Afternoon, squiders. How’s your week been?
So like we talked about last week, I hunted down World’s Edge, and I read it this week over a couple of days. (It’s about 100K.)
I actually really enjoyed it.
But I got to the end and was like, well, this is really good! I’m not sure it needs a lot of revision work.
Which is bull, I’m sure. It’s got to be, right? No one writes a perfect first draft.
I mean, it’s not perfect. The sailing terminology is haphazard (sometimes the viewpoint character will call something by the correct name and then explain it/learn about it later). There’s a ton of typos, so I wrote certain bits really quickly. The internal arc for said viewpoint character definitely needs some work, and the ending is rushed and poorly described, and it needs to tie into said internal arc better.
But in general, it’s really solid. Aside from the above, I’m not seeing anything terribly obvious that needs to be added in (though there is a conversation that I wrote as a drabble that is referenced a few time, and that needs to just go in the book itself).
Now, it is said that you write the first draft for yourself, and the second draft for your readers. The first draft is definitely working for me, and it’s entirely possible that I’m missing something that I’m not seeing.
So where do I go through here? Do I do my in-depth revision planning with the hopes that it ferrets out things that aren’t working (and not that I’m wasting my time)? Do I do a lighter version of the prep and focus on the things I saw as being wrong? Do I do a superficial edit to fix wording and typos and throw it at my critique group to see if they point out bigger picture issues I’m missing?
I’m not sure yet. And I won’t really have a chance to think too hard about it until the first week of April, after the first weekend of my leadership course and the drop-off for the consignment sale is done. Until then I’ve got to focus on getting those done (and not freaking out in the meantime).
What do you think, squiders? What would you do in my place?
Hope you’re having a lovely March!
