Starting December, my word count tallied just over the 42K mark. My novel, which is a psychological suspense is being written from two POVs—a husband and wife—and my total word count is split pretty much between the two of them. Mid-December, I made the decision to drop one of the characters as a main POV and introduce a new character. This meant cutting about half of my manuscript. It also meant the parts left probably wouldn’t work with the new parts I would now need to write. So, guess what? 42K words in, I decided to start my novel all over again. Call this Draft 23 😊
I told myself I was mad, crazy, insane, yet, still I knew in my heart it was the right thing to do. The new character I introduced took over my mind and tried to take over my story. Her voice added an additional depth I did not realize was missing.
Needless to say, starting over when you have written half a novel is not easy, but better to do it at the midway point than at the end. Not everything I wrote was lost, a lot has been re-used or will be slightly re-written, but many thousands of words for now are binned. But it is okay. They are not wasted, they helped me find my writing voice for this novel.
Moral of this story is, if you feel something isn’t working, or isn’t quite right, trust your instincts. Better to begin a re-write at 42K than at 72K.
As the year ends, I close with about 17K.
Happy writing friends,
Cat xx