Wednesday, January 27, 2010

What to do?

I am starting to sound like a broken record. I am going to continue with this topic even if you read this and shake your head at my repetition. In truth is has one big change to the past related topic, on re-writes… well to me it does, we shall see what you think.


Let’s get the party started.

I spent 2 hours writing the other night, and a light bulb went on in my head. The perfect start and progression of my book flashed before my eyes… I tried to ignore the epiphany and continue with my book because I was so close to completing my first draft.

No matter how hard I tried to ignore this insight to my story, commenter’s voices went through my head, telling me always do what’s right for the story, anything that make the story better you must do. Do your best and take pride in what you do, never cheat your book by being lazy…

So I have decided to do a complete rewrite of my book, starting at ground zero. The plot change and flow of the story will change so drastically from the change, it has to be rewritten. I might be able to use some of my previous book, maybe two chapters. It is very depressing to realize a years’ worth of wok just went down the drain. But I feel this change is vital to the viability of the story, it increases tense, flow, connection to characters, and produces an awesome climax on several different levels.

This was more of a sounding board for me, thx for reading…

If you have you ever experienced this before, answer me this. Was it worth it? And were you able to keep up the motivation to do such a drastic rewrite… Thx for your time any comment you might leave.

BTW: here is the link to the Novel word tracker, the one in the top left corner.

2 comments:

  1. I did it THREE times for the novel I just submitted to ABNA. I wrote 16 chapters of a novel in 3rd person POV, realized it needed to be first person. Rewrote it, plus about 8 more chapters, only to realize I hated the main character (doormat). Finally settled on her daughter, made the woman a drug addict who disappears in chapter 6 or so, and told the story from the 16-year-old girl's point of view. Only the ghost haunting the house remained somewhat consistent... though his interactions naturally had to be rewritten each time.

    With each rewrite, I pretty much had to scrap every single word. It was tough, but it was not a waste. My next revision will likely yield better results, too.

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  2. I haven't had to scrap everything before, but I've definitely had epiphanies that couldn't be ignored. Once I know what needs to change, I can't "go forward" without fixing it.

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