At the recent Creatures, Crimes and Creativity (C3) Con in Columbia MD, one of the themes hammered again and again is that all writing in essentially rewriting. So, I thought I’d show a picture of my editing of Take Hart after spending those three days in Columbia.
A lot of “blood, huh?” So, while I was already trying to be assertive with my edits to make sure the story held together, there was more to do. I began focusing on three things as a result f the Con. First, I looked at statements made prior to dialogue — “He nodded his agreement,” for example, that just weren’t helping the story, though I imagine they might be fine as stage directions. A second thing was passive versus active voice, and I found a bunch of them in the last 25% of the novel. Finally, I looked at the way the tension in the story was maintained — or didn’t chapter to chapter, and found one glaring example where the set up in the previous chapter was pretty decent, yet I then spent the next 300 words getting to the next action sequence., And that’s why you see all that red ink on the page above.
So, now that I’ve gone through Take Hart’s last 25% with a new set of eyes, I’m heading back to the start of the story to do the same thing there. And so far, the whole process has been really helpful.
So, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.
And by the way, here is the cover for the Creatures, Crimes and Creativity’s 2017 Anthology.
Every year, the Con publishes an anthology of stories by authors features at the Con, and my story “Bus 31” was included! If you’re in St. Mary’s City, stop by, and you can check it out.
F. J. T.
