Saturday, October 1, 2011

First Read of the First Pass of the First Revision

That's a long title.

With all that is wrong with my current work, I am really surprised at the ease of the fixes. I'm starting the edits and rewrites on Darklight. It has many problems, most notably a vague threat from nameless folk rather than a defined antagonist. The other problem is the non-existent lovin' due to the non-existent lover. These are of course, problems, but the fixes are surprisingly easy.

It reminds me of Stephen King's theory of stories being "found" things. I've always believed in this theory. The story is there in the ground, or deep in the ocean, you just need to excavate it. Hopefully, without knocking off too many pieces or killing any squid. Or whatever is in the ocean to be damaged by the full scale removal of a story. For instance, my main character is on the hunt for someone with magical powers in the very first scene and is attacked by dark magic. This is a hint of the major conflict in the story. However, whoever she was after is never defined and never really seen again. Well, now I know my bad guy needs to show up earlier, and he gets plugged into that scene. She spends most of her time with Gomez, an Agent with magical abilities. But I also want a love story. Her love interest was a former lover that is now a boss in her organization. Somehow, he never got enough face time. So now, instead of Gomez, she hangs out with Mr. Lovey guy, and instead of her boss, he's an Agent. Also, it's better that he isn't her boss, but her equal. It's like I had all the parts, I just hadn't put them in the right places. As if I'd excavated a house and put some of the walls in the wrong places.

Of course, I'm saying this only 45 pages in to the first pass, which is only skimming through and finding the plot problems. Fingers crossed I don't find any roof rot in my "found" story house.

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