Rewriting Almost Finished
After several months of not touching The Dark Thorn, trying to figure out how I could get around not rewriting with Terry's suggestions and yet still have a better book, I finally gave in two weeks ago and began rewriting.
Going against the advice I'd give anyone else, I really wanted to submit the first 10 rewritten chapters with the shifted POV, not having the rest of the book's rewrite completed. I thought, quite erroneously, that I could have an agent look at the chapters, at which point they would tell me to finish the rewrite or to go with the first draft of the book.
I realized that would be foolish. I would be wasting the agent's time. And my own.
Once that understanding hit me, I unleashed a torrent of rewriting. For the last two weeks I have rewritten Chapters 10-25. That is 13 hour days to complete them. I'm not stopping. I figure I can rewrite each chapter, shift the POV characters, one per day. Some of the chapters coming up aren't changing -- in fact six of my remaining ten are not -- so I might be able to do more than one a day. We'll see. All in all, I plan on being finished with the rewrite a few days after V-Day.
My editor ex-girlfriend has been given each completed rewritten chapter. She went over the first 10 and was invaluable in finding places where I could tighten things up or where I had a word change issue. When I finish though, I am going to send it unedited to King's agent. If he'll still want it since we haven't spoken in six months. If he does, great. He'll read it and if he likes it, I'm his. If he doesn't, I'll let Rachelle finish her edits, do the small rewrite, and then start query agents and editors like all writers must do to get published.
So that is where it stands.
I will say this newly rewritten version of The Dark Thorn is infinitely improved. Shifting the focus of the book from Bran to Richard has improved it dramatically. Terry was spot on in that regard.
Once I finish the book, the fun doesn't stop there either. I'll be redesigning Terry's website as well as my own. I will be putting together a website for a friend who is trying to get into architecture school and needs to put her portfolio up online.
And then I'll begin work on the next book's outline.
There. An update.
Now back to rewriting!
Going against the advice I'd give anyone else, I really wanted to submit the first 10 rewritten chapters with the shifted POV, not having the rest of the book's rewrite completed. I thought, quite erroneously, that I could have an agent look at the chapters, at which point they would tell me to finish the rewrite or to go with the first draft of the book.
I realized that would be foolish. I would be wasting the agent's time. And my own.
Once that understanding hit me, I unleashed a torrent of rewriting. For the last two weeks I have rewritten Chapters 10-25. That is 13 hour days to complete them. I'm not stopping. I figure I can rewrite each chapter, shift the POV characters, one per day. Some of the chapters coming up aren't changing -- in fact six of my remaining ten are not -- so I might be able to do more than one a day. We'll see. All in all, I plan on being finished with the rewrite a few days after V-Day.
My editor ex-girlfriend has been given each completed rewritten chapter. She went over the first 10 and was invaluable in finding places where I could tighten things up or where I had a word change issue. When I finish though, I am going to send it unedited to King's agent. If he'll still want it since we haven't spoken in six months. If he does, great. He'll read it and if he likes it, I'm his. If he doesn't, I'll let Rachelle finish her edits, do the small rewrite, and then start query agents and editors like all writers must do to get published.
So that is where it stands.
I will say this newly rewritten version of The Dark Thorn is infinitely improved. Shifting the focus of the book from Bran to Richard has improved it dramatically. Terry was spot on in that regard.
Once I finish the book, the fun doesn't stop there either. I'll be redesigning Terry's website as well as my own. I will be putting together a website for a friend who is trying to get into architecture school and needs to put her portfolio up online.
And then I'll begin work on the next book's outline.
There. An update.
Now back to rewriting!
Labels: The Dark Thorn, Writing
posted by Shawn C. Speakman | 10:05 AM
2 Comments:
Way to go, Shawn! Best of luck!
-Robert
Robert: Thanks! I am rewriting Chapter 29 now. 30 will be a cakewalk. So the end is at hand.
The hardest thing is writing an entirely new chapter from Philip's POV in about three chapters. I always intended to write it in the first draft but I felt like I didn't need it. Now, going back, I think it will help the story flow a lot more smoothly.
Post a Comment
<< Home