Small Victories

I just finished a major revision on Glamour, and Draft 3.0 is now complete. 

 

Many thanks to the excellent feedback and encouragement I received from my early readers.  Based on their feedback, and feedback I’d gotten from the Pros on a couple submissions I entered in the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference Writing Contest, and the MISCON Writers Workshop, I know I still need to flesh out more internal dialog, deepen my protagonist’s emotional responses, bring out the most telling details I can in my descriptions, and make sure that even my secondary characters are unique and memorable.   

With my last manuscript, I felt a pretty overwhelmed with the revision process.  I was still learning the process, and didn’t realize how truly freeing it is to have the basic structure in place (partly because the basic structure of FATE didn’t emerge until the 6thdraft), and be able to see the theme emerge (just like the books said it would), strengthen the subplots and watch the whole story tighten up. The biggest lesson I learned was letting the manuscript sit for a month, which was a huge help.  It gave me the distance I needed, and when I sat down to read it; it felt fresh and new to me.  The holes were obvious (where they hadn’t been obvious before).
This round took me three and a half weeks, and the word count went from 74K words to 83K words.  I know I’ve got at least two more drafts to complete, and I expect to add another 15K words.  I know it doesn’t sound like a lot, but I made substantial changes to all but a handful of pages.  The last two chapters have been completely replaced, and I like the new ending much better. 
So I’m taking the weekend off; gonna take in a couple movies, and catch up on some reading.  I’m one step closer to finishing GLAMOUR, and it feels good.  I’m thinking pie…
This entry was posted in celebrate the small stuff, editing, Glamour, manuscript, revisions, subplots, theme, urban fantasy. Bookmark the permalink.

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