For those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you may have heard me moaning about the book I'm currently writing. Blaze a Trail, Book 3 in The Flanagan Sisters has not been playing nicely at all. I wrote the first draft completely out of sequence, writing scenes as they came to me and then filling in the gaps between the scenes. It was a struggle and the first draft took two months.
When I finished writing it I knew it was blah. My hero was kind of weak and whiny, my heroine didn't really have a purpose and I introduced a subplot in the third last chapter which is kind of a big no-no.
So I sat down and did some serious brainstorming with my husband who came up with a really great idea, that I thought would work. I examined it from all sides, printed out my story outline and scribbled all over it, working out how I could make scenes work and shifting that sub plot so that it was introduced early. When I finally thought I had something stronger and better, I started rewriting.
I cut scenes like I was reaping wheat, slashing here and there. No section was safe. And I wrote more scenes, strengthening motivation, deepening the point of view and increasing the emotion.
Finally, today I can say that the rewrite is done. That's not to say the book is finished, no unfortunately it's far from that, but I now have a story that's stronger, a hero who is sexy and maybe a little unaware, but kind, and a heroine that I totally love. Now I need to polish it up until it shines, and you can tell me if you think the rewrite worked, when it comes out in October!
