I’ve been working on a story for about a year. Granted, most of last year was spent revising ALLIANCE, but in between waiting on notes from my agent, this has been what I’ve worked on.
I got pretty far into the book, but I couldn’t figure out a way to wrap it up. That’s when I realized that I just kept writing and writing and I had NO idea where I was going. I just figured it would come to me… but it didn’t.
So when I started revising, I saw the story and I loved the characters… but the further I got into revising, I realized that the plot just wasn’t there. The characters were there, the internal motivation was there… but the plot? oh the plot was ALL over the place. Oh and it’s a murder mystery, so plot REALLY needs to be on point.
So instead of continuing to revise, I opted to start over.
Completely start over.
Not glancing at the words I’d written before, no copy/paste the good parts… but pull out a crisp new page rewrite.
And you know what’s happening? Awesomeness.
I’m incorporating things I had never thought of before and shaping the plot in a way that is more exciting. Rewriting has also given me a sort of “god-like view” of the story and so it’s allowing more natural placement of subtle hints.
Sometimes starting over on something that you’ve been working on for so long can be really frightening. Sometimes it’s not smart. But there are times when it’s the breath of change you’ve been searching for.
There’s nothing scarier than a blank page, but who has time for fear?
Destiny Cole 