I’ve really been struggling with my current book. I mean really struggling.
I think the words start over, paper shredder and pile of crap have been mentioned numerous times in the past few weeks.
This book started out like any other. A big blob of clay waiting to be shaped, sculpted, molded.
photo by: Martin Cathrae
And I got about halfway finished before I realized it was completely off the rails. It didn’t follow the fun, flirty series-line I’d created. It didn’t fit in. It was dark and moody and not terribly sexy. It wasn’t a breezy frolic to a tropical island. I’d given my heroine a really dark backstory and she spent the whole book over coming that. And not in a good way. She was a bitch.
So my book became a pile…
photo by Becky Wetherington
And that’s when I realized a few important things.
I didn’t know enough about my hero. And I didn’t have the right conflict. I didn’t have enough action in the book. I didn’t give the heroine a goal for the story. There wasn’t enough room for growth or character arc. She didn’t start off in a good place. And I was focusing wayyyyy too much on the heroine herself and not the hero.
Of all this highlighted one fact.
My story style has developed a lot lately. I’m writing bigger, deeper, more complex books. Luckily my readers love that. And I love writing it.
Chalk all this up to growing pains.
I didn’t have enough clay on my wheel. I didn’t have the right amount of moisture and I was pulling my bowl/pot/vase/who the heck knew what I was creating too quickly. The walls were too thin. The foundation was way off.
So what’s a writer to do when everything goes wrong?
I kept telling myself not to scrap the project. Not to start over. But to look at what I had and go from there. Cut what didn’t work, beef up what did work.
So I started over, but I didn’t start from scratch.
photo by: linder6580
This time I figured out everyone’s backstory equally.
I figured out when I wanted/needed to incorporate that backstory.
I adjusted the conflict.
I gave the characters fresh goals.
I gave them something to work toward.
I decided on a few action items.
I decided what my turning points were going to be.
I mapped out the heroine’s emotional journey and what needed to happen to get her to each step.
I concentrated on creating a heroine I wanted to be friends with.
I focused on creating a hero I could fall in love with.
I bulked up the foundation of the book. I made the walls thick enough to hold everything up. And now I’m finishing my creation. Next up will be revision and polish. And then hopefully the inside of the book will be as pretty as the cover I’ve had waiting in the wings for four months.
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Have you ever had to do extensive rewrites? Have you ever started over completely?
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