One of my two readers has finished reading the manuscript and given it a thumbs-up. The other reader is about a third of the way through and everything’s been positive so far. I’ve reread it and caught some errors and a few other things I want to change, but the substance and story of it remain the same.
Meanwhile, I’m about to go back to the first book of the six to start another reread of them all. There are details I know now that need to be added. At one point, a different reader once said, when discussing an early manuscript, that I knew everything that was going to happen. It’s true that I wrote a version of these books more than once in the past, but they are so different now, in both characters and plot, that I’ve actually had very little idea all along what would happen. I might have thought I knew, but I didn’t. I’m glad of that, because it’s kept me engaged to be surprised.
There was one event that I clung to for so long because it was just the way I wanted it and the way it had always been. But because of the changes to characters, it was wrong to let it stay. It took me almost three years to come to that decision, but as writing advice often suggests, “Kill your darlings.” It was right for me to change it, and it opened up a new-to-me solution that I think will provide fresh insight into a character’s choices.
Wisdom for today from Adam J. Kurtz.
