In the
past few days, I completely ripped apart the beginning of my novel.
I
slashed away 1,700 words. I flung far-apart settings together and threw out
some unsuspecting characters. I obliterated conversations from existence, and I
even rejected that lovely, kind-of-symbolic bit that was going to echo
throughout the series.
And the
beginning of my novel is so much
better for it.
You may
have heard me mention my strategy for this rewrite is to NOT LOOK at the rough
draft, ever, at all. You may have heard me complaining that despite this, the
rough draft is still creeping in at
times.
That was my problem with this
beginning; the events were the same as they’d always been. It dragged (I need time to set up the characters!),
there wasn’t enough tension (But the
writing is so pretty here…), and by the time the inciting incident
happened, my reader probably would have been bored.
I knew this. But for a long time I
tried to squeak along, still using it, because it was the picture I’d always
had in my head, and because I thought it looked cool the way I imagined it, and
because I wanted it, despite the fact
that it didn’t make sense in places. I wanted
it. So I left it.
And then I read this post by Donald Maass at Writer Unboxed.
“Reverses, curves, twists, shocks…instead of saving them, start with
them. Distrust your first ideas. Push toward what is unexpected and
counter-intuitive.”
Read that post, guys.
Three minutes after I finished it,
I’d rethought my beginning. I’d decided that instead of luring my main
character to the Inciting Incident, I would drop the incident right into the
middle of his school.
Now I’m wondering how I ever had it
any other way.
I’m also guiltily prodding at the
rest of my novel, which now seems inadequate in comparison…
But those are struggles for another
blog post. :)
What writing breakthroughs have you had recently? What blog posts or
books have really made you think about your novel? What sorely needed changes
have you made, and which changes are you avoiding?
