Rewriting and Revising: A Love Story

About a year ago I reread my first novel.

It was horrible.

I had just finished Novel 3 and my writing style had changed to a point that I could see the stark differences. Why had agents requested fulls? Why had this made finalist in several competitions? Why had people told me it was good? It was melodramatic, disjointed, and worst of all, the main character was so unlikable that everyone hated her.

I had change some world building and updated the magic system. I knew I wanted to try to tell this story but I knew it had to be different. My world was different after all.

So I tried again.

I’m currently subbing my second novel. I’ve not received any asks or gone any further than form rejections or silence. So I’m feeling fragile about this whole process. Last spring I rewrote the whole novel from scratch, keeping only one scene, rewritten with a new character in place of the old one.

I didn’t make 50,000 words.

Getting out was important. What does Gaimen say? Get it out, then make it look like you knew what you were doing. I had an outline but that still applies. I could tell from my outline I didn’t have enough for a full novel. I did a pass through DFW and mostly got some “well this is an interesting outline of a story” also we still hate the main character.

It was then I realized this isn’t her story.

I had already pulled back on the main character, giving three other characters (two major and one minor one) more of a voice and agency in this version. I realized I need to do more. So that minor one went from semi-major to very major. I changed how the soul connection works and removed one item that allowed me to remove most of that character’s scenes and rewrite them from another POV.

That third character, she had an issue I originally gave to the old main character. It’s not the same but similar. So now she’s the haunted one as well, not with a power she doesn’t understand but with a shadow that won’t leave her alone.

I made the novel less sweeping. What was originally an epic tail with full out war, had become a subversive tale about the enemy within.

I’m still afraid it will fail.

This madness at the center of the novel, it spreads like a disease. And while I’ve be working on this book and other books in this world for years, with Covid-19 everyone will have a plague novel.

This is not a plague novel.

Will I ever get a book published? I don’t know. Yesterday I finished revising and rewriting chapter 5. I’m toying with idea of adding one more scene. Tonight I plan to start re-rewriting chapter 6.

If you’re web savvy and keep track of what I changed on this site (who does that? If you do I’d be surprised.) You’ll see I’ve been adding links to other sites at the bottom. Eidmaharia is my series/world building bible. If you take a look, warning: Spoilers.

On that same note, I find myself wanting to contribute to authorTube. That’s not as intuitive as tarotTube (ha, see what I did there. No? Fine. I’ll laugh to myself) but I do watch a fair amount of videos on books and authors. I’m trying to figure out what to say…it seems to weird to say these things in a video. Guess I have to think on that more.

Anyway, I’m writing this book. Rewriting this book. Revising this book.

Maybe this time, it will be okay.


Discover more from MJN: Fuzzy Thoughts

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

52 Stories
1/52
Outline: Dreamfire
3/10
It’s kind of you to kidnap me.Eeyore

Posted

in

by

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *