Changing Horses Mid-Stream (or How to Not Panic Over a Mid-Book Structure Revision)
By Guest | April 2, 2017 |
Photo by Rick Grybos, Flickr CC
Our guest today is Lauren K. Denton. Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, Lauren now lives with her husband and two young daughters in Homewood, just outside Birmingham. In addition to her fiction, she writes a monthly newspaper column about life, faith, and how funny (and hard) it is to be a parent. On any given day, she’d rather be at the beach with her family and a stack of books. Her first novel The Hideaway comes out next month and in 2018: Hurricane Season, also from HarperCollins/Thomas Nelson.
It’s scary to be in the middle (or worse—near the end) of your book and realize you need to make a huge change. I wrote this to commiserate with other authors who’ve done this sort of thing as well as to encourage authors who are up against this kind of major change.
Find Lauren on her blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, and Instagram.
Changing Horses Mid-Stream (or How to Not Panic Over a Mid-Book Structure Revision)
In my novel The Hideaway, one of the main protagonists is dead. (This is not a spoiler.) As I wrote the first draft, I questioned how to make this character, Mags, feel real and true. My first solution was to employ the use of a journal. The second main character, Sara, would find her grandmother Mags’s journal and through it, Sara (and the reader) would find out all about Mags’s life.
In my first draft, I scattered the journal entries throughout the book, alternating between Mags’s journal and Sara in present-day. But it didn’t feel plausible. I began to think that if Sara had found her grandmother’s journal telling all sorts of crazy things Sara never knew, she’d likely sit and read the whole thing cover to cover without stopping. At least that’s what I’d do. So I tried it again, this time inserting the entire journal into the book in one chunk. Now, the story went from one section—Act I, if you will—in Sara’s POV, to Act II of Mags’s story, then back to Sara for Act III.
As I sat with this structure and read it through a couple times, dread began to claw its way into my heart. The more I reflected, the more the entire journal felt like a crutch. I’d needed a way to tell Mags’s story and I’d gone with the easiest, most common path. Many novels use journals to great success, but for this story and this character, it felt like the easy way out. Her story came through a little in the journal entries, but I knew if the reader was getting a taste of Mags’s voice in the journal, it would be even stronger if Mags was her own character with her own POV, not just a voice from the past.
So, with shaking hands, I began what I dubbed “The Dual Timeline Challenge.” For a very short amount of time, I thought I might be able to just separate what I had of Mags’s story into chapters and intersperse them through Sara’s chapters. Oh, but that would have been way too easy—and it wouldn’t have given Mags the room she needed to develop and grow. Instead, I took the 25K or so words of her story and reworked them entirely. I expanded moments, deepened relationships, and stretched out interactions. I let readers see and hear Mags, feel her joy and annoyance and sadness, in a way they couldn’t in the static journal. This all sounds great, but truthfully it was excruciating. It felt like I was ripping apart what I’d worked so hard on for almost a year. But something told me it was working, so I continued the process.
Through changing the structure of the novel, it went from 68K to 98K—about 10K too long for a first-time author trying to land an agent. So, in the next round of edits, I worked on tightening. Cutting out excess words. Saying in five words what I’d said in fifteen. I tend to be long-winded, a trait not appreciated by most readers (or husbands, or kids, but I digress), so this was an important part of my editing process. Finally, somewhere around the 85K range, I began I feel like the story was finished. That I’d presented these two separate but connected women as well and as completely as I could.
Through this process of dismantling the book and piecing it back together, I learned that it’s hard to let go of the original vision of a story. If you’re anything like me, the initial idea presents itself to you and you see it sort of hovering in the air in front of you, all perfect and sparkling, and you take off boldly toward it using your best tunnel vision. It’s scary to stray from that original plot, those characters, or the structure as it first appeared when you brainstormed or outlined the book. But just as in life, our first ideas aren’t always our best. With time and a little reflection, sometimes our second, third, or heck, maybe our ninth idea is better—more developed, more nuanced, full of deeper emotions and understandable motivations.
The beginning is so exciting—all that promise, all those hopes. We set out with confidence and boldness, going in the direction we’ve mapped out and taking our characters with us. But friends, if along the way you begin to get the gnawing feeling that something isn’t quite right—that maybe you forked when you should have continued straight or the opposite—you stayed doggedly on the main road instead of taking that intriguing and previously undiscovered side street—don’t panic. Take a breather. Maybe even shut the computer for a day or two, but then come back confidently. Remapping or restructuring your story may feel like you’re derailing it, but you’re not. The worst that can happen is you try the new path, it doesn’t work, and you go back to the original. The best that can happen is that this side-road or new territory is just the push you need to hone your initial vision into something deeper and more satisfying than you thought possible when you first set out.
Have you ever realized during the course of writing a novel that you needed a major revision? How did you handle it? Did you wait until you finished the draft or did you take steps to make the change right then? I’d also love to hear from anyone who made the revision but then realized your initial idea had actually been best so you returned to it.
Many thanks to today’s guest.
You can read more WU guest posts by visiting this link.
This happened to me in the third book of my Galveston, 1900, series. Half-way through I developed writer’s block. I forced my story to move in a new direction. After five chapters, it became clear to me that this didn’t feel right. At that point in the story, I deleted it and let the characters take over. It was smooth sailing after that. It always hurts to remove scenes you’ve worked hard to create, but if it doesn’t feel right, change it.
That’s right! It’s so hard to make a big change, but better in the long run if it serves your characters well.
Good post! And your dual timeline book sounds interesting.
It can be frightening to do a major revamp, I agree. Still, there are many ways to backup the orignal and launch into the new version. And the upside is, the new version is nearly always better.
Oh yes–I always make sure to start a whole new document so if it tanks, I still have my original, untouched one!
Thanks for this post, Lauren. I’m in the midst of doing almost exactly what you did with your book–journal in small doses; journal in big doses–although in one iteration, searching for less clunky means of delivering information from the past, I went for the wholly unoriginal journal+long-hidden letters. *sigh* I finally chose to trust my ability to convey information in a less cliched manner, but this has been tough work, as you pointed out. It’s a delight to learn I’m not alone, and I hope I won’t have to do such major revamps with every book.
It is so hard, you’re right. And one of the problems of telling a story partly in the past is how to do it effectively and believably. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut and trust yourself, like you said.
Great and timely article. I’m rewriting/replotting my mystery novel & was hoping I wasn’t just doing some weird A.D.D. thing, but your article realized that feeling of “dread” means that something isn’t right with the book
Hi Shirley, I’m glad for that feeling of dread, in that it tells us something isn’t working…but I also hate it because it tells us something isn’t working! Best of luck to you!
p.s. why can we buy some authors a “cuppa joe” and not others on Writer Unboxed? Just curious as I am sending you a virtual “cuppa Joe”
Ha, thanks! I have no idea how that cuppa Joe thing works, but I appreciate it!
Thanks for a very honest post, Lauren. Your revision sounds agonizing but it paid off–you landed a publishing deal.
Bravo and keep revising fearlessly!
Thank you Rita! I appreciate that.
Lauren, this isn’t a new experience for me. I’ve actually gotten ten thousand words a into a novel a couple of times, restarted each time, and finally got it (I think) right. But what was hardest was remembering when I wrote the second and third version whether I’d already put in the needed information…or did I do that last time, and it just stuck in my mind? It’s a pain, but in the end it’s worth it.
Yes, I can see the problem of remembering whether you actually put necessary info in this draft or if it was the last one. Best of luck to you Richard!
So glad to stumble across your blog today. I’m almost at the half-way point of my WIP, about 45,000. I realized I may need to ax one of the character’s POV. I’m not sure yet, but I feel that dread inside. Have all those words gone to waste???
No! Not a waste at all. Sometimes the words are necessary to help us learn about characters or the setting or the plot. Don’t delete them–stick them in another document and hang onto them. You never know when parts of them may fit back into this story or if one thread somewhere in there may fit into another story one day. Good good luck!
In my latest WIP, I was doing fine until I hit 70,000 words and realized that it needed to change. I took it from 3rd person limited POV to a very intimate 1st person POV where the main character is not even speaking to the reader but to another character who is only on stage in flashbacks. My problem was that everything really hinged on this character who is no longer in my protagonist’s life, but because she wasn’t there, it was hard to get her story on the page. I didn’t want it to happen in conversations (many of which would have had to have been forced). So the unconventional POV with the narrator talking to “you” (but not the reader) was an elegant solution. It also allowed the voice to come through with force and it makes what was a very distant story into an uncomfortably intimate one. And it helped me actually finish the draft, which had petered out with absolutely no steam the first go around.
Hi Erin! That story sounds awesome. So unusual and original. I hope I get to read it one day! And 70K words–that took such courage to make the change. Sounds like it was just the right thing to do though.
I loved “The Forbidden Wish,” a YA fantasy novel that used a similar concept. I don’t say that like “it’s been done,” but instead, “Yes, good job, when done well, it’s really effective!” :)
I’ll have to check that one out!
What a great article! Sometimes we writers feel like no one else is going through what we’re going through, that we suck like nobody’s business! Reading your experience and learning that many (if not most) of us go through the same thing is heartening. In my current WIP, I started out with one main storyline and it developed into something else. I thought I could use both storylines, but it took me a few months (!) to realize that they would compete too much; so I’m removing about 4K out of 10K words and will likely make it its own story in the future. I hated feeling stuck, but once I realized that the storylines competed with each other, I found it rather easy to just ditch the one.
And yes, you’re right, maybe you’ll be able to use some of that in another story one day. Good luck!
I’m happy you “found” the novel’s purpose!
I actually had that happen with a novel right as I was about to turn it in to my editor. I knew something wasn’t “quite right” but I woke that morning going ” omg – no no no – and yes yes yes!” And did a mad-storm of rewriting. That book is Sweetie and one of my best sellers. So glad I did that!
We are the creators – we can do what we want with our books while we still can –
Wow, what a last-minute change and obviously a good decision! It’s funny how that gut feeling is usually the right one.
Thanks for sharing your story. A fellow writer passed your column along to me because I recently decided to rip a protagonist out of my epic fantasy. I loved the character and his story was what got me going on this book, but he overshadowed another character who needed room to grow and the entire project got very complicated and too long. Without him it will be more focused and tighter. I hate to do it, but I know it’s the right thing to do.
Oh that is hard to do. Hang onto that character’s story though–maybe you can use him in another story one day. Good, good luck to you.
Thank you for this timely post, Lauren! I was 75K (first-draft) words into my current WIP and realized I had fallen out of love with my love interest. Oh no! After a week of trying to make him more interesting, I realized I needed to totally scrap his character and make a different character the love interest. HOLY MOLY. It took two weeks to rework the structure and now I’m only 3 weeks away from a deadline, but it’s so rewarding to be excited about the book again. (I will also have to go back and tighten like you did. Loquacious writers unite!)
Oh wow! Ok something similar happened in The Hideaway–I had a different character the love interest but decided I didn’t like him! I didn’t get as far as you did though. I bet taking him out at 75K words was super hard but GOOD for you for making the necessary change and being happy with the story again!
Thanks for featuring Lauren for the tour!
I rewrote it–majority dismantling it–after the first draft, and it made it so much better. And yes, it is so comforting to back up the original novel.