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At the end of last week, I opted to not post about the revisions because if I did it every day it would get boring very fast, since they're likely to last a good month. But here's another revision post which addresses something that comes up with revisions on occasion: RESURRECTION.
Yes, yes, I'm going to talk about bringing things back from the dead.
First, you have to understand my process of writing: I sit down and write the book. By the end of this draft, I realize what the book is REALLY about, and so I go back and do a revisions of the book based on that. Part of this first revisions process is typically to cut out as much of the garbage in the book as possible, but some of it is also to cut the word count down, especially on Well of Sorrows, because it ended up being one HUGE book. So I cut alot of scenes due to length that weren't garbage but that I thought wouldn't affect the outcome of the book in the end.
This is the version of the book that I sent in to my editor.
Well, while rereading chapter 5 with an eye toward what my editor suggested I fix on Friday, I realized that a scene that I had cut for length before I sent it to her is actually important enough that I need to resurrect it from the "cuttext" file I have (because I've learned to keep a file of everything of significance that I cut just in case) and try to insert it back into the chapter in some way. I can't put it in wholesale, since the changes I've made already make it out of place, but I need the characters and the intent behind those characters back in the novel, to make it more realistic. And while discussing the rewrites with my editor on the phone, there were actually a few other locations in the book where she suggested I add in something and I said that I had a scene like that in the original version but I'd taken it out. So I'm going to do some serious resurrection later on in the book as well.
The scene I need to resurrect for chapter 5 isn't a big scene at all. It sets up a potential massacre (that comes to be but off scene, so to speak) and pushes the envelope a little on the emotional part of this chapter. I'll add in the scene to fit (smoothing the edges around it of course) and then I'll refer back to the scene again much later in the book to drive the point home, but that's all that will happen in the revision process regarding this particular piece. Some of the later pieces will have a much more serious impact on the plot and characters. It all comes back to the layering in the book. I've got all of the top layers down already, I just need to put in some of the deeper layers to make the book richer, and this resurrection of this scene is one of those deep layers. Most people probably won't even remember or notice this one scene in the overall context of the book itself.
But, the lessons to learn from this are: always save you cut text because you never know when you'll need it and, of course, zombie scenes rule.
Yes, yes, I'm going to talk about bringing things back from the dead.
First, you have to understand my process of writing: I sit down and write the book. By the end of this draft, I realize what the book is REALLY about, and so I go back and do a revisions of the book based on that. Part of this first revisions process is typically to cut out as much of the garbage in the book as possible, but some of it is also to cut the word count down, especially on Well of Sorrows, because it ended up being one HUGE book. So I cut alot of scenes due to length that weren't garbage but that I thought wouldn't affect the outcome of the book in the end.
This is the version of the book that I sent in to my editor.
Well, while rereading chapter 5 with an eye toward what my editor suggested I fix on Friday, I realized that a scene that I had cut for length before I sent it to her is actually important enough that I need to resurrect it from the "cuttext" file I have (because I've learned to keep a file of everything of significance that I cut just in case) and try to insert it back into the chapter in some way. I can't put it in wholesale, since the changes I've made already make it out of place, but I need the characters and the intent behind those characters back in the novel, to make it more realistic. And while discussing the rewrites with my editor on the phone, there were actually a few other locations in the book where she suggested I add in something and I said that I had a scene like that in the original version but I'd taken it out. So I'm going to do some serious resurrection later on in the book as well.
The scene I need to resurrect for chapter 5 isn't a big scene at all. It sets up a potential massacre (that comes to be but off scene, so to speak) and pushes the envelope a little on the emotional part of this chapter. I'll add in the scene to fit (smoothing the edges around it of course) and then I'll refer back to the scene again much later in the book to drive the point home, but that's all that will happen in the revision process regarding this particular piece. Some of the later pieces will have a much more serious impact on the plot and characters. It all comes back to the layering in the book. I've got all of the top layers down already, I just need to put in some of the deeper layers to make the book richer, and this resurrection of this scene is one of those deep layers. Most people probably won't even remember or notice this one scene in the overall context of the book itself.
But, the lessons to learn from this are: always save you cut text because you never know when you'll need it and, of course, zombie scenes rule.
