The Death of A Thousand Paper Cuts
Over the weekend, Kapoor finished compiling the critiques from the folks who read the second draft of Gone to Earth. Kapoor took the printout of the whole manuscript and wrote, by hand, in red ink, the commentary offered for any given point, page, or section. The manuscript now looks like it inflicted a thousand paper cuts on someone who then bled to death.
The commentary is now fresh in Kapoor's mind, and he's ready to sit down and read the whole thing back to back and winkle out its faults. One can actually see the parts that need the most revision since they are covered in red; the most solid parts (about two-thirds of the book) have few marks.
Preparing the third draft will go in stages. First, Kapoor will write a prologue. Kapoor generally hates prologues because nothing happens in most of them. Therefore, Kapoor must write a prologue in which something happens. Second, Kapoor has to tighten up pages 11 to 50 so that it doesn't take too long to get the story rolling; this will involve making the first antagonist more antagonistic. Third, establishing the protagonist's character must be done more quickly so people have a reason to care about her and are able to understand her motivations. Fourth, there's a big waste of time around page 300 (plus or minus a dozen pages or so) that needs to be excised and patched over. Fifth, the ending needs to be tied together with the rest of the story more tightly. Lastly, the whole manuscript needs to be shortened by 12,000 words or more to bring its word count down to something a first-timer can reasonably expect to place with a publisher.
Kapoor hopes to accomplish all these goals before mid-July and start querying agents.
The commentary is now fresh in Kapoor's mind, and he's ready to sit down and read the whole thing back to back and winkle out its faults. One can actually see the parts that need the most revision since they are covered in red; the most solid parts (about two-thirds of the book) have few marks.
Preparing the third draft will go in stages. First, Kapoor will write a prologue. Kapoor generally hates prologues because nothing happens in most of them. Therefore, Kapoor must write a prologue in which something happens. Second, Kapoor has to tighten up pages 11 to 50 so that it doesn't take too long to get the story rolling; this will involve making the first antagonist more antagonistic. Third, establishing the protagonist's character must be done more quickly so people have a reason to care about her and are able to understand her motivations. Fourth, there's a big waste of time around page 300 (plus or minus a dozen pages or so) that needs to be excised and patched over. Fifth, the ending needs to be tied together with the rest of the story more tightly. Lastly, the whole manuscript needs to be shortened by 12,000 words or more to bring its word count down to something a first-timer can reasonably expect to place with a publisher.
Kapoor hopes to accomplish all these goals before mid-July and start querying agents.