Today saw the start of the big rewrite of the novel.
Basically, I need to take a 50,000 word part 1 and turn it into a 100,000 word novel. I’m pretty decided that the start and end will essentially remain the same. The middle will see some alteration to include some elements that would otherwise now reside in book 2, and I’m still planning a lot of those out.
This morning was a trip to the library to work on the early chapters. I’ve rewritten these more times than I can remember and I was pleased that when I went over them again, I didn’t see a lot I wanted to change: mainly some clunky sentences to smooth out. I also dropped the paragraph of character backstory for Darwin and Cassidy and I was really surprised how much that lifted the whole chapter. For someone who is never pleased, I was, surprisingly, very pleased. I’m really proud of the first 2 chapters.
So Chapters 1 and 2 got copied across, with very little change but I came unstuck on chapter 3, Mr West’s first chapter. I’d decided some time ago, he needed a bit of a character arc, and I plan to have fun with this. But this means I have to alter some of his motivations. In the draft I had, he starts much further along his character development than I now want. So this means Chapter 3 needs the half of it rewriting.
I pretty much left it there as I’m not exactly sure of his character arc just yet. I know where it’s going but not entirely sure how it gets there or where it starts just yet.
Even so, that’s 7000 odd words already in the bag. if only all days were this easy!