So here's a situation for you. Imagine you're writing a novel and it's starting out all right. You've written only the first three chapters, so you're not bogged down in the middle yet. You have a character you call Charley Meyers narrating the story first person and he's easy.
But ... and it's a very large but ... there's this other supporting character, a 19-year-old rodeo queen wannabe with big blonde hair and a bigger personality, and she's just about bursting to take over the story. Do you stop her? Leave her on the sidelines in most of the chapters?
Not me. I surrendered fast. At the beginning of chapter 4 Donna Cooper not only jumps into the spotlight, she begins narrating. Hey, I'm not going to jump in front of a blonde stampede. I let her run with it. Charley still has a number of chapters that he narrates, but Donna becomes the driving force in the novel, and she pretty much narrates any chapters she wants to. That was just fine with me.
Here's the opening scene from chapter 4 of Chasing Cowboys, where Donna decides to tell her side of the story.
Chapter 4: Donna
"Anything you can do, I can do better ..."
You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here, so I’ll tell you. My name is Donna Cooper and this whole writing thing started early on a Friday morning when I stopped by Celia Moon’s new coffee shop, the Stella by Starlight Bakery and Gourmet Coffee Emporium. I just call it Stella’s. That’s where I caught Charley Meyers writing in one of those little black composition books. He tried to hide it when he saw me, but I was too quick for him. I sat right down next to him and made him show it to me. Turns out he’d started writing about Cody West, the new guy at Parker’s, the one who’s really cute but not for me because I’m going with Darryl King and have my hands full at the moment.
“Oh look,” I said, “you’ve got me in the first chapter.”
“You weren’t supposed to see that part,” Charley said, but it was too late.
“Seems pretty accurate, I can’t complain.” I read some more. “Oh, here you are spying on Cody in the store. Did that really happen, when he met that Lacey person?”
“Every bit of it,” Charley said. “You were there, didn’t you notice?”
“Well, I wasn’t putting my nose in everybody else’s business. I did see her, but I was busy trying on hats and practicing my rodeo queen wave.”
“How’s that wave coming?”
“I’m almost there,” I said. “I’ll be ready for the pageant.”
“Good luck, I hope you win,” Charley said.
“Thanks, me too, but if I don’t I’ll just try again next year. It’s hard to win on the first try. But I want to win. But it’s hard. But I want to win so bad.” I looked through Charley’s writing book some more, then Celia brought me coffee and I asked her to surprise me with a pastry, something rich and sweet but not too fattening.
“The shop’s looking great,” I told her.
“Thanks,” Celia said. “How do you like the new sign?It cost a lot because the name’s so long.”
“Don’t change a thing,” Charley said.
Celia smiled. “Can’t afford to,” she said. Then she left to get the pastry. I went back to reading what Charley had written about Cody and Lacey.
“So,” I said, “what is this going to be, some kind of novel?”
“Yep, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, ever since college.”
“I thought you went to college on a rodeo scholarship,” I said.
“True, but I took a lot of English classes.”
“Well, why don’t you write about rodeo? You must have lots of good stories from all those years you were riding broncs.”
“Maybe I will,” Charley said. “I’ll tell you what, if you make rodeo queen maybe I’ll write a book just about you.”
“Would you?” I said. “Like a big photo album, only with words?”
“Sure, and you can add the pictures. There should be one with you smiling, and one with you waving.”
“Heck,” I said, “that’s only one picture. I can smile and wave at the same time.” Charley laughed. I could always make him laugh.
“So tell me, Charley Meyers, what are you going to name this novel, the Cody one?”
“Been thinking about that,” Charley said, scratching his chin. “I think I’ll call it Chasing Cowgirls.”
“Not bad. How about Chasing Cowboys instead?”
“Depends on who’s chasing who,” Charley said.
“Whom,” I corrected him.
“Say what?”
“Who’s chasing whom,” I said, slower this time.
“Thank you very much.” He said it in a sarcastic way, but he was only teasing. Then he said, “Who’s the writer here anyway, me or you?”
Well, that’s exactly the moment that I got this big idea to write a book myself. Not that I have a lot of free time, what with running for rodeo queen and taking classes at UNR and keeping Darryl happy when he’s not working at his dad’s hardware store.But I thought I could squeeze in a couple pages here and there in my busy schedule. I’ve always kept a journal, ever since high school when Mrs. James had us all keeping journals. My journal is mostly full of rodeo queen stuff you wouldn’t be interested in. I think writing a novel must be a whole lot different though, but I wanted to do it anyway, partly because I’m very competitive and I wanted to show Charley that I could do just as well, or better than him, if I really focused on it. Mrs. James was big on focusing. I’ve been focusing mostly on making rodeo queen lately, but it’s good to take on new challenges in life.
“Okay, Charley,” I said, “you go ahead and write your Chasing Cowgirls book. Just promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?” He looked a little worried.
“No big thing, just let me peek at it now and then.That’s all.”
“Sure, why not?” Charley appeared relieved. “You’ll be my first reader. You can correct all the grammar too.”
“Be glad to,” I said. “Hey, Charley, do you think Lacey has a boyfriend already?”
“I’d bet on it. Lacey’s a city girl, so she probably has a city boyfriend. Hard for a cowboy to compete, especially if he’s not a real cowboy.”
“Poor Cody,” I said, “going to all that trouble. I’d hate to see him get shot down.”
“Let’s just see what we can do,” Charley said.“Maybe Cody will have better luck than I’ve had.”
“I’m not feeling sorry for you, Charley Meyers,” I said, waving my index finger back and forth at him.“Don’t even try it. You told me you’ve known lots of women.”
“Well, there are different prizes in life. Some are better than others.”
“No, no, no,” I said, waving my finger again. “Don’t go feeling sorry for yourself. You’ll give yourself more wrinkles. And you have enough already.”
That shut him up. When we finished our coffee and pastry I said goodbye to Celia and gave Charley a peck on the cheek. Then I got in my truck and drove straight to the nearest store that had composition books. I bought half a dozen, for a start. I figured it would take one or two just to catch up with Charley, and the rest to pass him in the book writing competition.
