Friday, January 29, 2010

Revision Is an Inexact Science, Exactly a Process of Art

OK, for my novel Dragons of Blood and Stone, I tried twice the multiple third person point of view revision...and I don't like it.

It doesn't work, and my revision has bogged down.

Why, you ask. Or at least that's what I'm asking myself as I find myself avoiding the keyboard.

The two characters, Gnossos and Gissele, are important as foils to Glimmer, the main character, but the focus should not shift from Glimmer. The storyline is, at its core, the evolution of Glimmer's consciousness and his changing perception of the world because of his growth of awareness. Gnossos and Gissele will, by their contrasting personalities, enrich the reader's awareness of Glimmer's growth.

How to fix this? How do I proceed?

I need to continue in third person point of view, but I will write more in the ominscient mode rather than the limited mode of multiple third person. This will allow me to "get into the heads" of other characters but to still tell the story primarily through Glimmer's eyes.

I suppose this doesn't seem like such a big deal--I should just go ahead and do it if it feels right--but the dilemma stopped me in my tracks on the second chapter when I was writing from Gnossos's perspective.

I keep each old draft. I am now on draft 2.1, so in drafts 1 and 2 I have the earlier versions of Dragons of Blood and Stone. I will go back to the old, compare with the new, and create a new version: draft 2.2.

This change will allow for more suspense and mystery, too. We will know what Gnossos and Gissele are thinking, know their perspective, and wonder why they are doing what they are doing, wonder who they are and why they have come to the land of magic.

Hopefully, that will increase your pleasure for also sojourning in a land of magic. And perhaps your reading will allow you to see magic in their own homeland. But first I have to write the book!

Copyright 2010 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

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