Over the past few days I’ve struggled with my story. I really wanted to rewrite from a new perspective (1st POV) and began doing so. This was a huge mistake, because I will end up rewriting the whole story, and obviously, delay my production. I had forgotten why I chose 3rd person. I have found 1st POV too limiting for my story. 3rd feels right and I shouldn’t change it.

So today, I made a big leap forward by deciding to archive my new POV versions, and to continue on with my 3rd person limited POV.

That small (or big) decision, enabled me to move on quickly with revision.

The next thing I did was go through every sentence of my section (500 words or so) and decide if it was valuable to the story, if not, I left a comment in Scrivener to say how it should change. I’m focusing on my description and narrative voice in this phase of revision, so it was very quick to leave clear comments on what I should do.

I ended up rewriting my opening to something much more powerful (clear and relevant) for my reader. More importantly, going forward, I know exactly what I need to do to power through my manuscript. I can also see that my word count will easily triple after rewriting.

So this has been a great day. I am clearer now than ever about my process. Whether this proves to be a definitive one I’m not sure, but it feels like a great start.

Onwards! Mark

(If you’re got this far then I’m going to thank you and explain something: I don’t care about grammar, punctuation or spelling on this blog. This isn’t the place to waste time re-reading and editing. This is the place to dump raw thoughts with and all the warts and wrinkles of my brain. I make no apologies.)

.