Wednesday 15th July 2020

I know I sound like a broken record, but this draft is going exceptionally well.

I’ve tried to put my finger on why that is and I think ultimately it relies in confidence in my ability to revise.

Writing a novel is a difficult endeavor.  There’s so many moving parts.  There’s setting, characters, plot, and much more.  I always worry that I’m going to forget something and the entire novel will fall to pieces around me like those chefs on baking shows whose sugar sculptures snaps and collapse with 30 seconds left on the clock.

I worry that I won’t be able to fix it, that this story is too big for me.

I’ve got better at that over the years.  Swapping from being a ‘gardener’ to an ‘architect’ meant I had a plan.  Even though it cost a bit of time up front, I knew the chapters and what happened in them.  Then when I came to chapters, I’d plan that so I’d know what happened at each stage of that.

Outlines and plans allowed me to take this unwieldy thing called a novel and tame it, breaking it down into something more manageable.

But redrafts were another kettle of fish.  Oh boy!

It’s like trying to replace the engine on a car whilst it’s driving down the motorway.  Any change ripples out and has loads of impact.  I know some writers will just go into a specific chapter, make changes and then go back out… but I’m always worried:  what does this do to change the character?  What does this do to change the tone?

If writing a novel is daunting then redrafting a novel is terrifying.

I’d come to a change and then try and play out in my head every ripple it may make.  I’d need to revise forward from that point to ensure continuity.

What’s happened, is that I’ve done more revisions than a lot of people at this stage in their career, and I’ve started to work out a system for them.  The discussion document allowed me to focus in on specific changes.  From that it’s become a lot easier to understand the ripples.

I still work linearly, but when I do come to something that might have previously caused me to dwell for several days,  I just make a note of it to myself so I can look out for problems come the final read through.

I’ve also become more messy with my manuscripts.  I’ve typically used Scrivener’s main pane for writing and held notes to myself in the metadata.  I started using some of the labeling features a few years back and with this draft I’ve started putting in placeholder cards just to remind me of big overarching goals  (i.e. “Character should be this until this point”)

I’ve become less afraid of my manuscript, and more confident of my ability to fix any problem.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t have fears but I’m much more content to now make a choice, try it out, and be prepared to revise again if it doesn’t seem to work come the final read through.

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Past Years: 2019 – The Year of Soldiering Through | 2018 – The Year of Priorities | 2017 – The Year Of The Offensive