You spend so much time on that first draft.
Creating characters, inventing settings – perhaps even a bit of plot makes it in there. It might take weeks, might take years. And then finally it’s finished, and you can celebrate your amazing achievement. Well done! Not everyone makes it this far.
Now it’s time to tear it apart.
Rewriting is a long and difficult task, but every writer has to do it eventually. Many writers don’t talk about their actual process, which is a shame because we can learn a lot from each other. Since I’ve never rewritten a novel before, it’s going to be a learning experience for me, too! Every few weeks I’ll post updates on what I’ve done and why, and eventually how the new draft compares to the original manuscript. I want to credit Susan Dennard for her amazing writing advice guide on her website – worth a read regardless of what stage you’re at in the writing process.
The Last Pyromancer is the first book in a YA fantasy trilogy. Here is the current synopsis:
Carla Jennings is terrified of fire – which is unfortunate when she gains the magical Skill to manipulate it. But the Sentinels are hunting her: elite soldiers who fight with magic as well as guns. Carla is forced to confront her own grief and fears, and ultimately uncovers a plot to awaken a centuries-old sorceress. Another pyromancer, the most notorious throughout history, who once led the most powerful magical army on Earth…
Back in April, the prize for winning Project Remix was an editing session with Natalie Doherty, a commissioning editor at Penguin Random House. After reading Pyromancer, she emailed me back with some constructive tips. They boiled down to three main issues: tone (too formal, which made the characters difficult to relate to), pacing (too slow in most places) and grit (the story felt too safe and clean for the audience it was aimed at).
It was time to rewrite!
So I printed out the manuscript and read it through again. A few months ago I’d made notes on each chapter, but I now saw that I hadn’t been thinking of the bigger picture. More description of apartment and John too much info-dump are useful, but I wasn’t focusing on plot. I had to see the story as individual scenes, which could be moved, deleted or changed. Word-related problems had to come later.
So I started again.
I made new notes from scratch. These were much better, because I had a clearer image of what the final novel should look like (try Susan Dennard’s The Perfect Book exercise!). One page per chapter, and I colour-coded them based on:
- Plot (cut this scene, ensure world-building is consistent, is this thing mentioned later?)
- Character (Carla isn’t angry enough, John is too formal, swap Dhanya with Allie)
- Setting (descriptive paragraph is too long, “white room” syndrome, make it more Yorkshire-y)
Whenever I had an idea for interesting dialogue or smaller scene changes, I wrote them on sticky notes so I could refer to them later during the actual paper rewrite.
And that’s where I am now. Chapter one’s main problem was clunky writing, since I wrote it so long ago. Chapters two and three were very slow and some scenes were too similar, so they are now (somewhat messily) merged together. The pacing is very slow in places, but hopefully I’ll have new content to fill up the word count – plenty of ideas for new scenes!
Chapter five was where I hit a snag, as it introduces two new characters and world building elements that may need cutting later (they’re too convenient, but at the moment also integral to the plot). A couple of passive characters also have new back stories to provide better motivations, including Carla’s best friend Allie and one of the antagonists. The villain now feels more real – in an earlier draft he was basically a cultist, and a very clichéd one at that! Work needs to be done to remove the last of those elements. He still talks like a supervillain at the moment.
There are bigger things to change: at the moment, the story is exclusively told from Carla’s third-person perspective. This meant there were too many quiet moments, and I had to resort to her overhearing conversations to convey parts of the plot. Brandon Sanderson regularly changes POV to keep the tension going in his stories, and his Mistborn trilogy in particular inspired me to do this, as well as pay closer attention to world building and the rules of magic. There will be consequences to overstepping your limits, as well as more danger in the fight scenes. Carla’s emotional journey will also play a bigger part, since it is closely linked with how she ultimately uses her pyromancy.
Because of the changes to POV and plot in particular, many scenes will be completely replaced and not just rewritten. Pyromancer will change quite drastically during its first rewrite, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it will eventually turn out when all the work it done. Suppose there’s only one way to find out…
Things I’ve learnt:
- Planning out your novel beforehand can save a lot of plot-rewriting later on.
- It’s faster to write a messy draft rather than polishing one chapter at a time.
- Rewriting can be fun: it gives you the chance to make your story better.
- All important characters need motivations and back stories. Even baddies.
- Rewriting isn’t just editing the scenes themselves. it’s about moving them around, adding them and deleting them!
- Rewrites should focus on the bigger picture, not individual sentences or lines.
- There’s no such thing as being too organised.
- You need highlighters. As many colours as you can get.
- And sticky notes.
- Lots of ‘em.
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It’s the last day of the year! I hope you’ve had a great 2015. My holidays have consisted of playing a lot of video games and having another go at learning Anglo-Saxon. Learning a language is hard; I’m having a lot of Year 9 French flashbacks (shudder). I’ve finally got my hands on the new Twilight book, which is even more interesting from a writerly perspective (future blog post, perhaps…?) so I’ll be devouring that for most of this week.
Thank you to everyone who has visited the website – WordPress reckons that there were visitors from New Zealand, the US, Brazil, China, Russia and many others! Couldn’t believe it when I saw the numbers. So so humbled.
2015 has been an incredible year for me. I was published for the first time, ended my first year at Nottingham University, appeared on BBC Radio Leicester… So many amazing experiences that have inspired me to persevere with my writing and keep pushing myself further..
But 2016 is on its way. Not going to say something corny about making it the best year yet (because I’m not sure if I could beat 2015!). However, it’s the time to start making plans – and think up some resolutions. In the mean time, have a great New Year!