twovictorianladies

Well, since I lost posted, I’ve gotten about halfway through tearing my book apart and putting it back together. There are huge sections that only need minor changes made, and other parts that have to be re-written entirely. It’s the re-writing that’s the most difficult. Writing something from scratch allows you full freedom, within the confines of the story, of course, to take off with the only limit being that of your imagination. Rewriting has more of a limit, requiring that you catch every possible reference to the changes in the story.

I’ve hinted about what I am doing. In the original story, two of the main characters elope between Chapter 26 and the epilogue. In the revised version, they elope in about chapter 4, and instead of happening off-screen, as it were, the entire elopement is described – right from the planning of  it to the family sending representatives after them. Only the wedding night happens (mostly) while the reader is looking somewhere else. Some of my Facebook friends will recall my once mentioning that I was trying to “write a sex scene without any sex in it” – that’s what I was working on at the time.

But as well as writing all this new material, I also have to review some of the old material. The elopement happens because her mother has another match in mind for her, and her other suitor is (eventually) murdered. The murder originally took place in about chapter 16 or so;  by the time we reach that point in the story there would be no reason for him still to be there – the girl he wanted would already be married to someone else. So it has to happen earlier.  (Naturally, since the marriage also took place almost a year earlier, related incidents also need to be adapted.)

So that murder comes forward. The second, semi-related murder, can take place where it originally did but all references to the original murder have to be identified and reviewed for accuracy in the light of the new story. Since the two characters are now married almost a year earlier, certain other processes related to marriage also move up.

So if someday I ask you to read a draft of the book, and a character looks out a window in July and sees snow, you’ll know why!