Most people think writing a book is hard. And it certinaly can be! But for me, it's rewriting that's the killer. When I write the first draft, I'm usually so busy getting the original idea down on the page, that I miss a lot of things, and then I think I'm done, only to find that there's sooooo much to fix!
Where things come unstuck is that I'm too focused on hurrying my characters from this plot point to the next and I skip over what happens inbetween. In the second book of the Shadows and Light series (which I'm over halfway through rewriting) Everyone has to go to the Frostblood Mountains. It's a few days' ride, so you'd think some stuff would happen along the way, right?
And it does! But the original version was too much like checking things off a list. This relationship issue needs to be resolved? Done! There should probably be some fall out from actions in the last book. Check! And now we're at the mountains - yay!
But that's pretty boring, right? It was distinctly lacking in conflict (which I like to avoid in real life, and so tend to go way on my characters) and a little too easy for everyone involved.
I've always hated rewriting. Even at school, when people would say you should look over your exam essays to make sure they're right, my first instinct would be - but if I find something that's wrong I'll have to redo it. Duh. Of course I would, but I was finished. There's something about redoing something I've finished that doesn't gel.
But you know what's really weird? Sometimes I can trick my mind if I tell myself I'm not rewriting that chapter, I'm writing a whole new chapter. That feels heaps more exciting! Even when I'm cutting and pasting huge chunks of the old chapter into the new one. It's silly, but hey - whatever works, right?
I must say, I did have a bunch of fun sitting down and raining fire and brimstone on my characters. Okay, I probably wasn't that mean. But I did enjoy thinking about what could go wrong, and then trying to figure out what could make it even worse.
Some of that didn't make it in. If things went too badly on the way to the mountains, the point of the book might have been overtaken! But I did have a hesitation after I realised that realistically, two of the characters would have had a disagreement, not a calm, adult discussion that came to a comfortable conclusion. The argument was fine, but it was when I realised that one of the characters needed to leave the group that things got scary. I didn't want them to go. I like them. What would happen without them there?
But, I knew it was what the story needed, and there were signs already hidden in the rest of the book that this was what was supposed to happen. Don't worry - they're not dead (yet 🤣😳🤣), and I'm about to rewrite where they turn back up. But it might not be with the gang. And things might have gotten even worse for everyone in the meantime!
Cheers,
K.T.
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