REVISIONS ARE COMING
Thanks to the support of the Clarion West Write-a-Thon and the amazing community of writers I found there on Discord (and a sprintbot!), I completed a 100,000+ word rough draft of the third novel in the Crane Moon Cycle world, tentatively titled The Gate of Blood and Pearl. Now it’s time to tear that apart and build it up again. This is where I really feel as though I have to roll up my sleeves and get to work. Yes, getting those first words on the page is not nothing — it’s a lot! I’m exhausted! — but making those words, events, characters, descriptions, hang together and consider how the future reader might be invested, drawn along, fascinated…I believe that this is what is called “craft.” Like all craft, it’s work. And if previous work is any indication, I will be sending a lot of those initial 100,000 words back to the ocean of formless things in the service of a well-crafted story.
I am not trained as a fiction writer, but as a historian. (An historian? It sounds fancier.) Writing history is different, because the narrative has to be built up from evidence and supported by the work of other scholars, but the similarity in developing a meaningful and convincing narrative stands. Avoiding the fascinating tangents and rabbit holes, the unnecessary plot developments — as a historian, I think, that has to be a separate article, I’ll put it to the side. As a fiction writer, I think, short story, backstory, bonus material…but focus on the narrative.
This next novel has themes of loss and growth, characters both growing up and well grown. Chosen family. Learning to know oneself. Learning to let go. Moving relationships past that happy ending for now, realizing that the happy ending is only, ever, for now, and you have to keep looking for it again. There are lots of fight scenes, some of which will end up back in the ocean. In fact, there’s lots of ocean in the story of a young dragon at the end of the world. There are lots more yaomo and lots more about the spirit realm, dragons, and Aili and Liu Chenguang and Tainu and Zhu Guiren. Even when I’m going to have to send much of their initial adventure back to the watery depths, I’m thrilled to know I’ll be spending more time with them.
If you’re a writer or creator, how do drafts, initial efforts, and revisions work for you?