Well, it's official ... I'm editing the middle part of the novel that I've edited for ages and guess what I found? I need to remove a character. *sigh* The character was pretty cool and her entry was awesome and foreboding but, really? She didn't *need* to be there. No one would notice if she had never arrived. She doesn't really impact on the novel or help the protagonist grow and change and it all just sort of bogs it all down to throw an additional character in the mix when we know so little about the existing ones. So, out she's got to go. Which is great, because it saves me some words - hopefully enough to spend on really amping up the confrontation between a father and son in the story that didn't get enough screen time in the earlier editions.
Of course, the irritating part is ... having to make such a major change at this late stage of the game suggests I'm not as close to the editing finishing line as I originally thought. This was meant to be a line-check, not a major re-write! On the plus side, her impact was so minimal that simple deletions and basic re-writing should be all that's needed. My concern is just that if this thing slipped through, what else did?
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It's hard when you go through your novel and realize that scenes or people really don't move the story forward, and therefore, need to go away.
ReplyDeleteHope you have fun once you get into the re-write!