When you draft a novel in three weeks, it shows

[larryhammer]

For those of you following at home, I've been revising Second Thoughts, as you might guess from the last entry. The draft was the skeleton of not so much a romantic comedy, but a comedy of manners set in a high school -- a screwball one at that. Realizing that, I could figure out how to give characters motivations and agendas and dimensionality (this for the first revision pass, including subplot replacement), develop the romantic pair's chemistry, add more emotions/descriptions/senses/setting, and generally field-strip and rewrite. Oh, and focus the sex on emotion instead of anatomy. Goal is a finished draft by WFC and a submittable ms. by year's end. Tag line for my desk: A romantic comedy of manners about friendship, basketball, and creative ways of coming out in a small town.

Process notes: For both this and the half novel I wrote in August, I didn't find the story till halfway through. Once I have that, I can rewrite to support that arc and excise the false leads stray events and subplots; also, make the characters real, now that I know who they play are. Common factor between those two novels not present in the abandoned handful of starts: ideas I'd noodled with before, so they'd composted in the backbrain. I suspect for myth/fairy tale rewrites, the original story fulfills that. So after finishing the second novel, obviously I should come back and look at the false starts. Or that adult fantasy romance I wrote a half chapter of, back in the spring.

Maybe I'll learn to do this better, or at least in other ways, with experience. Or maybe just better balance the need to Not Outline with the need to compost the premise.

ObFluffyLink: Ways to fold discarded drafts.

---L.