is spot on. Now for the contents…
Incredible! Did the psychic do the interviewing after the man's mother was dead?
I would find it strange to try to complete someone else's work, except that he seemed to be there with you.
Yesterday, I proof read a story about a famous man written by a psychic who interviewed the famous man's dead mother. The mother's voice was so clear and strong that I am wondering now whether she will try to publish it as fiction or non-fiction. All of the facts that were researched are true, but still there are emotions described, that only a mother who had been there would know.