Chapter six 2nd draft is done and it wasn’t easy. When I wrote the 1st draft of chapter six I didn’t have a clear vision of the happenings in the chapter. I knew what I wanted to include as story points but not how it would play out in the writing of it. There are certain interactions, events and characters needed for the narrative to progress which are all big things storywise, what I needed to do though was write matter-o-factly to maintain a feel of progression despite events rather than cataclysmic happenings. Well, that’s what I’m going for and it remains to be seen (or read in this case) if I have captured the feel for the story that I want to tell with the words that I have written.
I rewrote a lot of this chapter. I changed names, edited out sections, rearranged the layout of the chapter, researched with fresh eyes to develop new parts, and laboured for weeks over words while questioning my choices. In the end I sent it to a friend to read and will wait to hear feedback so that I can assess whether the chapter does what I wanted it to do.
For each chapter I have a game plan of writing 3000 words for the 2nd draft which is edited down from 5000 words in the 1st draft, for the 3rd draft I expect to have 2500 to 2000 words per chapter. Chapter six 2nd draft came in at about 3500 words even though I was deleting with each read while being as ruthless as I could.
It’s strange for me to realise that I’ve gotten to this stage. There are three more chapters and then I’m done with the 2nd draft.