It has been sometime since I’ve worked on Balance. At present, surprising even to me, I find myself with a small window of opportunity to begin some rework on it because:
Impatience:
I am currently waiting on the next round of edits from my beloved. She is quite busy of late, entertaining our kids during the school holidays and subsequently struggling to find any quiet time to focus!
Book Two:
I have packaged off my progress so far and sent this to my trusty secret master proof reader (yes you know who you are) for some feedback before I crazily leap into the story and slam out 300 odd pages. Always worth getting a sanity check first.
The point is over the last few days I have re-read and tweaked the first fifty odd pages of Balance. My oh my, the story remains just as solid as when I wrote it however the writing is umm… err… pretty ordinary in parts.
Fresh eyes and I guess more experience means I can see so many things now which are simply wrong.
After a few hours work the dialogue reads more natural and the transitions between scenes flow far better.
Sounds like a lot of hard work and dedication! It must however be very satisfying to see that you are making progress and evolving as a writer. How do you know when you have finally finished the tweaking of the story? Presumably you could go through many passes and keep refining. The never ending story….
Hi Moss
Recently I was reading another Author’s blog and he explained how as soon as a query letter triggered a request for the full manuscript, he would rush to do last minute frantic edits…
I guess I have to draw the line somewhere with copious revisions as I want to focus on book 2 of my trilogy.
It’s a great question and I wish I knew a definitive answer. I guess a book is never really finished it’s just polished to a point the author feels it’s acceptable to put out there? I think when the book is completely readable (i.e. very minor grammatical errors) and the story stands on its own. If you don’t think it is at this point then it shouldn’t go out, at least that is what I am hearing.
I can tell you quite honestly, hand on heart I have reworked some sections over a dozen times and others are still at first draft. This is why I am trying to work through a linear complete edit from start to finish.
But then what do I know, I’m not published yet…