{"id":13709,"date":"2021-04-23T20:04:25","date_gmt":"2021-04-23T19:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=13709"},"modified":"2021-04-26T15:33:47","modified_gmt":"2021-04-26T14:33:47","slug":"rewriting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=13709","title":{"rendered":"Rewriting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/writing-1024x769.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13710\" width=\"550\" height=\"412\" srcset=\"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/writing-1024x769.png 1024w, https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/writing-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/writing-768x577.png 768w, https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/writing-1536x1153.png 1536w, https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/writing-2048x1538.png 2048w, https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/writing-150x113.png 150w, https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/writing-200x150.png 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><figcaption>Old School Writering<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Difficult Second Novel<sup>tm<\/sup> arrived back from the editor a few weeks ago. She&#8217;s done a good job. I accept almost all of her comments. Her questions have been, for the most part, helpful. Her observations have also been insightful. I only disagree with her perspective on one point, and that one point is minor and doesn&#8217;t affect the story. She also asked the same question in a few places in the manuscript, and that question has caused me to come up with a new naming convention for each chapter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But she did ask one telling question about a story arc which made me sit back and think. I got her point straight away, but if I accepted her view I would have to erase that story arc from the book, and rewrite every scene where that story arc has an impact &#8211; and it&#8217;s a major structural plot device with a significant number of touchpoints. I was resistant, for all of these reasons, and not least because that story arc had sparked some above average dialogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I felt I was getting blocked by the dilemma, it&#8217;s a big thing to reconsider a pivotal plot device, so I put the manuscript away for a while. I thought about it a lot. I even worked up a file of everything that would have to change, and what would have to alter in characteristics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Earlier this week I retrieved the manuscript and started reworking the whole book, removing that story arc and rewriting every touch point, then refining the characterisations and matching the dialogue. I&#8217;m still doing this, and also updating the overall timeline as I work through the new structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I guess a good editor aims to get the best out of the work they&#8217;re engaged on, but they don&#8217;t have the same bond with the piece that the author has, so they can make such anarchic suggestions as &#8216;get rid of one of these central pillars&#8217;?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Difficult Second Noveltm arrived back from the editor a few weeks ago. She&#8217;s done a good job. I accept almost all of her comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}