Sorry, sorry, so so sorry! It’s me, Isabelle Knight, here again! First off, I’d like to apologize for not being here this past month. I have been oh so busy this month. Revisions for book two have been giving me a headache. I think I’ve gotten the story back on track now… I think. Not sure. Desperately hoping I have. And with everything going on, reading, starting a bullet journal, math, revisions for book two, I just haven’t had much time to post on this blog. Anyway, without further ado, let’s get on with this writing update!
I’ve been revising book two for the past two months. I think it was two months, though I can’t really remember. Anyway, it’s been interesting to say the least. I revisited book two while working on revisions for book four and… it needs another round of revisions. 😑
So that’s what I’ve been doing this month. I’ve been making quite a lot of changes, and I had to cut the whole beginning because the inciting incident doesn’t happen until 84 pages later. And that’s in the word processor I’m using where each page is 7.5 inches by 11 inches. Or was it 8.5? I forgot. Anyway, those are a lot of pages. In a regular paperback I guess that might be around 168 pages. I’m not sure. I tried taking the story down a different path, but it definitely wasn’t having any of it. I spent weeks writing 15,000 words and wrestling with the story. Spoiler alert: the story won. I had to cut all those 15,000 words! But I’ve gotten the book back on track. I think. Honestly, I’m terrified of jinxing myself.
One thing I’ve been worrying about is that the revised version is turning out to be way longer than the original draft. The original draft is 84,000 words long. I’m not exactly sure how long a middle grade fantasy novel is supposed to be, but 84,000 words is a lot. Book one was about seventy thousand words.
Speaking of book one, I’ve been giving book one some minor tweaks. But ‘minor’ but be an understatement. I’ve been cutting scenes, changing scenes, and adding scenes. I’m going to add a new scene to the end to get a better resolution, because I really feel like the original one was going to make the reader really disappointed. And mad. I won’t give away any spoilers, but it’s a bit abrupt.
I’ve been enhancing some of the descriptions in book two and working on the pacing. Yesterday, I wrote a lot with lots of description. A very good friend of mine told me the story was going too slow and was getting bogged down. So, thank you to them for helping me!
I think that wraps up this writing update. I really need to get back to writing. Thank you so much for coming and I’ll see you in the next post! Bye!
Isabelle
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