Daily "Fateplay" rewrite journal, Day 5

I think the major structural changes are done. Now I just have to adapt the rest of the book to what I've changed. That will show up mostly in the interpersonal dialogue between the characters, but hopefully it won't be too hard.

Basically, the first 46 pages, or seven chapters, have been changed substantially. If I then jump to page 57 of the original draft, the story should continue unhindered. (So by reorganizing, I cut 10 pages even though I added a substantial amount of story.)

There was a lot of "wish fulfillment" in the first draft--the main protagonist won the lottery and is legendary as "Que"--to him being young man coming into his own. A completely different history if similar personality. That will be interesting.

When I changed Numera's response to him from friendly to unfriendly and skeptical, it turned out to be easy, so I'm hoping the same will hold true through the rest of the book. 

I had a chapter where Zach talks about the five people they have to approach, how he met each one. That has been removed and each of these vignettes will now be placed at the beginnings of the chapters where they meet in the present.

The only other major change is that I've introduced these "visions" and "delusions" and "dreams" that Zach keeps having, and I need to plop those in on a regular basis to keep that theme going until the explanation comes along toward the end of the book.



I decided I need to create some tension and jeopardy from the beginning, and so I added a little scene toward the start of the second chapter. 



To me, this process is proof--if I needed it--that I probably should do this to every book. And so far, I pretty much have, despite the temptation not to.

From the beginning, even back in the Star Axe days, it was my inclination to say, "good enough" and stop.

What I've been trying to do is thread that line between "good enough" and rewriting so much I turn the book into a word jumble where I don't feel a thing. Everyone who's done any kind of art project knows there's that moment where you need to leave it alone, where if you go farther you'll ruin it.