Monday, January 11, 2010

I Can See the Light... Waaaay Down There

A few days ago, I finished the preliminary edits on Remembrance. By preliminary, however, I mean "just the beginning and there is still so much freaking work to do." These edits corrected typos, grammar, and small things here and there that were easily fixable. Now comes the much harder part- tending to plot holes, character development, bigger fact checking (though much of that was done in the prelims), stuff like that. There are some things that just need a good rewording, or slowing down. But there are other major, major things that I'm having trouble with.

For example, my MC, Ruthie, goes into this crazy old couple's house to rescue her friend. The whole point of her going in is so she can know to look for communication efforts from the people she knows outside the house. So here's the problem: I only have, like, two messages pass between Ruthie and her helpers. Over about two weeks. Not. Good. So more notes need to be scattered around almost the entire novel.

Also noticed: Annie, Ruthie's other best friend, seems to disappear from the story as soon as Ruthie enters the house. In a way, this makes sense because Annie is on the outside of the house, which Ruthie doesn't leave until the very, very end of the book. But Annie is also one of the people Ruthie is communicating with, so her presence is still there, even if we never physically see her. And besides her not being there during that part, Ruthie gets out of the house (finally) and goes home with her parents. No mention of her helpers who ultimately save her. Not even a quick glane around for her BEST FRIEND. Hello, Problems. I can see we will be spending some quality time together.


So tonight I leave for a theatre festival and while I would love to have my computer with me, I am not bringing it along. I've printed out the parts that need the most work so I can work on them while I'm there. Then on the 17th, it's back to school and the real novel work will begin.

No comments:

Post a Comment