Revising: And THAT is how you turn 4,500 words into 2,250
Subtitle: Chapter Two Sucked
Phew! I need a beer.
Okay, it wasn't all bad. I think I managed to make something engaging and exciting while hinting at a couple of cool things as well that weren't there in the first draft. The scene with Eoin, Saera and Faine in the cart is much more tense, hopefully. I finally got rid of that weird conversation. I don't think people have conversations like that.
Thankfully, my longest chapter is now out of the way. I think I worked on it for 6 hours straight! Minus the time it took me to get Macca's in between. And I'd been so good with my eating this week!
Now getting a beer.
Mmm.
I've also gotten rid of that horrid "fortifying the leaf" scene with alchemist, and I've begun unweaving the leaf thing from the story entirely. I just didn't find it convincing enough. I might always use the concept in another Chronicle.
So here's what the first page looked like:
And here's what one of the late pages looked like:
And here's what pretty much every other page looked like:
And the sad thing is I'm telling the truth. One of the pages had just one word changed. In the case of the one above, it sucked so much that I got rid of the whole thing. What an awkward, painfully long scene.
Yeah, Eoin, you should feel awkward. Who does this? Weirdo.
I invite you to read all the pages shown here.
2,250 words is on the shorter side for me, but it's above my minimum 2,000 words. I have no doubt at all that this is much stronger chapter. I look forward to reading it to see how it flows. It might go too quickly from early morning to night-time, but hopefully that's something I can easily fix on a later read-through.
I really hope the rest of the chapters don't turn out like this. If I cut 50% of every chapter, I won't have any book left. GASP FACE!
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