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Revisions: The Onset of Doubt
Jul. 8th, 2009 08:07 amRevisions, revisions, revisions. I've made it through Part I of the book (called "Colin" for those who are interested in teases), which gets me to page 275 out of 650 approximately.
And the doubt has set in.
This is something that always happens during the revision process, at least for me. At some point, I start questioning what I'm doing. In particular, I start questioning whether I'm doing enough. I mean, I'm trying to make changes that someone else has suggested, and some of those suggestions aren't necessarily changes that I feel are absolutely necessary. I don't disagree with them, but . . . What this does though is make me doubt what I've done. Am I adding enough of the worldbuilding that my editor wants? Obviously, I didn't feel it was crucial to the story or it would be in there already, but my editor feels differently. So I add a little bit there, a sentence here, a touch of world color there . . . and now I'm far enough into the book to begin to wonder if perhaps I should have done a little more. Maybe I should go back to this scene and put in some more, or that scene, or the scene over there.
I hate the doubt. Because I want the book to be the best that it can be, but I don't want it to contain gobs and gobs of fluff. I've seen and read quite a few books out there where I think there's a lot of fluff (bloat is what I call it, really) and I don't want my books to have that. Ever.
But I also know that one of the criticisms of my previous books, in particular The Vacant Throne, was that readers wanted to know more about the cities, more about the world.
So, at this natural stopping point in the book, I'm sitting back and asking myself what more I can add and where, and if at some point I'm going to go overboard and bring in the bloat.
And also, I need to make significant changes in the first chapter of Part II (called "Shavaeran") so perhaps *cough cough* I'm procrastinating just a bit.
And the doubt has set in.
This is something that always happens during the revision process, at least for me. At some point, I start questioning what I'm doing. In particular, I start questioning whether I'm doing enough. I mean, I'm trying to make changes that someone else has suggested, and some of those suggestions aren't necessarily changes that I feel are absolutely necessary. I don't disagree with them, but . . . What this does though is make me doubt what I've done. Am I adding enough of the worldbuilding that my editor wants? Obviously, I didn't feel it was crucial to the story or it would be in there already, but my editor feels differently. So I add a little bit there, a sentence here, a touch of world color there . . . and now I'm far enough into the book to begin to wonder if perhaps I should have done a little more. Maybe I should go back to this scene and put in some more, or that scene, or the scene over there.
I hate the doubt. Because I want the book to be the best that it can be, but I don't want it to contain gobs and gobs of fluff. I've seen and read quite a few books out there where I think there's a lot of fluff (bloat is what I call it, really) and I don't want my books to have that. Ever.
But I also know that one of the criticisms of my previous books, in particular The Vacant Throne, was that readers wanted to know more about the cities, more about the world.
So, at this natural stopping point in the book, I'm sitting back and asking myself what more I can add and where, and if at some point I'm going to go overboard and bring in the bloat.
And also, I need to make significant changes in the first chapter of Part II (called "Shavaeran") so perhaps *cough cough* I'm procrastinating just a bit.
