Writing Update: Soul Searching & Rewriting

What happened?

Since my last update in October, I’ve spent a lot of time rewriting scenes to better fit character arcs and plot. I’ve also thought a lot about how to address the remaining high-level issues identified in Draft 3. Two major decisions came out of this: Y’s POV and The Cut.

Y’s POV

I received a lot of critical feedback about one point of view character (we’ll call her "Y”) in Draft 3. My readers did not directly say this (they were much kinder), but Y’s chapters were awkward and lackluster. Her story is important, though, and so I needed to find a way to tell it in a more interesting way.

After some soul searching and reading a few novels with inventive approaches to perspective, I landed on a better, more poetic approach that fits Y’s character and adds to the story (instead of detracting from it).

I’ve re-written most of Y’s perspective through this new lens, and I’m incredibly happy with how things are shaping up. I think it will make for a much more emotional, bittersweet ending, which is totally what I’m going for.

The Cut

Draft 3 is almost 700 pages, which is very long for a debut fantasy novel. One of my goals for Draft 4 is to cut as many words as I can.

In November, I realized a story element in Draft 3 was just…not necessary. It was something I’d spent a lot of time constructing and setting up in the narrative, not to mention something I loved, but there ended up being little time for it in the ending.

After some more soul searching (I did a lot of soul searching at the end of 2024), I decided that the story would be better without this element, so I decided to remove it. At first, this realization was terrifying. But the more I thought about it, the more certain I became that it was the right move. I’ve begun working in those changes, but since the cut affects over 20 chapters, this will take some time. 

What’s next?

Rewriting. Lots and lots and lots of rewriting. The story-level issues identified in Draft 3 have been addressed in my mind, but now it is time to apply those changes to the page. I have tried skipping around in the story in the past, only to end up with a disjointed mess. So I am working my way from beginning to end, applying the changes as they come up naturally.

I’m well into Act 2 now. Now that these major pieces have fallen into place (on the outline, if not the page itself), I’m hoping I can progress through the edits at a reasonable pace.

Check back in April for another update!