Daily "Fateplay" rewrite journal, Day 10.

I'm having to rewrite more than I thought, but I do think it's better. There is more at stake, which hopefully will draw the reader in.

I'm probably going to need yet another pass thru to get the tone consistent. Which means I need to speed up the rewriting this draft a little, which I'm inclined to do anyway. 10 pages was good when I was doing extensive rewriting at the beginning, but now that I'm just having to adjust things, I probably need to do more to keep my momentum. I've decided that 20 to 25 pages a day is not out of bounds.

I can't tell if the tonal differences are jarring.

There's a very basic problem. In the original draft, I have the death of a character about a third of the way through. It's not a major character, though. Then I have the death of a major character shortly thereafter, but I give it plenty of forewarning and there is plenty of space for grieving.

In the current draft I have the death of the protagonists mother happening just before the books starts, then he finds out his father is missing, and only then does it follow the original two deaths, and this time without the space for grieving. Meanwhile, I still have the same light tone.

So I go back and try to give it proper space, and it seems to warp the rest of the book even more.

Maybe the two versions just aren't compatible, but I had to try to make the book more consequential than it was. I mean, it was a bit of lark and now I suddenly want to make it stronger. 

What's clear upon rereading this is that I was having fun writing it. While that fun can come through, it doesn't necessarily engage the reader, which is why I'm making the changes. I just have to hope they mesh.

I've done 25 pages today. Had to completely change half of one chapter, and then very little for two and half chapters. I hope the two and half chapters are more representative going forward.