The Revision has Officially Begun
I dunno. Somehow, it just seems right that the header is in caps, you know? It’s a fairly momentous occasion around here. Not that I haven’t ever revised before. Not even that I haven’t ever revised THIS novel before. It’s more because there is a lot to be done to this story to make it (hopefully) saleable, I have a plan mostly in place, and after putting it off for a couple weeks, the Great Revision has begun.
Barely, mind you. One of the things that my critters pointed out was that a lot of my characters seemed to have names with a long *a* sound in the first syllable. That’s a little embarrassing because I spent a lot of time making sure that first letters were different. But indeed, I had Cae and Treyan, the main characters, followed by Ramon (sometimes known as Ray) and Jade and Aram. That is who those people are; I’ve known them for two years. However, the latter three got identity upgrades today: Ryn, Jocasta, and Effrem. It’s gonna be a challenge. They are who they are. It will take more than Find and Replace to really change them.
The first scene has had an upgrade. I think I covered everything on my list for this scene. My goal is to revise three chapters this week and at the moment I have no idea if that is reasonable. A fair slice of the second chapter will require extensive work. However, life without goals is kinda pointless, pun intended. So we’ll see how it goes.
My sympathies. I hate changing the names of characters partway through a book – but all way? Of course, I wonder about those authors whose books have been advertised with different character names than what’s actually printed in the books. Do they go to book signings and such and constantly use the original names by mistake?
I tried changing names midway once, and the character’s personality changed too much with it. This is the only way I can even hope to do it now. And it’s DEFINITELY well before the marketing blurbs have been signed for! 😉