{"id":35382,"date":"2015-03-06T11:00:41","date_gmt":"2015-03-06T15:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/?p=35382"},"modified":"2015-03-06T02:17:27","modified_gmt":"2015-03-06T06:17:27","slug":"on-novel-writing-xiii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/on-novel-writing-xiii\/","title":{"rendered":"On Novel Writing XIII"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m starting to see the end of my theoretically final revision of Bloody Angel<\/em>. I\u2019ve been slowly re-reading and fleshing out the manuscript lately. I\u2019m now 265 pages into the 350 page draft. Just last evening I composed a new 400 word three-paragraph insert scene. A particular event late in the story is predicated upon an event earlier in the story, but the transition between event A and event B was originally presented entirely through implication, and I\u2019ve never been entirely satisfied with that development, or more properly, lack thereof. So yesterday, while re-reading, I realized an ideal structural opportunity to insert a short scene that overtly lays the foundation for “event B” which occurs later in the story.<\/p>\n


\nI also had an idea that I can implement in one of the forthcoming scenes. I\u2019ve never been entirely satisfied with the two penultimate fights either \u2013 the first one more so than the later one. So I realized something else that I can do within that first fight. Changing the scene will require a bit of substantial alteration and re-writing, but it\u2019s still just re-writing that one select scene. The idea I\u2019ve got doesn\u2019t directly impact any other scenes outside of that singular battle sequence.<\/p>\n

So far I\u2019m very pleased with the way this \u201cfinal\u201d revision is going. I\u2019m realizing that this is a book that needs to be read slowly in order for the reader to fully process all of the details because, unlike most mainstream authors that use relatively simple diction and elaborate details with multiple sentences, I prefer concision and rhetoric and deliberately try to convey the same amount of information in fewer carefully selected words. I\u2019m not actually praising myself; in terms of word counts, writing the way I do actually reduces my chances of getting picked up for publication. As an illustration, I’m particularly happy with this “new” sentence that I added a few days ago: “As she yanked her weapons free, a thick red mist filled the air, and the two men slipped out of it, sinking quietly to the ground like twitching poisoned insects.” I like the strength and evocative motion of the verb “yanked.” I think that the description of spraying blood as a “red mist,” like a cloud of poison, is a very visual image. The men “sinking to the ground like poisoned insects” evokes death while simultaneously suggesting Anastasia’s perception of the thugs as less than human. The “twitching” human bodies is a grim extra little detail. I also like the deliberate consonance of “slipped,” “sinking,” and “insects.”<\/p>\n

Furthermore, I now finally feel like the book really evokes the sort of somber, sad, oppressive tone that I always wanted it to have. Now that I\u2019m really fleshing it out, I think the subtle, polishing revision is really injecting the atmosphere that I want the story to have. So I\u2019m thinking that this may finally be my \u201ccompletion\u201d cycle because I\u2019m now finally satisfied and happy with the pages I\u2019ve read through so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m starting to see the end of my theoretically final revision of Bloody Angel. I\u2019ve been slowly re-reading and fleshing out the manuscript lately. I\u2019m now 265 pages into the 350 page draft. Just last evening I composed a new 400 word three-paragraph insert scene. A particular event late in the story is predicated upon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-thoughts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35382"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35386,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35382\/revisions\/35386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}