Editing problems...
So after finishing Yuki Hanashi in early December, I took a bit of a break to relax, watch some tv, do some reading that's actually for pleasure rather than research, read some books that I've been wanting to read but have been holding off on because of worries that they might get my mind too far off the themes and the world of my book.
I've also started to write my next story, which has been simmering at the back of my mind for at least a year, maybe two (can't remember exactly how long it was since I first thought of the idea...). All I've written is half a prologue, but it's a start, and I'm also beginning to research Arabic folklore, which plays a very, very small but -- I think -- interesting role in this next story.
But what I'm also doing right now that is giving me a little bit of a headache is going over the first book and editing it. So far, so good. Sure, there is a place in part two that I think slows the story down too much, but I'm pretty sure I know how to fix that. But coming into part three, I'm dealing with a much more problematic place in the narrative that I don't think will be as easy to resolve.
Without giving away anything of the plot: part two ends in a cliffhanger, and part three begins a couple weeks later. After about a page of setting up a crucial scene for part three, it breaks off again and flashes back to reveal how the main character got to the place she is now. So far so good. But during this flashback, which itself I am pretty satisfied, there is some information about a character who becomes more significant here, that I'm not really pleased with. Basically, the problem is that I've somehow spread this information out too thinly, or to be more accurate, put different pieces of it in too many different places. Reading over it now, I think that it should either be all in one place, or if not at least closer together. But that will be hard to do without some major work on this flashback. I've even tried making a list of every paragraph in this section and their main points, to try to boil it down more so I can see more easily how things might be moved. But this doesn't help. The primary problem with this approach is that when I go back and look at things out of context, everything seems fine. I can't think of how to change things because looking at the text one paragraph at a time, there aren't any problems. It's just when one reads the section as a whole when the problems become apparent.
What I really need the most is for someone completely new to this story to read it and tell me where the problems are, if there are any and it's not just my over-critical imagination, and how they might be fixed. My good friend Matt is in the process of doing this right now, actually, so I really just need to be more patient. I trust his opinions on literary matters, so if anyone can help me with this, Matt can.
Matt himself is working on a novel set in the world of Russian folklore, which I can already tell just by hearing him talk about it is going to far surpass my own book. I've only read a little bit of his writing for this story, but I think the themes and approaches he's chosen are better than mine. But then, I can't really go into the weaknesses of my story without spoiling too many pain plot points.
Don't get me wrong. It's not that I'm dissatisfied with my book and how it's come out. Reading through it -- while it has been a tedious process because I've read these passages time after time after time throughout the process of writing -- has only made me more excited about eventually trying to get it published. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I consider it a success. My worries are mainly philosophical ones, which most people probably won't even notice. It's very likely that I'm narcissistically picking apart everything that remotely resembles a flaw, out of some self-centered perfectionist obsession. But then again, I'll be the first to acknowledge my flaws. I don't know. I think I've stopped making sense, so I'll shut up now.
I've also started to write my next story, which has been simmering at the back of my mind for at least a year, maybe two (can't remember exactly how long it was since I first thought of the idea...). All I've written is half a prologue, but it's a start, and I'm also beginning to research Arabic folklore, which plays a very, very small but -- I think -- interesting role in this next story.
But what I'm also doing right now that is giving me a little bit of a headache is going over the first book and editing it. So far, so good. Sure, there is a place in part two that I think slows the story down too much, but I'm pretty sure I know how to fix that. But coming into part three, I'm dealing with a much more problematic place in the narrative that I don't think will be as easy to resolve.
Without giving away anything of the plot: part two ends in a cliffhanger, and part three begins a couple weeks later. After about a page of setting up a crucial scene for part three, it breaks off again and flashes back to reveal how the main character got to the place she is now. So far so good. But during this flashback, which itself I am pretty satisfied, there is some information about a character who becomes more significant here, that I'm not really pleased with. Basically, the problem is that I've somehow spread this information out too thinly, or to be more accurate, put different pieces of it in too many different places. Reading over it now, I think that it should either be all in one place, or if not at least closer together. But that will be hard to do without some major work on this flashback. I've even tried making a list of every paragraph in this section and their main points, to try to boil it down more so I can see more easily how things might be moved. But this doesn't help. The primary problem with this approach is that when I go back and look at things out of context, everything seems fine. I can't think of how to change things because looking at the text one paragraph at a time, there aren't any problems. It's just when one reads the section as a whole when the problems become apparent.
What I really need the most is for someone completely new to this story to read it and tell me where the problems are, if there are any and it's not just my over-critical imagination, and how they might be fixed. My good friend Matt is in the process of doing this right now, actually, so I really just need to be more patient. I trust his opinions on literary matters, so if anyone can help me with this, Matt can.
Matt himself is working on a novel set in the world of Russian folklore, which I can already tell just by hearing him talk about it is going to far surpass my own book. I've only read a little bit of his writing for this story, but I think the themes and approaches he's chosen are better than mine. But then, I can't really go into the weaknesses of my story without spoiling too many pain plot points.
Don't get me wrong. It's not that I'm dissatisfied with my book and how it's come out. Reading through it -- while it has been a tedious process because I've read these passages time after time after time throughout the process of writing -- has only made me more excited about eventually trying to get it published. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I consider it a success. My worries are mainly philosophical ones, which most people probably won't even notice. It's very likely that I'm narcissistically picking apart everything that remotely resembles a flaw, out of some self-centered perfectionist obsession. But then again, I'll be the first to acknowledge my flaws. I don't know. I think I've stopped making sense, so I'll shut up now.