My lovely wife has edited all 349 pages of ‘Somewhere In Between’ – not just a beta read , but a full line edit, with structural suggestions and a decent amount of copy editing thrown in too. Amazing!!
This weekend, I finished those edits, completing the ninth draft. It was the longest edit yet – two months in total, and it was a tough one. Scenes had to be rewritten, points of view had to be changed, characters had to be removed, and others had to be brought to the fore.
And now the ninth draft is done. I thought I’d be about finished after this (just a final polish to go), but the following change are still needed:
- The male lead (Rob) needs to be a bit more dynamic and any descriptions that make him seem child-like need to go – that’s not romantic. Also, his clumsy awkward jiggling aspect needs to be weakened. Its okay to have that at the beginning, but as the romance grows, that should fade into the background
- The female lead (Perry) needs to be a bit more sympathetic. She needs to save the cat.
- Vanessa (female meditation teacher) is a bit one-dimensional, almost a caricature, so broaden her out.
- The pacing is still slow, so scenes need to be trimmed or removed, especially at the beginning
- The subheadings within each chapter don’t work – it makes the book seem longer and it is already long enough. Fortunately with Scrivener, changing the this kind of formatting is super easy.
- Each chapter being the next meditation class is too restrictive. The idea of having the story told over a series of meditation classes was very much the original concept, but it’s served its purpose – the scaffolding has become a straitjacket. The setting will still be a meditation class, but some chapters will only have a passing reference to it, and some classes will be skipped entirely. Not every breath needs to be detailed. Not every shuffle on the yoga blocks needs a paragraph.
But I need a break now. As much as I love this book, I have to leave it for a while, before going at the 10th (!!!) draft. The plan is to start the first draft of my next book this week, then revisit my beloved first novel after Christmas.
My writing life continues
Photo by Clever Visuals on Unsplash
