Hey, squiders. You’ve probably heard the term “kill your darlings” before. Some people take it to mean that you have to get rid of anything you truly love about a story to make it better, but what it really means is that you have to look at everything and, no matter how much you love something, if it’s not helping tell the story, it’s got to go.
My brain gets in this weird rut every time I start a revision. A “this is the way the story has to go and I can’t possibly figure out a different way it can go, even though this way has problems” rut.
It is ridiculous. I have gutted so many stories. I have added characters, removed characters, smooshed multiple characters into a single character, changed people’s personalities, motivations, arcs. I have taken out what at one point felt like essential plot points, and I have rerouted entire subplots. Or taken out subplots. Or added new ones in.
And, especially looking at Book 1, which I have written three entire drafts of (the first one being 93K, the most recent 116K)–nothing should be sacred at this point. I have removed characters and renamed other ones. I have changed people’s roles in the stories and done personality triage. I have added in a ton of subplots over the years, and the only real thing that is the same from the initial draft to the current draft is where the book ends.
Yet my brain still goes into the “HOW CAN I POSSIBLY CHANGE THE WAY THE STORY GOES; THE STORY GOES LIKE THIS” mode every time.
It may be because each draft the story gets ever closer to actually working. The first draft…had so, so many issues. It was a first draft, to be sure, but it was also my first draft. The first complete novel draft I’d ever finished. It was never going to work as it was. If I recall correctly, I wrote half of Book 2 and had to stop, because I’d written Book 1 in such a way that the story was irreparably broken, and there was no way to get from where I was to where I wanted to be.
I had a number of partial drafts before I decided to rewrite the whole thing. The second draft was infinitely better! I wrote drafts of Book 2 and Book 3 (still, arguably, both fairly solid despite the changes I made on the third draft) with no issues. And the third draft fixed many more problems.
It is somewhat infuriating to still have problems.
Because Draft 3 included a number of major changes, and because the book is fairly solid, I think that may be why I’m getting such strong “NO THE STORY CANNOT CHANGE” vibes at the moment. Or it may just be that I get them every major revision and I don’t remember because it’s been a hot minute. Hallowed Hill didn’t need any major changes, just some clarification and a couple of subplots that needed to be evened out, so I didn’t go through this then. And I’ve been working on and off on revising this version of Book 1 since, oh, 2017 or something. So this may also be the longest I’ve been on a particular draft of Book 1 as well.
I did find my notes from earlier in the year when I started ramping up the revision (before Hallowed Hill got moved up in the publication schedule and I needed to switch projects). Which is good, because I totally forgot I was going to move the plot point from Chapter 6 to before the story starts. Ha. Haha.
Back then, I also made a list of problems and potential fixes, which includes such gems as “Problem: First part of book feels disjointed; Fix: Giving Lana internal conflict will help, as will, hopefully, war already being declared” but also things like “Problem: Chapter 8 sucks; Fix: ???”
Good job, past!me. I’m very proud.
I think the next step forward is to look at my subplots and the main plot, and look at what ABSOLUTELY must happen and what is changeable, and move things around in an outline form until it looks right. And then I can rewrite as necessary and, fingers crossed, the book can finally, FINALLY be ready to move to the next step, which will be submission to agents and publishers.
Wish me luck! And cross your fingers that I shall be able to quiet the “OH NO DON’T CHANGE THE STORY” voice enough to get all my ducks in order.
I’ve got a promo for you on Thursday, squiders, and I’ll see you back here on next Tuesday (hopefully with a completed, updated outline).
