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Thursday, March 17, 2011

Rewriting the Rewritten?

…and of course I get the brilliant revising idea AFTER I finish rewriting the beginning of the novel.

Story in a nutshell: Chapter 1 and [especially] 2 need major fixing. So I go through and fix them. Then worry that maybe chapter 2 is info-dumpy. Then realize I can actually have my protagonist know more about what she’s getting into before she gets into it, which A) eliminates info dumping, and B) Makes said protagonist come off as smarter and more compentent.

….but I JUST FINISH rewriting all of that. ;_; Woe is me, my life is so hard.

I was going to go ahead and finish revising the rest of the book, but if the start of the story is going to be re-hashed, maybe I should just create a version 2.1 file and have at it. It won’t affect chapter 1 too much, but I have to dissect chapter 2 all over again, and I’m not especially looking forward to it.

Because I’m lazy. The only reason I get anything done is that I have a strong sense of responsibility that combats my laziness, putting me at about 50% capacity for actually getting things done. Better than 0% (which is the case for some people I know, so go me.) It’s like I’m in constant seizure* mode, where half of my body is unresponsive despite how I might wish to make it work.

Anyway. I finished I Don’t Want to Kill You** yesterday and am starting The Woman Who Loved Reindeer by Meredith Ann Pierce today (friend recommendation). I Don’t Want to Kill You was good, but I think Mr. Monster is still my favorite in the series. :D


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*Seizures are a very sad thing and I am in no way making light of them.

**I read it in three days, whereas A Game of Thrones^ took me a month and a half. Both good books, but I’m grateful for the occasional easy-reading because it makes me feel slightly more intelligent than I actually am.

^BTW, did you know they’re making an HBO series based on this book? Excitement! Too bad I don’t have cable.

5 comments:

  1. I think this is what all the textbooks warn you about, hehe...

    I killed the rewriting bug some time ago, though I understand how it can creep up on you. Why not just write a new novel instead of rewriting the old one?

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  3. At the very least you're getting more practice!

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  4. I'd rewrite chapter 2 again now--it would stink to do revisions on the rest of the book, THEN go back to chapter 2, and find out that you want to change something else that will affect various other parts that you'd already reworked. You don't want to do this a million times and never move on, of course, but if you're making a major change, I think it makes sense to get it done first.

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  5. Ben-If I never rewrite the old one, it will never be publishable! XD

    Eileen-Thanks for the advice; I think I'll do that.

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