Hello, my friends and the occasional relative.

No exclamation point this week, because I am in the middle of it. This is the hard work. Getting down from 855 to 53 was easy. And 53 to zero would be fine if 10-15 of the 53 did not have to be solved by rewriting the opening.

I’m not wedded to the opening. I put it down just to get started. But through the feedback I have received there are layers upon layers of “it would be nice if” X and Y and Z were introduced early. It is a lot. All at the start. But don’t let it lag or get bloated or meander, and remember the goatfish!

There are no goatfish.

Of the things I have read in the last 5-10 years, the book with the most perfect, most economical start, is 1984. Not a sentence is wasted. For pages. Everything informs you about the world, the character’s state of mind, the conflicts to come and those in progress. I never read it at school, I first encountered it as an adult, as a published writer. It is insanely good. Anyone who wants to know how to write an opening should study it. I admit I have not. I may have to now.

I wish I just had to chop down numbers, but I must refashion the start to include what is necessary to let what comes later sing, and make everything flow correctly from my new beginning without spoiling what already exists. Seamlessly. I also need to rewrite aspects of the end. And bits of the middle.

This is why editing can take three years if you want everything to be of the same alloy once you finish, and not a wretched mismatch of metals bent into unlovely shape, forced into unwanted union and left like crap modern art to rust in the parking lot of a forgotten truck stop. (Too much? Don’t care – this isn’t my book – it’s just a blogpost.)

I’m not doing three years this time. I’m making a new list, and checking it twice. I am compiling what must be shown early, reinforced middle, and paid off late. The skeleton and the muscle of the story is all there, this is threading the sinew correctly between them. Sounds gross, but is doable, precisely because the bones and the muscle are all present and ready to function: the sinew will make it move, and then dance. I hope prettily, with grace and elegant curves, maybe even an arabesque or two. Because I love that word.

That’s the hope anyway.

So this is the cascade of consequences a writer must face. To make changes at the start may rewrite everything that comes after, if what comes first does not match the latter. To rewrite the end may cast shadows back through everything that led up to it, if motivations, theme, and action are not aligned. I changed a lock yesterday (the old one kept jamming), and alignment matters if you want the mechanism to perform properly. I did not learn that from yesterday’s lock changing escapades, (I have done it before), but was forcibly reminded of it as I noticed a part was upside down, and another missing. Reading the instructions does help, it turns out! Once those aspects were corrected, all the parts worked together, the dance of components a harmonious whole. And I got to close the door and not have to re-open it with pliers.

So I hope it goes with the rewrites. No pliers, just harmony. I know what needs to be accommodated, that it is not superfluous, and it will make the story much stronger, an elegant set of solutions that will let my latest tale dance, and sing.

Now, where did I put those instructions?