Critic

(August 8, 2014)

From the Journals of Dipper Pines: Friday, August 8: I can't believe that five whole days have gone by without what Soos calls a "supernatural thingummy" cropping up. I guess Gravity Falls can have dog days when everything living or undead tries to lay low and chill out because otherwise it's just too hot outside.

Let's see: Wendy and I went back to Woodstick on Sunday for the wrap-up performances. I didn't know if we ought to, but Wendy wanted to make sure she didn't have any lingering effects from the spell that Love God threw at her. We had a pretty good time—got to hear Sev'ral Timez again, and the Tombstones—Robbie even played "Cold Creek" again because he knew we were out there, and I told him later that the group did a fantastic job and it was good of him to play my song, and he rolled his eyes and said, "Whatever," which in Robbie-speak is a gracious acceptance of a compliment, I think.

We got matching henna tattoos on our right hands, featuring hearts and some flowers, and then I found out that the henna stuff doesn't just wash off, it has to wear off. Grunkle Stan snorted and said, "Well, I don't hafta sneak around tryin' to spy on YOUR tattoo, do I?" Which is good. He won't try to photograph me in the shower, anyway.

Oh, yeah, then after the festival, all day Monday, Mabel and I had to fight Ergman Bratsman, the crooked former manager of Sev'ral Timez, who was out of prison on parole and heard somehow about the guys performing. He showed up in town, demanding that they honor their old contract with him, but Mabel and I found a loophole, because he hadn't found them a gig in two years, and they had the option of terminating if that happened. Bratsman was still going to fight the guys in court until Mabel tricked him into wearing striped socks with checked pants, and the fashion police (Deputy Durland set that department up himself) busted him and next day when the Parole Board learned he'd been arrested, they sent him back to prison for five years, so that worked out. Mabel also found a new manager to take the guys on the road for a fall tour. I hope Tad Strange is up to the strain of working with them. Multibear decided not to join their tour, though, so that will probably help.

Anyway, the work week had started, and from Monday afternoon on, the Shack was busy all day, every day—Soos even had us working overtime early Tuesday morning—starting at four AM!—to restock the gift shop shelves, he'd done so much business at the festival—and during the evenings I pushed on with my project, which I finished and gave to Wendy on Wednesday. Tonight, I'm going to see her.

And I'm so nervous about it.

Friday was movie night for Dipper and Wendy, and this time they were at her place, sitting together on the sofa with their feet propped on the coffee table, while her dad and brothers were off at a father and son bowling tournament in Eugene.

However, the satellite box was tuned to no channel, the DVD player sat dark, and the TV remained blank and silent. Instead of watching a classic of cinematic crud on the screen, Wendy and Dipper sat there next to each other, but oddly separated, and he fidgeting as she tapped an untidy stack of computer print-out paper on her knee, squaring up the pages. Uncharacteristically, Dipper had settled as far away from her on the sofa as he could get.

"So," he asked in a tentative way, "what did you, uh, think?"

Wendy got the manuscript in order, looked down at it in the warm yellow light from a floor lamp to her left, and then glanced at Dipper. "You want me to be, like, completely honest, right?"

"Yeah," Dipper said, his expression both hopeful and anxious. "I know, it was probably a waste of time—"

She cut him off: "No, man, I thought it was good! You're just hitting me with so many different talents here lately. You're a songwriter, a musician, you're a fiction writer—man, you're going in all directions at once."

"Yeah, I know," he said, feeling his cheeks get warmer with embarrassment. "Mabel says I'm finally hitting the creative steak that began in her the day after our third birthday. Anyway, while I was working on this story, I'd stay up late every night writing. I mean, I've been getting to bed at one or two every morning. Now the story's done, but I don't know if it stinks or, uh, or what."

"Well, I'm not the greatest English student in the world, but I liked it," Wendy assured him. "I mean, it's kinda rough in spots and sometimes it gets awfully close to people's real lives, so you might want to change a few things. But it made me keep on reading—you gave it to me, what, Wednesday afternoon? Dude, I stayed up until past midnight and read it all in that one night! Then when I got home after work yesterday, I started marking it up with all these notes, and kept starting to read and getting caught up in reading the story again."

"That's good, I guess," Dipper said. "Would you have kept going if you didn't know I wrote it, though?"

She tilted her head back and gazed up at the ceiling as she thought. Then she said, "Mm, yeah, I think so."

Dipper had taken out his pocket notebook and a well-chewed pen. He poised the ballpoint over the first blank sheet. "OK, so what do you mean when you say it's too much like real life? Can you give me some examples?"

Wendy held the printed-out manuscript of "Bride of the Zombie," 178 pages of Dipper's first work of fiction, on her lap. She riffled through a few sheets of it. "Examples. OK. I mean, I totally see Soos in this guy Hoss, and if I'm not mistaken, the girl who runs the cash register, Mindy? She's like a gender-flipped version of Gideon Gleeful, am I right?"

Dipper couldn't help it—he broke up laughing. "Not quite," he said.

She stretched over and rubbed his neck with her soft right hand. "Seriously, Dip, I'm super flattered. But, you know, you might want to think about disguising places and people a little more if you're gonna send this in to a publisher. There are, what, libel laws that might get you in trouble. And anybody who knows the Pines family's going to guess who wrote this, and certain passages, if my dad gets wind of them, mean we're in trouble. But lots of other people will know who the characters are based on. I mean, Grunkle Manny? Is he eventually gonna turn out to be Manston Pins or something and be impersonating his long-lost twin who's the real Manford?"

"Yeah, you got it." Dipper admitted. "But that's for a later book. Look, I know this is all first-draft and real rough in places. I know I'll have to rewrite most of it and revise all of it. Any suggestions you make will help me do that. What do you think? Maybe change up the geography some? What if I put Granite Falls in California, and the Pins kids live in, oh, say Mount Lofty, Oregon, with their mom and dad, so it's like reversed?"

"Yeah, might help," Wendy agreed. "And you might make Manny their granddad, only they find out he's really their great-uncle and the missing Manford is their grandfather. Also, the names don't always chime right for me. Hey, for us, why don't you use the aliases that we were called by at that interdimensional Comic Con? You and Mabel would be disguised as the Palms twins—I like that better than Pins—and I could be Willow. I like that name, Willow! But some other fabric than velveteen for the last name, man. Even Burlap would be an improvement. Willow Burlap!"

Dipper cringed a little at that, but he said, "Let me think about that one, but how about Tripper and Alexia for the Palms kids' first names? Is that OK?"

"Well, anybody that knows you won't be fooled, but for 99% of your readers, yeah. I think 'Tripper' makes him seem nerdier than you, though."

"I don't mind that. And by the way, Tripper's real name would be Alexis."

"Dude, is that a guy's name?"

Dipper shrugged. "It's used for both girls and guys. I looked it up. It's from Greek, and it means 'Defender.' I had 'Alexander' when I first started, but I got to hate that almost as much as my real name."

Wendy said the names a few times and then said, "Yeah, it works. Alexis and Alexia, the Defender Duo."

Dipper scribbled hastily. "That would do instead of Mystery Twins! Thanks!"

"You're welcome, man. You know what would be cool, though? You could tell Soos what you're doing and ask if you could use the name he gives himself in his fanfic—Moose."

Dipper bit the cap of his pen. "Mmm, maybe. But for right now, I don't want to let too many people know about this. What I most need to know is, do you think kids about ten or twelve years old would read it?"

Wendy perked up then, almost like Mabel on two slugs of Mabel Juice. "Sure! You know there've been a whole lot of popular books about spooky magical stuff that they love. I remember when I was in middle school, I read that Goosepimples series, and all the Harry Potters I could find."

"Yeah, I read the first two of those when I was ten and then caught up with the last five just last year. My favorite kid's mystery books were the Sibling Brothers. Oh, and I read Dad's old Hardy Boys!"

Wendy bounced a little. "Oh, man, when I was about twelve, I freakin' loved the fantasies that what's his name, Edward Eager wrote, and all those Young Wizards books by Diane Duane, oh, and that scary mystery series that had this kid named Lewis and his dorky, brainy girlfriend Rose Rita in them—can't remember who wrote those—and all the Nancy Drews, some of the Neil Gaimans, and, well, tons more."

Dipper laughed. "I didn't know you were such a bookworm!"

She looked rueful but not unhappy. "Well, you know, in fifth grade I was a tall, gawky freak and a tomboy that the other girls made fun of. Had enough trouble with that, and I kept my leisure reading secret 'cause I didn't want the kids at school thinking I was a closet dork, too. No offense, man."

"None taken. Dork pride!"

"Yeah, man!" They did a fist-bump.

Dipper made a few notes. "OK, so this story sort of fits in with spooky-mystery-magical books like those, got it."

"Yeah," Wendy said, "but this one's also got a ton of funny stuff in it. I think tween-agers would read it and love it."

Dipper wrote a few more reminder lines, braced himself and asked, "What's the worst thing about it? You won't hurt my feelings."

Wendy screwed her lips up to one side and frowned in thought. "Worst thing? Put me on the spot, why don't you!" She considered for a minute. "Well, it's totally just me, but I kept saying to myself, 'I know who that is! I remember when that happened! Oh, I've been to that place!' and it kinda took me out of the story, but like I say, that's on me, not you."

"So, yeah, disguise the facts more."

"But otherwise, let me think what other people might not like, let me see. I think sometimes you kind of summarize too much when you should be writing action and dialogue. Alexia is hilarious, by the way! And those thousand tree gnarls—those are the Gnomes, right?"

"Yeah, right. I disguised them, too."

"Well, they're funny—the way five of them get into a pile to impersonate a real human guy, and Tripper Pins thinks they're a zombie, when really all thousand of them want to marry his sister. I could see that as a TV comedy! But then in the middle of the story, lots of times you just kind of summarize what happens, like all that bit around page 145-150 or so where Alexia goes out on dates with Gnermbal and Tripper says, 'I spied on them and took videos," and so on, remember? It's just a short paragraph now. That could be, like, a majorly funny chapter if you developed it, man! I mean, show him sneaking around and spying on them and falling all over himself to hide from them, and have Gnermbal behaving real weird and mysterious and Alexia ignoring all the clumsiness and the obvious clues and just being herself, being funny."

Dipper made more notes. "I see that now. But, you know, it's embarrassing to write about all that stuff. I really did all that with Mabel and the Gnomes, and I feel so dumb about thinking she was dating a zombie!"

"You're probably too close to it. That's another thing—it's fiction, so I think you're free to make up stuff! You don't have to stick to just what really happened."

Dipper turned to a fresh page in his notebook. "For instance?"

Wendy shrugged. "I dunno! You're the creative guy! Um, maybe when the sister is tied up by the gnarls, have Alexia saw through the ropes with her braces?"

"Ew!"

"Told you I didn't know! But don't be afraid to use your imagination, Dip."

"OK. You made notes in the manuscript?"

"Yeah, with a blue pen. On about every page. Sometimes just 'Nice!' or a laughy face, and sometimes I've fixed typos or asked questions."

"I'll study those notes, then. Now. All right. What did you think was the best thing about it?"

"Hmm. It's totally funny and scary at the same time. That's what I would read it for, if I was ten or twelve years old! And the people are likeable. 'Cept you have Tripper obsessing over Mindy way too much. There's gonna be more than one book, right?"'

Dipper shrugged. "That all depends on if I can find a publisher and if it's successful at all. But, yeah, I'd like to write a series. If I could write books kids would read and get out ten or a dozen of them in the next few years, I could save any money I might make to buy us a house when the time comes." He tapped his pen on the pad. "Although from the advice about publishing put up online by real authors that I've read, it might be a real little house! Most writers don't earn a million dollars."

"But here's my point," Wendy said. "Tripper and Mindy are sort of cute the way you write them, but you focus on them too much if this is just the first book, and nothing really happens while he moons around and talks about how great she is and all. Introduce her, but in this story, keep just hinting that Tripper likes her. Rein in the crush, OK? Just suggest it's starting. Dude, as I remember, I lent you the golf cart keys, and that was about it—I didn't even know all this biz with the Gnomes was happening until weeks later when Mabel talked about it. And I didn't really start to realize you had a crush on me until, oh, I guess about when all the Dusk 2 Dawn crap hit the fan!"

"But I like writing about Mindy. Uh, Willow, now I guess."

"That's fine, but you do too much of it for a first book. Lots of pages where nothing happens except for Tripper admiring Mindy ought to go. I mean, sure, maybe save 'em for later, but right now, cut 'em. Face it, man, you really don't need five pages describing how Mindy sits at the counter and brushes her beautiful red hair!"

"Mm-kay." Dipper smiled at her. "I really, really liked writing that part, though."

Wendy was a brutal editor: "Cut it down to like three sentences, and pick the best ones, then." As he wrote down her advice, Wendy added curiously, "Do you enjoy writing this stuff?"

"Yeah, I found out I get a big kick out of it," he confessed. "It started out slow and sometimes I didn't know what to write next, and at times I nearly wanted to quit, but the last couple of weeks it's just flown out of my brain and onto the computer screen. Sometimes something funny happens that I didn't plan, and it even makes me laugh. I got ahead of schedule on finishing it because I started to want to see how it came out—and I already knew!"

Somehow, they had slipped close together on the sofa and now sat with hips and thighs touching. Wendy ruffled his hair. "Then go for it, dude! You got a plan for finding a publisher?"

"Well—from what I understand, it works better if you can get an agent to represent you. But agents don't want to take on unknown writers, so they like to find people who've already been published. But unagented writers can't get editors to read their stuff, so they can't get published."

"Sounds logical," Wendy said, rolling her eyes. "What do they call that? A catch-22 or something? So anyway, how do you get past that?"

Dipper tapped on the pocket notebook with his pen. "Contacts can help. OK, so Grunkle Ford has published lots of scientific papers and all—heck, he's done like a dozen since he got back from the other dimensions—and he told me that one agent already asked him if he'd be interested in writing fiction based on his experiences—a book for adults, I guess—but he isn't. Maybe he could introduce me to the agent."

Wendy put her arm over his shoulder. "Couldn't hurt, dude! My dad finds some of his best timber by making contacts who know where there's forest land to lease."

Dipper reached up to hold her hand. "Yeah, but, see, something else is that I don't want to let the agent know that I'm only fifteen. That's why I'm writing under a pen name. Maybe Grunkle Ford can front for me."

"Stan Mason's a good name," Wendy said thoughtfully. "I like it better than Pins."

"Thanks. I may have to change it, though. There are other Stan Masons out there—I checked online. I don't know if it's legal to use somebody else's name as a pen name."

With her left hand, Wendy brushed a strand of her hair out of her eyes. "Maybe . . . put in a middle initial. Something odd like X. That should cover it."

"Huh. 'Stan X. Mason.' That could stand for Xavier, I guess. Good idea." Dipper opened his pad again and wrote it down. "It even sounds mysterious!"

Wendy handed him the stack of manuscript, and he tucked it and his notebook and pen into his backpack, down on the floor. She said, "So keep me posted on who's going to publish it."

Dipper laughed as he held her hand. "Probably nobody. For every ten thousand manuscripts written, maybe one gets published. If it seems good enough to shop around when I finish rewriting it, I'll try to find an agent who'll help me look for a publisher. But I can't even show this to Grunkle Ford yet. Even when printing it out for you, I started to see so many dumb mistakes I made."

"Yeah, dude," Wendy said, smiling. "You got a habit of typing 'teh' instead of 'the.' Also, I marked maybe six places where you slipped up and called Mindy 'Wendy,' and Alexia 'Mabel.'"

"Oh, man!" Dipper said. "I know I make slips like that, and it's so hard for me to spot them!"

"Easily fixed with search and replace. So—you're going to work on revising it this fall?"

He leaned against her. "Yes. I'm hoping that I can do rewriting and revisions and get a good copy to Grunkle Ford by the end of October. Right after Mabel and I go home, he and Grunkle Stan are planning a trip to do something that they won't talk about. First to Spain, then maybe to the Caribbean and Florida, Grunkle Stan says. My guess is they're looking for sunken pirate treasure. Anyway, they should be back by early October. Ford sort of knows I'm up to something like this, but not exactly what. I'll email a revised copy to him when they get back. Maybe he can't help me, but if he doesn't just laugh at me, at least that's something."

Wendy put her head on his shoulder. "I don't think he'll laugh. Except at the funny parts. Keep me updated on this, Dipper. If you want to, like, email me chapters as you write them, that's cool. Hope you don't mind that I wrote in the margins and suggested all those changes and corrected typos and junk."

He nuzzled her hair. "No, not at all. It shows you read it! And yeah, I'll send you at least a couple chapters every week.""

"I not only read it, I liked it, too. So, keep me in the loop. So—we still have maybe five hours. Are you in the mood see a crappy movie or do you wanna just make out a little?"

He chuckled. "Don't tease me! We don't know when Manly Dan might—"

Wendy squirmed, held her leg out straight, and tugged her phone from her jeans pocket (it was a tight fit) and set it on the coffee table. "I totally installed a tracker app on Dad's and both my brothers' phones. They don't know about it. I got it set so when they start to drive, it'll alert me with beeps once they hit thirty miles an hour. And once they get moving, it'll take 'em three hours to get back from Eugene! Coast is clear, man. So wanna snuggle?"

"Hmm. That's a tough decision," Dipper said.

She laughed, switched off the floor lamp, and in the dark threw herself on him and tickled him until he begged her to stop. And then—well, though they stayed within the boundaries they had set and agreed on, let's say that they spent the evening making sure that their feelings for each other had not changed and that the horrible jealousy spell Love God had hit Wendy with at the Woodstick Festival a week before had completely been reversed.

Don't worry. It totally had.

The End