The Second Sight revision is going very very well. Last week, I created my plan, created an outline of the story that I wish I had written the first time.
Right now I am doing the Type in/Write in which for the short story. I found what works well for this story is to write the changes on the printed manuscript (or a new blank page), then immediately Type them into the computer in scrivener. The changes are still fresh in my mind – warm – and I can take all the pieces and put them together.
I am hoping to be finished the revision this week, and then let it cool before another revision run through and then I’ll be showing it to some Beta readers.
This is the process I have used to get the story revision going. One that seems to be working well for me on this particular story.
To get the story that it should have been I had to tear it apart, work out all of the following
- What mattered
- Why it was important
- What bits I couldn’t give up
It turned out there was a lot I could give up. It was both sad and freeing to let go of what had been the original ending and the elements that no longer fit. The start managed to stay relatively intact, at least structure-wise.
I then had to make sure what I was keeping Mattered, and figure out why it was important, making sure that each element belonged in the new story. This gave me the new ending, and it works so much better than the original story.
The characters and settings all got reviewed as well. The original main character has changed a bit, becoming more of what I saw her, what she was meant to be but fell short of – hopefully. Two secondary characters changed a lot from the original version, one I only kept the name of.
The settings were a bit easier, the ones at the start stayed, and the rest no longer fit the story. So, there is a few new of those. None of them had a huge impact on the story.
The last focus was on what Holly’s Courses call Gimmicks (Gimmicks are the magic of the word, from gravity that makes an apple fall to the ground – instead of float away -, to the magic wand, or spaceship hyperdrive) needed reviewing. This story had one main Gimmick, it had a price, and it had a limitation, but then I had added technology to bypass them. I decided to remove the technology and the drugs from the story entirly, which effectively is what broke my first ending, and made me need a new one. This is not a bad thing, but it meant I couldn’t save as much of the story as I would have liked.
Once I had compiled all the new information/characters/gimmick, I was able to create my new outline. The outline has changed a few times while I have been doing the write-in, but it’s allowed, so long as its making it better.