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megwritesI think my novel resents my efforts to rewrite it. I took out the printed manuscript for the Tower!Guy story to start hacking away and got an ultra-irritating papercut for my troubles. The kind that's in a weird spot that you can't put a band-aid on really well, but that you need for typing and other manual type activities. It took a small chunk of skin and now there's a little indentation in my finger.
I know, I know. The world's smallest violin is playing a song just for me. But sweet singin' Jesus in a Volkswagen it stings.
In the manuscript's defense, however, I can see how it might have gotten scared. I came at it with a brand new sharpie and a Never Say Die look on my face and didn't stop until I reached the last page and couldn't make anymore marks.
Not sure I can quantify that, but it's somewhere between a medium to large buttload.
I started with a 424 page manuscript and sliced away until there are only 32 pages left in anything resembling their original condition. No I did not mistype that. I pretty much completely chucked 392 pages. If you do the math, that's a whopping 92% of my novel that I just pinkslipped.
Basically, I kept the prologue, kept the epilogue and the end of the last chapter (although they too will get reduced, reused, and recycled) and just put big x's on the rest of the pages for the most part.
It's weird. The plot, for the most part, follows the same series of events, but the shape of it is different. I'm not sure how to describe this, except that I sort of moved a few things up in the chain of events and deleted a few others and figured out how to tell a story in eighteen chapters that previously took thirty-six.
I also got rid of a lot of things that were in the story because I felt the need to keep showing and showing things instead of letting them become evident to the reader. Character development has to happen during the plot. You can't stop and say, "Hey children, gather 'round and let's all watch this character develop." You have to keep going and then let the reader realize something is different.
Also, I realize a lot of what I put in was put there to create drama or interesting character interactions instead of trusting the actual story to take care of that.
So that's what I did today. I edited 'til it hurt. Literally. The good news is that now I only have 32 pages and nine uninjured fingers left!
I know, I know. The world's smallest violin is playing a song just for me. But sweet singin' Jesus in a Volkswagen it stings.
In the manuscript's defense, however, I can see how it might have gotten scared. I came at it with a brand new sharpie and a Never Say Die look on my face and didn't stop until I reached the last page and couldn't make anymore marks.
Not sure I can quantify that, but it's somewhere between a medium to large buttload.
I started with a 424 page manuscript and sliced away until there are only 32 pages left in anything resembling their original condition. No I did not mistype that. I pretty much completely chucked 392 pages. If you do the math, that's a whopping 92% of my novel that I just pinkslipped.
Basically, I kept the prologue, kept the epilogue and the end of the last chapter (although they too will get reduced, reused, and recycled) and just put big x's on the rest of the pages for the most part.
It's weird. The plot, for the most part, follows the same series of events, but the shape of it is different. I'm not sure how to describe this, except that I sort of moved a few things up in the chain of events and deleted a few others and figured out how to tell a story in eighteen chapters that previously took thirty-six.
I also got rid of a lot of things that were in the story because I felt the need to keep showing and showing things instead of letting them become evident to the reader. Character development has to happen during the plot. You can't stop and say, "Hey children, gather 'round and let's all watch this character develop." You have to keep going and then let the reader realize something is different.
Also, I realize a lot of what I put in was put there to create drama or interesting character interactions instead of trusting the actual story to take care of that.
So that's what I did today. I edited 'til it hurt. Literally. The good news is that now I only have 32 pages and nine uninjured fingers left!
