Nathan Bransford writes that what ends up in a finished
novel “should represent a mere fraction of your ideas.”
Writes Bransford:
As the painting atop this post alludes, a novel should be a
tip of the iceberg above a much larger base. That base is everything you know
about your characters' back stories, the history of your setting and your
characters' forefathers, the technology, the government, etc. etc. etc. Chances
are only a fraction of this knowledge will ever come into play, because the key
to exposition is to only tell the reader what they actually need to know to
understand the events of the novel.
As I home in on finishing the seventh edit of Doleful
Creatures, I begin to see the wisdom in his words.
And I also begin to see how revision helps the ideas flow.
At first, Doleful Creatures was going to be a twee little
tale of how animals living on and near a bankrupt farm save the farm from
foreclosure.
But I got distracted as new ideas came in. Let’s say the
book’s evolved since then, which you’d know if you’ve read my latest attempt at
a query letter.
I have killed a lot of darlings writing this novel. But I
have also brought in new darlings to replace them. And, inexplicably, I might
have figured out how to get a second novel out of the first, if the first ends
up going anywhere.
At the end of Rev. 6, as I have already noted, I’d cut the
novel by 12,000 words. I’ve since cut about 4,000 more, but have managed to add
another 17,000, and I’m not done with the story yet. This gives me cause to
celebrate and yet cause for concern: I do still have a wonderful story here,
but it’s going to require another editing for consistency, and for at least one
more character augmentation.
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