I’m going through changes I’ve made in my books. Scenes and chapters either altered, deleted, or otherwise changed. Material changed for a better story.
Zeta
I may have discussed in previous blogs the changes I made to this story, which is currently in my editor’s hands. The birthing scene needed to be tweaked because even though I had the procedure correct (thanks to a doctor friend), I put in some incorrect dialogue. Not bad language incorrect, but the nurse would never have said what I had her say. Small change, but necessary to keep those-in-the-know from sending me nasty emails telling what a dolt I am.
The biggest change, of course, was adding in the second story that revolved around Darren. Once again, the first draft ended up with way too few words. In this book, there was plenty of opportunity to change things and add in story line.
I also changed the ending. Twice. It was too pat, too easy. The denouement went too smoothly. So, I added in the fight scene with enigmatic new character that returns in Omega. The chapter before the fight had to be changed a lot. I spent many days rewriting that scene. It’s the longest chapter in the book, but I think it works and sets up the fight scene very well. It also helps with how the story ends.
One small change involved the setting for a couple scenes. Just before I let the editor have it, I thought I’d ask a former cop about it. She told me NO, that the scene would never take place. It was an easy fix. I kept the same scene, just moved the location.
Omega
As I mentioned, I’m currently writing this story. As with Gamma, this takes place in a single day, and because of that, I ran into the problem of too few words. I came up with a partial solution, but I don’t think it’ll be quite enough. Again, I’m still writing, so I’ll have to wait until I finish the first draft to see how it all fits together. Then after reading to the critique groups, I’ll make more changes.
The problem in this story deals with time. There are two stories going on at the same time and each part of each story takes place after the previous part, many times almost immediately. For instance, Mallory, is running around town trying to beat the deadline given her by the bad guy. Once she completes one assignment, she given the next one right away. So I can’t add any scenes with her doing something else. There are chapters with her remembering previous adventures but those take place during her drive to the next assignment, so those work. Also during the drive, I can switch to the other protagonist’s story.
I have discovered that this second story takes up the majority of the words during the couple hours everything takes place. It’s just how it worked out. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Once again, I’ll have to wait until I complete the first draft to see how it all looks.
Anyway, for the changes, I’ve added in more stuff that can happen between Mallory’s assignments done by other characters.
My other thought on this book was to have a bonus short story included. In this short story, tentatively entitled Lambda, I have Mallory in Little Rock during the week her taekwondo organization is having their annual week long event that includes workouts, business seminars, a rank advancement test and a tournament. This event actually happens. The American Taekwondo Association holds it World Expo every year. This year, the event will happen in Phoenix, because apparently someone thought it wasn’t hot enough in July in Little Rock. Lol. They’ll still have another event in Little Rock, but it will be in October.
Anyway, Mallory gets involved with a cheating scandal, has an adventure with the top man in her organization, and tests for her next black belt degree.
This story wasn’t difficult to write since I had it mentally outlined. While trying to figure out what to do with Omega, I wrote, then typed in the short story within a matter of days. It runs a couple hundred shy of 8,000 words and I thought it would be a nice bonus to what might be a novella for Omega. I don’t think I’ll make too many changes other than some minor editing.
Next week, I’ll finish up.