Putting Away the Whine

So I'm working on the rewrite now. Finally got past my ego struggle and wrote a new first chapter. I'm on my way.

Kelley referred to parts of this story as Acts. I love plays, musicals, and opera, so the term has meaning to me. Act 1 is where the characters and the conflict are introduced. It has to suck in the audience. Act 2 is the tricky part. If it's not interesting, the audience squirms and their thoughts go to intermission. Intermission in a book is where they set it down and never pick it up again. Yikes! So the stakes have to keep cranking up to keep them interested, but they also have to be drawn deeper into the characters. Act 2 is where the emotional commitment is made. Act 3 is where everything that was set in motion plays out. That's the audience's reward for coming back from intermission. My Act 3 needs work, but Act 2 was the weakest part, so that's where I'm focused. Unfortunately, a lot of the existing story has to go. Figuring out what to salvage is almost harder than writing from scratch. I can't just plunk something into a scene. It has to be seamless flow. Right now, reading the new and old together feels like a beginner trying to drive a car with a manual transmission.

Now I'm glad I wrote that synopsis. As I'm working through the MS, scenes are moving. I'm adding here and deleting there. It's easy to get lost in the shuffle. That's where the synopsis come in. It's a map to remind me where I'm headed.

I'm not whimpering or groaning yet. Sure, this rewrite is a lot of work, but it's writing work.