( NOTE: This post pertains to “The Range: Cry of the Desert” — the first installment in the fantasy series I’m writing. )
As I work through this “second edition” of the book, I’m realizing a few things.
First, it’s much clearer which emotional elements probably are not coming through to the reader. I’m working to fill these in with more exposition, more character development and back story, and efforts toward building more continuity and streamlining things.
Stephen King once mentioned in his book “On Writing” that there is a great deal of benefit to six weeks of perspective (post completion of a draft). For me, it was more like “a few days” of perspective. I started working on the draft again just after the New Year, but it felt like a longer gap.
Second, I realized that I sort of have an arbitrary chapter-splitting going on. I have 6 chapters in the first edition of the book, and when I took a step back, I realized something.
- There are three main segments in the book, and these are Chapters 1-3, Chapter 4, and Chapters 5-6.
- All of these segments are about the same length.
- All of these occur on separate “days” in the timeline (Day 6, 7, and 8, respectively, after “the expedition leaves”).
So, long story short, I’m combining the chapters into “Parts” (1, 2, and 3), and splitting those parts into separate, shorter chapters.
Slow, and steady.