Deep breaths.
Deeeeeeeeeep breaths.
OK.
Here’s the part that’s going to take me a while.
As of finishing my timeline, I decided that I was going to leave the character stuff alone. I’ll do some extra work if I run into trouble while writing, rather than trying to solve my problems before I know what they are. So you’ll see me mention if I end up doing any of that later, but for now that’s on hold.
Now we start the rewrite.
I feel sort of bad that I ended up doing Edit Pass Live for this particular story and edit, actually. When I started this, it was because I thought I was going to be discussing an actual edit pass. I thought I was going to be able to talk about how I was looking at the structure and changing things around, and what I was looking for in each pass, and all of that sort of thing. And I chose to do it because I wanted to put something out there that wasn’t talking about first drafts, that was diving specifically more into the editing process.
But here we are, and what the story needs is a rewrite, not an edit, so this is what you get. I may actually extend this “edit pass” to include both this rewrite and a subsequent actual edit pass after this – but only if folks keep showing interest because I know it’s probably not the most exciting thing to hear me talk about myself constantly. I’ll definitely take a hiatus and write some other content while I let the story sit – I’m definitely not letting this be the only content I produce for the next six-odd months.
Anyway – we were talking about rewriting.
I’m not sure I can really front-load this with a lot of information, but I’ll try. I’m a very linear writer, in that I start at the beginning and write through to the end. I find it easier to work out pacing that way – I can feel things progressing as I write, whereas I tend to lose the thread if I try to write scenes out of order.
In order to start, I’ve got all those worldbuilding notes, plus the ones I already had for the last draft, all lined up in Scrivener. I first got Scrivener a little over a year ago, and I am a firm convert, but that’s a discussion for another time. I’ve also transferred my last draft into a big folder, so that I can go back, reference it, steal scenes and lines, and all that.
I’ve got that write-up of all my notes that I made, in categories so I can easily reference them while I’m writing if need be. I have a clean file for making more notes in as I write, things I either need to remember for later, or that I know I need to address in the next edit pass.
I also have a notebook next to my computer so that I can write down my Next Five Scenes lists and I’ve got scratch paper if I need it.
Because this is a rewrite, I’m going to keep a running wordcount total, which I wouldn’t do for an edit pass. I’m going to try and blaze through this as fast as possible, too, because I’m not sure that there will be a lot to talk to you folks about, but we’ll see how we go.
So that’s that – see you all on Twitter, or in the next blog post!
Whimsy and Metaphor 