The Re-writer's Horizon

I've come to quite the milestone in writing The Preppy Suicides. Several months ago, I realized that I needed to overhaul the structure of what I'd written so far. There were far too many chapters of pure exposition up front, and I still hadn't reached the major character death that kicks the story into gear. I realized that not only did I have to move that death up, that I could do it easily and believably, given the schedule of events. This was undoubtedly for the best. That didn't mean it didn't present several problems.

First of all, by jumbling the sequence of events, certain characters would have to be lifted from chapters in which they had initially appeared. Second, there were entire sequences that would have to be hacked, slashed, and stitched back together. There were some actions, lines, even entire conversations that I would have to find new homes for, and some that would simply have no place in this new version. It wasn't easy.

For the most part, however, it worked out. Those early chapters were cannibalized, all essential exposition redistributed throughout the story, and the creation of a prologue specifically devoted to certain characters and concepts upon which the entire story would be built was a godsend. Painful at times, tedious at others, I knew I had made the right decision, and the book was all the better for it. Along the way, I invented new chapters, completely new material that fit in the sequence though now chronologically preceding some material I'd already written.

And now I come to a milestone: the last chapter from my previous work. It's a favorite of mine, one that even I have labeled as self-indulgent, and it is. It's important to the plot and everything, but that's not why I love it. I had thought when I reached this point, I'd be exhilarated to revisit this material, give it a face lift, and then move on to terra incognita. Rereading it, however, has left me a little put out. First of all, pieces of this chapter had been lifted and transplanted to new chapters that preceded it. Other scenes no longer made sense within the new sequence and had to be scrapped entirely. With all that material cut, the seams were rather ragged in a few too many places, and I came to the realization that the chapter would need to be rewritten from top to bottom.

I find this very intimidating for the simple reason that I neither want to nor need to scrap everything, which means that for this chapter to not look like a huge, stinking pile of crap, I'm going to need to put at least twice the work and love into it that I normally would, which is not to say it isn't going to be incredibly rewarding, but that's why they call it the agony and the ecstasy of creation.

I'm not ready. Not yet. I've been listening to mood music all day and I've been coming up empty. This one is going to take a lot out of me, especially after writing two back-to-back chapters of full-on plot progression. I just need to let it marinate and come to me, and that might take a while. They say that most of writing is rewriting, and it's true. But why, might you be asking, is this chapter such a milestone?

Because after I'm done with it, there's nothing but open road ahead. This is the last of the chapters I'm retreading, and once I'm done with it, I'll be writing nothing but new material. No looking back over earlier drafts and cutting and pasting between Word files (at least not until my next draft), no double-checking what appears where in which version. No, after this one is in the can, it's all unexplored terrain, and standing on the re-writer's horizon feels pretty damn good.

But I can't force this. You don't get to just skip a boss fight. You have to stock up on arrows, bombs, and potions and keep at it until you can finally slay the beast. I'm exhausted, and it's not coming to me now, and if I want to put all the love and care into this chapter that it deserves, I have to wait for my brain to let me know when it's ready to take this task on. Until then, all I can do is dream happily of what lies beyond.