The revision process...

Hello, again. I know it's been more than 2 weeks since I last posted, so you're probably wondering what has been happening. To be honest, not much!

I technically finished the book on August 31. I took about a week off, not touching or even looking at it. It was such an emotional release to finish and was left satisfied, but drained. I went back to work around the 10th and gave the story a once over.

Basically, I made a chapter-by-chapter list with a brief note about what happened in each chapter. I know there were some chapters that needed work, either needing more added to it or a lot taken out, so I put a check mark next to each chapter that I know needs work.... Hmm, about 1/3 of all chapters need something (mostly stuff taken out).

Fast forward to this week and I've actually gone back to work again. I started re-writing the first chapter. Thankfully, there are no plot changes going on. It's just the first chapter was written almost two years ago, so I needed it to match the quality and tone of my latest chapters.

Other than Chapter 1, I only need to "add" to one other chapter... one I skipped over early on. Every other marked chapter needs extra stuff taken out. This will be hard for me... there is a line between too much description and too little. Every story, especially fantasy stories, need description and events that show how magical the place is... the problem is that each of those events has to be connected to the main plot or a sub-plot. When I wrote the first draft, there were some cool ideas I threw in, and even a couple of characters, that ended up not being important in the end.

But here's the hard part... this will be a multi-book story. It's nice to have something come up in book 2 or 3 and readers can think back to book 1 and remember when it first came up. It might not have seemed important in book 1, but it pays off later.

For instance, in Harry Potter 1 there is a mention of a Mrs. Figg who sometimes would baby-sit Harry. It turns out in book 5 (I think) that she was a part of the magical world that was tasked by Dumbledore to watch over him. Now, through a literary analysis of the name Figg we learn that it symbolizes hidden meanings or mystery. See what she did? She gave a brief mention of something in book 1 that was much deeper than it seemed and came back as a detail in a future book.

These are the decisions I'm faced with now. Why's it a big deal? Why can't I just leave things as they are? My book is about 130,000 words long... which is a little long for a juvenile book from a first-time author. Longer books are more expensive to print and, from what I hear, most publishers don't like to take that chance on a new author. Look at HP1 versus HP5. The Sorcerer's Stone is about 1/3 the size of Order of the Phoenix. Then again, Rowling did manage to fit the Ms. Figg tidbit into book 1 (or was it 2?). I'll just have to work at it :)

I'll write another update as soon as I make some significant progress. My goal is to "add" the small amount that I know is needed, then print out a manuscript and read it page by page. I'll go through it with a red pen, make notes, and cross out the scenes I don't need. My goal is first draft - 10%. 127,000 words? I actually want to get under 120,000.

I'll let you know!

-Ben