Phew. I reached a little over my seven page goal today, and I actually want to keep writing, but I think my brain needs a rest. I spent the last several days working out the previous twenty-page scene, and finally reaching the end of this chapter has left me triumphant but drained.

I’ve had a few people ask me lately why I keep going back and reworking pages. A common bit of wisdom for writers working on their first draft is to just GET IT DOWN. And wise indeed! The first draft of “Jane’s S.O.S.” was written in two months on lined notebook paper, filling journal after journal of my dutiful plotting. Hand-writing, I’ve found, makes it impossible for me to hit “delete” or to get stuck on a word or two that may eventually get thrown away.

However, I am no longer on the first draft of this book, nor the second. Last year, I finished what I thought was my most polished draft and put it in a drawer to sit and ponder. I’ve gotten in the habit of self-editing which many writers and artists claim is impossible, but I believe merely requires the weathering of time on my neurons. A year later, I dusted off that manuscript and read it through, beginning to end.

My decision after finishing that read-through was that the entire manuscript needed a rewrite. The basic structure and themes would remain, but the plot needed tightening. The characters also weren’t as compelling or dynamic as I believe they could be. My voice lacked the focus that the story needed. The samples I’d sent to friends all said that they enjoyed the writing itself (yeay!) but that it needed more punch (owch!). I agreed.

This later incarnation of this book is basically me folding over my old manuscript and writing it from memory. I do not reference or go back to the old one. As far as that’s concerned, it’s an outline, not a manuscript.

As I began to hack away at the new book, I realized that part of the problem with the old book is the science. My fantasy writing is heavily influenced by my love of physics. Even if I don’t sit and talk about Einstein’s models of Special and General Relativity (okay, maybe a TEENSY bit!), in order for the fantasy to work, the science has to work in my head first.

Reaching a major “reveal all” scene in my book–the pre-climax I guess you could call it–I found myself going into detailed explainations of the physics behind the fantasy. Five pages turned into ten, into twenty, into fifty. I could have written a novel on the science alone!

My internal dialog:

Okay, so I obviously need to cut this down. Fifty is a quarter of the book!

But! But! It needs to make sense to the reader! There are reveals about plot, story, character’s deaths and motivations, etc.

Wait a sec. You’re revealing it all at ONCE?

Well. Yeah. You know, she meets a major character and he knows EVERYTHING–

Hold up. Listen to yourself! You can’t just DUMP on your reader.

I can’t?

NO YOU CAN’T! You’ll blow their braincells! And worse? You’ll BORE THEM TO TEARS. I’m not sure which is worse.

Oh my god. I hate being bored. But the science is so NEAT. How could it be boring?

Print it out. Read it.

So, I printed it out. I read it. And the little devil of my editorial conscience was right.

And instead of whining, I went back and rewrote it. The science bits? They didn’t need to be thrown out entirely, but they could be revealed in stages in other ways and toned down. The character bits? The most interesting parts are revealed, but I left out one or two key pieces of information to be revealed later, because you know the other annoying thing about info dumping?

You lose your hook.

Explain too much to the reader, there is suddenly less mystery. The less mystery, the less your reader is going to wonder what’s going to happen next. The less they wonder what’s going to happen next, the more bored they become and wander off to do other things. Like clean their bathroom.

So fifty pages became twenty again, got revised and became twelve.

Sigh of relief, I finished the chapter, and now it’s one of the best bits (so I like to think) of the entire book. I was literally jumping up and down in my seat as they made their escape, shivering with fear as they got nearly caught, and crying when ____ ____ (major plot spoiler there).

At a certain point in this draft, I took on the mantra “as short as you can make it”. I’m ADD girl. I loathe books that drag out further than necessary. You don’t need a mountain of description to establish mood or setting. You give just enough to the reader to fill in the rest themselves and what comes out is a story that’s just as, if not more compelling than if you’d spent pages describing the color of their hair or the freckles in the shape of Kansas on their forehead (okay, that is kind of neat, but you get the point here).

Anyway, I think I want to get back to my book now. Listening to the Asylum Street Spankers (um… not quite work-safe) and Squirrel Nut Zippers. Wammo (singer in the tophat) reminds me of my ex. HA! Eerily similar facial expressions and singing voice. And that devil beard goatee thingy… LOL.h