Question: What happens when you cut the first 20,000 of your novel?
Answer: It makes a vast improvement!
I have spent the last month revising my first full-length novel, the one about the ghost that I mentioned in an earlier post. It stood at 71,000 words, and although I felt very protective of my writing, I had to accept that it just didn't work.
Hemingway advised discarding the first chapter of any book, so I decided to go one better and cut the first 20,000 words!
And you know what? It became quite readable. After some determined editing, it is now 52,000 words and the next task in the reincarnation is to find a new cover with a new title.
The whole experience has been very liberating and the theme is suitably apt: it is about the coming of Spring and the metaphorical re-birth of the narrator after a long and difficult winter. These words from Wordsworth's Prelude were an inspiration:
''....... I began
My story early, feeling as I fear,
The weakness of a human love, for days
Disown'd by memory, ere the birth of spring
Planting my snowdrops among winter snows.''
I've done the same thing! Loved one of my first books I wrote, but it got nowhere, so when I went back to it and realised why, I cut the first 5 chapters and changed the ending and heavily edited the rest. Much better now... I hope! Good luck. :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Wendy! I think it's a better read anyway. I've just started reading your new book - lovely to see all the characters again :)
Delete