I always knew that I would have to do some rewrites, boy was I surprised at how much…LOL. Some days I felt like I was drowning in them, other days I found my story growing and evolving only to leave me with an overall feeling of ‘WoW’. It’s a crazy feeling and I could actually feel the story getting better. So, how did I get here….
I sent off the first round draft of Drops of Rain to Black Firefly and here’s what happened. The Beta reader on staff for them said that although my writing was not bad, the storyline was lacking. She said that I needed new twists for Drew’s life and I needed to strengthen the interactions between Drew and Ali. She said to cut the first part of the book and that I’ told’ more than she felt was ‘shown’. She did not like Beau’s facts, she felt the author was just showing off and that they had no relevance to the story. She never understood the purpose of the dragonfly. Lastly, she said she would not give me a rating on Goodreads.
Okay! I gave myself a one day pity party and said “Let’s go!!” I know that not everyone will like my stories, and that’s okay, but I took what she said, sat down at my laptop, and with a diet coke I dug in.
She was right. I definitely needed to make some changes to the front portion of the book. There was to much of a slow build to the drama. I cut 8 thousand words. I also increased the interactions and I left the ‘interesting facts’ in. I didn’t know those things, I looked them all up, and they are a part of Beau’s quirky character.
Next, I gave out a few chapters of the revised beginning to some close friends and I was fortunate enough that they found a few holes and few misplaced things, chapter one grew even more.
Along the way in this process, I found a writing partner. Her name is Elle. Together we swapped manuscripts, went chapter by chapter, and looked for ways to make each story tighter, cleaner, and better. I am thankful for her. She has made this process so much more memorable for me and I hope that we get to write together for years and years… 🙂
The rewrites took around one month…time to reintroduce to the world. Let’s see what happens!!!
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