Back To Editing – The Climb #292

Thursday 9^th November 2017

So while I’ve been busy focusing on my swordfighting I’ve been thinking about book 2.
I actually did some editing of the book today which I’m quite pleased about. It was only a chapter, which isn’t a huge amount. But I’m always slow to start after a break, and I thought I’d have a lot of edits to make due to changes I wanted to make to the main character.
I wanted the character to think about this relationship they had with another character. In the initial draft they’re angry (and for good reason). I liked it but I felt it could dig a little deeper. And so the emotion of my character has been playing on my mind. Are they really just angry?
I came to the conclusion that whilst they would be outwardly angry, secretly they’d be quiet sad. I thought about those times you break up with someone and you wish you could go back in time and fix things. I thought about the mix of emotions: those fleeting moments of desire coupled with those moments of anger.
And so I came to the conclusion that the character would be secretly pining over this character. There’s reasons he could never be open about this with his friends so he mulls in silence and wishes he could put it right whilst knowing that he never can.
For me, this helps really set the tone of this character and where they are in book 2. I also think it helps lift the tone of the book overall. In the first draft everything is angry and sharp. This is softer, deeper and more sad than angry. I like it and editing the chapter tonight I was ready to write a great long section on this character’s emotional state.
Yet, when I came to do it, it resulted in just a few lines.
Writing can be like that some times. You can do a ton of work for little return. And whilst the work I’ve done here is mostly background processing whilst I train for tournaments I have put considerable thought into it.
But whether it results in pages or just a line or two doesn’t matter. If it helps lift the novel, either in part or as a complete manuscript, then it’s worth it.
I came away pretty happy overall with the chapter. It’s still a bit clunky in parts and I might give it another read through / edit before I go into the next chapter but I need to remind myself that I have further edits to do. This draft is about getting something solid for my beta reader.
But I was glad I got some work done. Hopefully I’ll pick up speed in the next few days as my focus switches back to the novel. The big changes I need to make are a few chapters off but they’re coming so I shouldn’t get too excited about my speed of editing as it’s going to get a lot slower in the weeks to come.
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