Monday, March 12, 2012

Back to the drawing.. er..writing board

Just when I was getting all hyped up and ready to query (thanks for all the query help, guys!), I got final notes from one of my critique partners. And they weren't good... I have always suspected there was something wrong with the ending of my book, and now I know what it is.

Which is good. There's nothing worse that the vague sense of unease that comes with knowing it's not right, but being unable to figure out quite what it is.

The bad part is, I now need to rewrite about seven chapters to make them work. They're not going to be drastic, plot altering changes, but I need to make my character arc more satisfying. I'm confident I can do it, and reasonably quickly, but it's still a bit of a kick in the pants when I thought I was finished with this book and moving on to a new one.

So that's what I'll be doing over the next week or two. Things haven't been going all that well on the new book anyway, and I'm hoping working on this one again might bring me the inspiration and passion I need to kickstart the next project.

Hw do you feel about major changes when you thought you were done?

5 comments:

  1. I have a love/hate with stuff like that. When I get to that point, I just want people to tell me it's awesome. At the same time - I love it when someone's notes make me go - YES!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've had this happen 2 times now, but with each rewrite the ending became SO much better.

    Good luck!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know the ending will be better and it's so nice to know what is wrong with it before I start sending it out!

      Delete
  3. I love knowing that the changes are made before the next step though, instead of missing out on the chance because something isn't quite right. If the work has to take place anyway, might as well be before you start querying :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Much as I enjoy revising, doing it after you've mentally finished with a book is rough. :/

    ReplyDelete