Tag: Redrafting

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Rewrites are hard

For this one, the title really says it all – rewrites are ridiculously hard, worse when it’s book 3 of 7 fully posted books in a serial, the first two of which have been lightly polished and unleashed in both ebook and paperback formats. What series is this, you ask?

Awakenings, of course. A serial and series so long in the making, the winding road of starts and stops and restarts and imaginings. Of course it’s a difficult beast to wrangle. In some ways, wrangling the rewrite for book three, Omens and Echoes, is that much harder because of what’s come before–and what I know I want to come after.

In many ways, Omens and Echoes will be the first true rewrite of the series, with added chapters and more than likely some chapters pulled in their entirety or rewritten significantly. Why? Because the story took such a different turn from where I thought it was going in the original draft. I have the benefit of hindsight, now, and more of a road map to where I want to go.

Let’s be honest: anyone reading the first few books of the series would be shocked by what happens by book five (and anyone who’s read the serial probably knows exactly what I’m talking about). The reality is that there are many things that I could do differently and better than I did in the original serialized version, things that I want to do.

it’s just figuring out what stays, what goes, and what the new pieces and undercurrents will be, in addition to smoothing out continuity errors and fixing things here and there. I have accepted that there will always be a few, but I’ve also accepted that those few can also be chalked up to certain characters perhaps not revealing the whole truth, or being delirious, or visions not actually reflecting reality.

I won’t say it’s all fun and games–but I won’t say that it’s not, either.

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The coming April insanity…

The thesis is done, turned in, and will be out for binding next week.  This means I suddenly have quite a bit more free time, and it’s high time I dedicated some of it to fiction once again.  Not just reading fiction, but writing it as well.  Since I’ve never been one for writing scripts, and April is Script Frenzy month from the OLL (the wonderful, crazy people who bring us Nanowrimo every year), I’ve decided it’s high time that I start redrafting my first even Nanowrimo project, When All’s Said and Done.  The characters have been on my mind of late, and it feels like it’s time.

There’s going to be major changes from the original draft to the second, in part due to the ramble I started scribbling last summer, one that’s brought a character that knows what’s going on inside the Institute into direct contact with Ky again, rather unexpectedly.  Because Ridley knows a lot of what’s going on inside, more than Hadrian ever could find out due to the rapid decline of his health, some of the twists in the original draft will need to be reworked.  It’s all Julia’s fault, really.  She brought him to Damon (her cousin who happens to be Matthew’s longtime friend), which means Damon called Matthew and everyone got involved with each other quite a bit faster than in the original draft, though I think that having Damon knee-deep from the start will work better.  He can still be a little annoyed with Matthew, but not nearly as annoyed as he was in the original draft.

Having Ridley there and able to tell Ky and Matthew things, however, does throw into question some plot twists, including the one that involves Tim Thatcher.  I suppose I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.  Before I do anything else, I need to decide what’s going to happen with the installation at Andover Commonwealth…whether they abandon it, or believe it’s secure in the wake of Ridley’s escape from the village with Julia’s help.

I imagine Reverend Stonard might pop up in When All’s Said and Done, too.  He seems as if he’d make a good villain.  And Laren, of course, trying to lay low.  The Tina character may disappear completely, since the new version will begin in August rather than November.

A lot to think about, and only a few days before I begin to redraft!  What fun will this be…