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Writer's Diary - March 2006 Darkness Rises – All Over Again It’s about now that I start thinking – again - about The Great War and that I really need to be getting on with it. I’ve just spent the last six months editing and revising Darkness Rises, an unenviable task to be sure, but one I felt was absolutely necessary. The book now boasts an entire new chapter, a brand new beginning, and every page has been edited to remove all those annoying sentences that were really bugging me. All the mistakes have finally been obliterated, at least I hope so… Someone will find some, though. Of course, all these delays means that Blood Dawn might be out – sometime ... I’m praying for Christmas, but it might be very late – perhaps as far back as Summer 2007. That pains me, as I dearly want to finish the adventures of Constable Berren and his pals, but equally, I can’t imagine it being over. Those characters have been with me for years and I’m not sure I want to give them up just yet. In fact, I felt so strongly about the whole ‘ending the series’ that I was even toying with an alternative story, one I could stretch on to a number of books with the same characters. But no, that would be bowing down to the ‘man’ and I promised myself I’d never do that* … But before I even start on Darkness Rises: The Great War, I’ve got another book to write (no I won’t tell you what it is just yet!) and that takes priority over everything else. It’s really quite exciting - more news on that when I have it. One Tiny Word… It’s funny how much I (don’t know about other writers) can prevaricate over a single word in a sentence. Take the bit in Chapter Two of Darkness Rises where Devin is sitting in the Chapel at dusk. Vespers is upon them and he’s far from happy (downright moody, actually). The clergy is singing out its hearts in glorious praise… The key word here is ‘glorious’. I can’t count the number of times I’ve changed it to exalted, or some other word of adulation… In the end, after literally hundreds of rewrites, I decided to keep it, rework the sentences around it a bit, and just leave it alone. No one will ever notice, it’s a harmless sentence among a bunch of sentences, who’s going to notice? Except me! So, it’s things like that that manage to eat into whole days of your time. Yet I’m very glad I did edit Darkness Rises. The second edition makes a lot more sense. On consideration, I’ll probably still be obsessing over that sentence in twenty years’ time. Trilogy – Looking Forward When writing a trilogy, it’s important to look ahead. I’ve done that quite a few times in Book One, but I also made some mistakes, so I decided to go back and take the opportunity to put them right. Darkness Rises is quite different now, and it has a much tighter storyline … Why a Rewrite? One other thing of note was that people asked me ‘what genre is this book?’ they’d read the first few chapters and still didn’t really know whether it was present day, fantasy medieval, or what … That bugged me to no end, so I put that right by writing a fresh new prologue. Now the setting is much clearer, and it’s easier to see not only the new world of the novels, but the feel, too. All in the first five pages. Overall, I’m much happier with Darkness Rises. One thing I felt was missing was a certain character’s introduction into the world of the undead. So I added one: a whole new chapter. I also cut some chapters in half and added a prologue. Now the book has the same number of pages, but the same font size as Book Two, and is approximately ten thousand words longer. It also has eighteen chapters, as opposed to the original sixteen. So, there you have it: Darkness Rises – Second Edition. It’s a brand new book (practically), but I think it’s the book is should have been in the first place. It’s been a Herculean effort, but I think you’ll like the improvements. Onward and Upward I’ve now set all of March aside to pencil in the outline for my new book. No I won’t tell you what it is, so stop asking. I will post a huge update when I know more about the title and what it’s all about. Believe me. I’ll be making LOTS of noise about it! So my next update will be perhaps June, when I’ll be talking about my new book (did I mention that yet?) and how it’s all going. Regards Stuart Renton * Anyone who makes jokes about this rather dubious sentence clearly has a very naughty imagination entirely! |
