I'm writing character profiles and editing the first round now. It's a bit hard changing the beginning to keep it consistent with the rest of the book, as I've developed my writing skills and my characters vastly since I wrote the beginning. But I'll keep most of it the way it is, because character development is important too. As long as they remain somewhat consistent throughout the story. I write the character profiles now even though I probably should have done that a lot earlier.
My finished work lies ahead of me in masses. I have so much left to do and I want to do it but it's tedious and tiring. I'm not particularly fond of reading and it will take so long just getting through it the first round of editing to make the second draft. The plan is to make at least three or four drafts. I figure that will take about a month since I already read slowly and I will have to read even slower to notice all of my mistakes and change what needs to be changed.
It became 61 chapters, 188 pages and 134.598 words, the first draft. I have 22 named characters of which 10 are female and 12 are male. Kinda even split. Most of them don't show up that much, since I figure the main circle of friends should not be too big so that my readers won't have such a hard time keeping track of them. And so that I wouldn't have such a hard time keeping track of them myself.
Remembering their personalities and ways throughout the book and developing a whole bunch of characters is not easy. I can barely keep track of myself and my own friends and family members. Most of my characters don't have any contact with family members. They're lonely for a reason and they don't have many friends. The town is almost desolated and it's not easy for them to make new friends. But they do. As Harry and Lydia become friends and Candice make friends with Harry and Kian, and Allan with Kian and Lydia. They become a little circle of friends in an almost empty town. And that's not revealing too much.
Ugh... editing... It's going quite fast though, compared to writing it. Already gone through the whole first part and ended up deleting a whole chapter that I found unnecessary. It was a very short chapter though, so not much difference word count wise.
I really don't know a shit about publishing houses to be honest. Should I try to get in contact with one outside of Sweden? Like in the UK or USA? Since my book is entirely written in English, I mean. It's conformed, or I've tried to conform it after English standards or what to say. Everything from metric system to that the story takes place in the UK. As much as or even everything I can think of, it's almost like it's made to be published in Britain.
I know that my written British English is a bit at fault, since I don't always know which words are more British or American, or other variants. I tend to mix American and British English both when I write and talk, but try to stick to British of some kind. Because I like it better. One little annoying thing though, is that the language pack I have for OpenOffice is for American English which really doesn't make my editing job any easier when it comes to that. I keep adding more words than I correct...
I do however save every word written down that is new to me, so that I'll easier remember them for the next time I read them or want to use them. I also write down everything I can think of that has some kind of importance for the story in a document. Like everything from what the hotel Kian lives at is called to that he is left handed or that Lydia doesn't like white wine. The small and the big stuff, things I need to keep a track of for as much consistency throughout the story as I can possibly keep.
It's almost a bit like cliff notes but in retrospect sort of. Things I should have written down before editing... But it's better late than never, since I'm gonna keep editing it at least two times more, is the plan. Trying to figure out which chapters I should delete. I already know one more that I can easily erase without it even effecting the storyline, but all the other chapters do. That's a problem. I know that I most likely will not be able to shorten it down to under 110 thousand words which would be the recomended maximum, but if I can get it down to 120 thousand that would be a good start... we'll see what the fuck I'll do about that.
I've saved the first draft on my computer (well on an extern hard drive, USB-memory thing sort of) the way it is, untouched, and edit a copy. So I can basically cut and fix however much I want to without losing anything into empty space of infinity... but it's hard for me to keep a track of exactly everything in the story (chapter wise) so not so easy figuring out which chapters are unnecessary or not.
It's like some conversations are a bit alike but if I deleted one of them then you would lose a lot of important information. Sigh... Everything is so damn thought through already, it's like it barely even needs any editing and it's so big and heavy and there are so many words and what the fuck am I gonna do? Yeah... I think I'll at least edit it once or twice and then figure out something else if I still feel like I can't get it right.
Like put it into someone else's hands and let them look it through for opinions or something. Someone who can see what I don't and miss something that I didn't or whatever. I mean that could help knowing what's important or not for the storyline. Like, introduction is important and that's pretty much what the whole first part is about, even though it feels like it's in that first part there is the most stuff I feel I could perhaps do without. Like, does Kian really need to see his shrink twice in three chapters? Because both meetings are important but perhaps I could somehow lump them into one conversation. Or I don't know...
Lots of work, and truth be told, I don't know half of what I'm doing. I've never edited an entire book before. It's so much text and it's so much to keep track of. Even though the storyline is kind of straight and doesn't detour that much at all, and there aren't that many characters. But the plot is quite complicated and the interactions can be too. I've never done character development before. I think I've done it quite well though. They don't suddenly change and they're not completely different people in the beginning compared to the ending. I think. Ugh...
I don't know, it just feels like I'm drowning in all the text and everything that I'm supposed to keep track of. Maybe, just maybe it could have something to do with the fact that I've been up for over 20 hours editing that damn book now... Not so fucking strange the words gather around me like insects.
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