Tag: subplots

Rocking the rewrite

I am well into the third draft of Worlds Away from Home, and oh man–it is so much fun! That might seem a bit counter-intuitive (revising = fun?), so let me explain my process.

In a first draft, I have a ton of ideas, but it’s hard for me to keep track of them all (and they also tend to change even as I write them).  I’ll cobble together a story out of them, but it’s a rough, misshapen story, with subplots that go nowhere, characters who seem schizophrenic, scenes set in the wrong point of view, and setting details that are inconsistent.  The main throughline is still there, but it’s buried under a ton of crap, sometimes so much that even I can’t see it.

In a second draft, I cut out the worst of the crap and try to dig out the core story elements.  I’ll cut entire chapters and subplots, throw out characters, rework the world, and fix as many of the glaring errors as I can.

Some writers call this a “triage edit,” and that’s as apt a term for it as any.  I’m not doing surgery yet; I’m applying the field dressings that will get the wounded from the battlefield to the operating table.

But the third draft, by far, is my favorite.  That’s when I take a hard look at the story and figure out how everything connects.  It’s like dumping out a new Lego set and opening up the instructions.  This is where I iron out the major character arcs, where I start to intertwine the subplots properly, where I get a sense of the book’s themes and figure out how to make it insightful and thought provoking.

Writing the third draft is absolutely glorious, and I love it.

Right now, I feel so immersed in the world of my novel, it makes me want to lock myself in a room and do nothing but write.  I have to force myself to go to bed, otherwise I’d be up until 4am writing.  Even with some of the major changes I need to make with this book, I wouldn’t be surprised if I average 4k or 5k words per day for the next two weeks (about all the time I have before I have to go back to work).

I finished the third draft of Genesis Earth in less than three weeks.  I finished the third draft of Bringing Stella Home in considerably more time than that, but that was partially because of other real-world stuff out of my control (like a nightmarish internship), but between that and the fourth draft, it was much the same thing.

So anyhow, I’m having an awesome time revising Worlds Away from Home, and the finished draft is going to be AWESOME.  And next to changing someone’s life with one of your books, that’s probably one of the best feelings you can have as a writer.

Man, writing is so much fun. 🙂

Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia

Owen Zastava Pitt wants nothing more than to be a mild-mannered accountant with a comfortable, boring life.  Unfortunately, fate has other plans.  His father–a retired green beret–brought him up to be a killing machine, with or without a firearm.  To pay for college, Owen worked alternately as a bouncer and a highly illegal cage fighter.  But all that’s behind him now; he has a respectable job–one where he isn’t required to kill things for a living.

When his boss turns out to be a werewolf, however, and Owen single-handedly kills him, all of that changes.  A guy shows up at the hospital with a business card for a company called “Monster Hunter International,” and promises to help him make a lot of money killing things for a living.  It turns out that vampires, wights, werewolves, and evil tentacled monsters are real, and the business of monster hunting is quite lucrative.

At first, Owen is hesitant.  But when an old Jewish man starts showing up in his dreams, telling him about an ancient, evil plot to subjugate the world,  he realizes that he has little choice in the matter.  Fate has given him a calling–or, as the old man likes to say, the “short end of stick.”

If  you’re a gun fanatic or a B-movie connoisseur, you’ll love this book.  It’s basically Men in Black meets Van Helsing, with enough firearms and weapons to make Rambo look tame.  Hundreds of mindless zombie wights?  Bring out your automatic 12 gauge shotgun.  Giant flying gargoyles the size of semi-trucks?  Hope you brought enough RPGs and grenade launchers to go around.  Hordes of undead swarming across Alabama?  Better arm the 5-kiloton tactical nukes.

The story was quite entertaining, with enough comedic and romantic subplots to keep things interesting.  The battle between good and evil was pretty clear cut and unambiguous, with evil being measured by how many tentacles a thing has, but some of the monsters (such as the vampires) were much more complex.  When you have to decapitate your buddies after they die, to make sure they don’t come back as something that will kill you, that makes things interesting.

I felt that the second half of the novel lagged a little, especially with the number of false endings.  However, the ending itself was quite satisfying, with an interesting twist that caught me a little by surprise.  The quality of Correia’s writing was a little weak in places, but the story was more about killing the bad guys than crafting beautiful prose.  In any case, I don’t think his intended audience will mind.

Overall, it was an entertaining, surprisingly fast read.  It’s not the type of thing I usually read, but I enjoyed it.  If you’re looking for deep, meaningful literature that changes the way you view the world, or a clean, wholesome read that’s free of excessive language or violence (Gamila, I’m talking to you), this book probably isn’t for you, but if you’re looking for an entertaining story about undead monsters where the good guys aren’t pussy-footing idiots, you’ll probably enjoy this book.  If you own more than one firearm, it’s a must-read.