Revision 2: Running Free
Second Week, and Snow
Revision and Snow… and a co-worker who was out for the last 2 weeks.
So, my revision is not going how I originally planned. I was going to do each storyline as its own thing… but then I decided that I wanted to get all of the workshopped material done first. With feedback I figured those chapters would go faster than the later chapters where I have nothing to go by other than my own feelings.
I will admit that I have managed to pass the workshopped portion of my manuscript and now I’m dealing with all of the raw material.
Numbers
Many of you are here for the numbers, to give me a little cheer, or see where its going. So, let’s get the stats out of the way and then comment on the chapters.
First off, I have had to both add and subtract words from the piece and overall have only netted an extra 1200 or so words over the last 2 weeks.
But here are the actual numbers. Week Two of revision had seen me tear through a total of 13 chapters (total of 23 w/ previous week) and I ended up adding an extra 544 words (1249 total) bringing the WIP as a whole to 194,059 words.
Goals for Week 3
I’m trying to do my revisions on my days off, basically trying for 3 chapters on each day off. I only managed 13 this last week because I had extra day off due to snow, and because two of the chapters were sub-4000 words.
If I can manage another 9-10 chapters this week, then that will get me 3/5th of the way through the book. I should be able to finish the first pass before the end of the year at that rate.
Class Workload
For my class last week, I had to finish off a short story and this week I have to polish it enough to then submit it. I haven’t really written any short fiction in years, but I did have something I could use for the basis of the assignment. This is one of those assignments I would have liked to know about well in advance so I could have been working on a short story over a couple weeks, and not over a matter of days.
Either way, I have a workable story that is getting a quick workshop and then I have to submit it somewhere within the next few days. I will admit the thought makes me sick… I hate the nerves that come with submitting short fiction, and also hunting through markets.
There is a reason why I want o find an agent and work in novels. Perhaps I will do a blog post on that sometime soonish.
Promises to Keep:
I know I have promised a bunch of other content on this website, and I have not delivered. Some of that is due to circumstances out of my control. I was going to do an in-character journal for my character in a Shadowrun game, but that game has not been working out and I won’t be continuing with it. So, no material.
My D&D games are mostly on pause for the end of the year, and both of them have been running for a long time… so I don’t know what I would talk about those. My notes are not good enough to turn into a story other than to tell it all in matter-of-fact snippets.
I have been thinking of a few ideas to talk about world building and writing on writing… if there was an interest in that…?? Would you all like to hear (read) me talk about process and what goes through my mind? How I come up with story and characters? Sometimes I feel I repeat myself. My four older posts on world building kind of cover all of the basics.
Though perhaps you want to know more about my revision process?
What’s going on with the Process:
The thing is… I’m a little embarrassed when I think about my revision. I feel like if I tell you about the flaws I find… perhaps you’ll think less of me? But then again, maybe learning that we all make dumb mistakes might make you feel better?
Some of my biggest mistakes seem to be repetition of details… and not just mentioning something small a few extra times but really spending two whole pages with overwrought emotional storytelling giving you the origin of a character… yeah that was a huge deletion. Back in chapter 4 I added in the origin of one of my characters, Slater. Then in chapter 12 I had this whole very over done scene of him reliving that entire origin again.
Oops. Forgot I already told the reader those details.
Similar but different mistake:
In another example I have the tragic backstory of a character hinted at in chap 15, outright told in 19, and then acted on in 22… sounds ok. But back in chap 15 I have the character having an emotional breakdown that wasn’t earned. I had only hinted at the tragedy and had him reacting like it was the scene from 19.
In the end I put everything into the earlier scene, got the whole tragic story out, had the character EARN their emotional break down, and then when I arrived chapter 19, and their fears were confirmed, it was a shorter 1-page scene instead of four pages of back story.
The real flaw here was having my characters react to the knowledge in my notes/head but not giving the readers that knowledge on the page.
Biggest Sins:
I have two things that are cropping up a lot. The first is using silly modifiers like “quite,” “actually,” and “interestingly.” You know, something like… “He was quite annoyed.” Or, “He couldn’t actually believe…”
The other sin is just weird because I do it in the middle of not doing it. I blame the strict POV on this a lot, because all of the action is how one character perceives it in the scene… but it is the use of “was.”
“He was picking the way along the path…” NO NO NO!
“He picked his path carefully.” Yes!
These are just random examples. But yeah, I am hunting all of the “was” out of my damn book… well not all of it, just the shitty sentences where it doesn’t belong.
Anyways
I’m going to call it here… as I have some back issues that are demanding I get away from the computer for a while.
