Fractured in Revision
The first revision of Fractured was exciting for me, primarily because I’d finished my first draft of the manuscript. I remember thinking there were countless details to learn about revising a novel. I had no clue what I was doing. I just knew I needed to make my manuscript sound better. I changed the title to reflect the overall intensity and comprehensive focus of the novel. I hope readers understand what I was trying to do with switching the title from The Rescue to Fractured.
During this round of revisions after having my manuscript beta-read, I realized I’d made a huge whopping mistake with the point of view I told the story from. So, I switched the story from third person to first person. When I decided to change my manuscript’s point of view, I had no clue all the lessons I would learn. I hope you get a kick out of my bloopers, run ins, and work arounds because this revision has been an experience in learning not only about my voice as a writer, but how point of view is so important to the story I’m trying to tell for my audience. Come along behind the scenes of my revision journey and see what it looks like from this side.
I’m in the final revision stages of this 92,000-word romantic thriller and switching my book from third person to first person. The pronouns went from she, her, he, his, him, them, their, and they, to I, me, my, we, and us. Talk about a rework of everything. Yes, it’s been quite the labor of love.
The first concept I learned was that when narrating from a first-person point of view, I can’t tell what other people are thinking or what they’re facial expressions truly mean. As I tend to tell my mental health clients, ”people can’t read your mind, you have to tell them what you’re thinking and what you need from them”
Well, the same concept applies to characters. I can’t have a character that doesn’t have telepathic powers reading other characters’ minds. It would confuse you. I know it would certainly confuse me as a reader
First lesson learned, switch the sentences from my lead female character showing powers of telepathy that she presently doesn’t have to what her perceptions are. Usually, this is an easy fix of having the character’s narrative say something like, “Sy appeared angry.” Or, “He seemed mad as hell with his nostrils flaring and the muscle in his jaw ticking.”
Next, was all the she thought and he thoughts. When writing a manuscript, I had no clue how many times I put she thought or he thought as a phrase in a sentence. Now, this is not all that bad when reading a third person novel. As a matter of fact, it occasionally comes in handy to understand if a character is thinking or speaking. Quotation marks help with that, italicizing can also, but sometimes, I’ve had to reread a section to see if a character’s thinking or speaking. So, these little tags help. When reading, “I thought,” in a first-person novel it can have a different impression altogether. Majority of the time it just sounds redundant, so I’m having to take sentences like, “I should have known better, she thought,” and rework the sentences.
Another major lesson I’ve learned during this session of manuscript drafting is to make sure that I’m not head hopping. Now, this has always been a difficult concept for me. I grew up in the age of reading novels that exploited head-hopping. Head-hopping is when an author is writing from one character’s point of view then all of a sudden switches to another character’s point of view. I realized I did a great deal of head-hopping in Fractured because I’m always having to separate the chapters according to which character is narrating the scene. This has caused me to have several extra chapters. It has also caused some of them to be as short as one page. I’m having to fill in segments, take some of the sections out, delete full paragraphs, or having to begin the next chapter with a paragraph from the last one. It’s been illuminating to say the least.
I’m on a roll with the revision of Fractured. I’m nearing the climax of the novel, and I’m hoping to send my manuscript off to the proofreader by January. My tentative launch date is Valintine’s Day, 2025. Wish me luck, and keep a look out for upcoming dates regarding Fractured. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the revision process I’ve shared and to hear what you think and how your own revisions are going if you’re a writer and/or author too.
Till next time, keep creating!
Yours in love & magic!
Nell Anthony
E-mail: 3inkpress@nellanthony.ink
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Nell Anthony 