Monday, December 28, 2015

Editing and plot holes

I've spent the last few days off and on working on an edit of my novella. 3.5 in the Châteaux and Shadows series, not yet contracted, the story of how Henri and his life partner, after ten years together, are still in love and grow closer as they are tested by physical ailments and the past popping up on them. It's more of a midlife crisis story, maybe?

By the way, Book 1, The Indispensable Wife, is out. If you are reading this on blogspot, you can find the links in the sidebar to your RIGHT. =======>

I spent most of yesterday moving and removing big sections to take a day out (to explain why the ladies of the family could not make it to support their sister-in-law during her labor and delivery) and to keep good old Papa from sweeping in and trying to solve their problems for them. But now I need to reduce the references to him from earlier in the book. I started out making him show up to make Henri a little crazy by butting in, but decided while moving the timeline around to leave Papa out of it. He's pushy and might swan his way back into a later draft, but he's a big deal in all the books up to now, so really, he needs to just back off, especially since the kids are fully functioning adults.

And again I refer to a blog post I wrote for Abigail Owen's blog about writing a Zipless Draft and how my editing process is more like a an editing blender.

Yes, I'm already writing notes to myself, mostly at the beginning of the novella, but a couple further on.

I need to figure out if Henri's lover (identity to be revealed in Book 2, which is why I'm being a little cagey about it) comes face to face with his first boyfriend's parents. They both ran away from Paris and joined the army because they were about to be arrested for being gay. The old boyfriend died in battle. And I just realized that I said something about the sister's husband moving into their shop. But now I have someone else as the partner in the shop. Oh, I'm so confused.

So anyway, plotholes still to be tweaked, but about ready to be submitted to my editor.

And THEN I will do as I intended earlier and revise Book 4. And I still need to finish the draft of Book....6? And I have ideas swirling for another novella and for a 7th book. If I had all the time in the world and less need to revise, I would be churning out novels like nobody's business.

And I LOVE all the hits I get on the blog. But I would LOVE even more to have a conversation in comments. So leave a comment. Tell me what to do.

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