It’s editing and revision time. Still. Again. The past few weeks I’ve been looking at my second book. Thought I’d do a little trimming. A nip here, a tuck there. The action needs to pick up a little.

A Little?

The decision on how to do that was a major one, let me tell you. It required a complete reassessment of what I wanted one particular section to accomplish. For a good while, I couldn’t quite decide how I wanted to do it. But I knew changes were needed to eliminate chunks of internalization (Margie Lawson’s ‘yellow.’) The end of Chapter 1 was swimming in butter.

I revised it one way. Deadly dull. Back to the keyboard for another version. Nope. Still couldn’t quite work it out. And then Thursday morning, I awoke with the idea of how that could be accomplished.

Change the characters’ interaction and put the internalization into dialogue. Simple, right? Just what the writing gurus tell us to do. I’d resisted that for a long time, because it required an alteration in the hero-heroine dynamic. But once I allowed my characters to be themselves, it worked.

In fact, the break-through was so dynamic, I realized I needed to condense the entire time frame in the first part of the story. Collapse three days into one.

It will require some major changes, including elimination of some characters. And some scenes I really liked. But the major scenes can be retained.

When that epiphany hit me, it was one of those knock-your-head-against-the-wall moments. I tell students that ‘revision’ means to ‘re-envision.’ To look at their work objectively. To not be afraid to change or re-arrange whole sections if needed.

 I wasn’t allowing myself to re-envision my story.

I tell students to cut ruthlessly what doesn’t add to the whole. Save the excised scenes to use in a future work.

I wasn’t practicing what I preached.

So yesterday and today, I’ve been cutting and moving and building a “later” file. By Friday, that part of the revision should be done.

Does that mean the book will be ready by then? Not yet. But what I’ve learned in revising this early work I can apply immediately to my WIP. And that will be a tremendous help. Have the last few days been a waste? Absolutely not.

As one of my teachers used to say, “It’s all to the point.”

Do you have trouble with major changes, or do you find it easy to make those changes in your storyline?