Here’s a question about an issue I’m starting to have with revision.
I’m currently revising the rough draft of my novel The Phoenix of Nova Terra. So far, I’ve just been cutting out unnecessary descriptions/wordage and rewriting some of the passages to make them stronger. Although I’m making a lot of changes, I haven’t really changed any of the larger story elements, such as character, plot, setting, etc.
Yesterday, I got to the point in my novel where Leila’s father, king Malek, makes his first appearance. Leila is a major viewpoint character, but her father is not. When I wrote the rough draft, I didn’t really develop him at all–in some ways, he was just a placeholder for the plot, a fatherly figure for me to use to develop Leila’s character.
But as I thought about his role in the story, especially his role in the first scene where he makes an appearance, the more interested I became in his character. Whereas some kings are tyrants, Malek is a cultured, diplomatic gentleman. This is all the more interesting because the world on which he lives has a very violent and tumultuous history. The more I thought about it, the more intrigued I became with his character–and interested in taking some time to flesh him out.
There are two problems with this, however. The first is that this novel is already too long as it is–check the sidebar. 165,000 words is really pushing it for science fiction.
Second, it would require…well…work. I mean, if I tried to add something in every time I see something new and interesting in my story, wouldn’t I be writing a different novel every time I revise it? That sounds…hard.
So my question is, how do I know when I can (or should) go in and change something fundamental to the story on the rewrite? Editing and deleting scenes is fine, cutting out or adding dialogue is not hard, tightening descriptions and viewpoint is fairly straightforward and not too challenging–but rewriting character, setting, or plot? That is a major overhaul.
How do I know what major elements to change, and how much? I want to have this draft finished before the end of this year, after all.
In my thinking, the way you’re editing is backwards. Even though I’m still working on the first draft of Phoenix Princess, I can tell that revising it is going to need a top down approach instead of an edit as I read approach. The reason for this is that the characters are more complicated as they have much more room to develop, the plots are more complicated, because there’s more of them, and I need to balance them against each other. So, my plans are when the first draft is finished, I’m going to look at the entire novel as a whole, and judge how the plot lines and characterizations need to change. Once I have the overall structure tweaked the way I need it, then I’ll worry about dialogue and syntax (which probably won’t be until draft 4 at the earliest)
Does that make sense? Yeah, it’s hard. Writing an entirely different story with each draft sounds like the story of “Trust Mother’s Instinct” and I suspect it will be my method with all my stories. I’m a multi drafter. It takes me a long time to discover the characters I’m writing about.
Anyway, about your specific problem, it’s probably good that you’re developing this side character, but that doesn’t mean it needs to all appear in your novel. And I don’t think you should be afraid of adding something new, because it could really improve the story. You just need to judge the story as a whole, and possibly gut entire scenes or chapters to make way for the new stuff.
And if it sounds like too much work, maybe you bit off more than you can chew. You’re having a hard time getting all your writing goals done at once. You don’t need to be outputting two perfect novels a year yet. As you practice, you’ll learn to write better the first time, instead of having to revise it all the time.
“Second, it would require…well…work. I mean…, wouldn’t I be writing a different novel every time I revise it? That sounds…hard.”
Welcome to what I’ve been doing the past 2 years. 🙂 And then you have to worry if the earlier version was better or if you’re just complicating things waaay too much and when in the world is what you have enough??
“In my thinking, the way you’re editing is backwards” – not necessarily. Some people can pull off getting the main meat down right (so not fair) and then just needing a good edit and who knows, maybe OLL is one of them?
As for the specific problem you stated: It depends on how big of a part you want him to be. A good rule of them is that if he and his past is a major part for the main climax, then yeah. Develop him so we can understand why he does what affects the main storyline. However, if that’s not the case and he’s just an interesting person (but not essential for the main climax) then I’d say keep the development low key. You can give details if you want – just give them as one or two sentences tops, perhaps with a line here and there in other parts – to make him more human, but still keep it lowkey.
And overall: good luck! Besides, I’m quite interested in seeing how your revision process goes… ^_^