A Duolingo lesson was suspiciously insistent that rabbits aren’t dangerous, to which I forcefully responded, “Only rabbits can eat you!” When I googled that to see where it came from, there were ZERO results on the entire wide worldly web—not a near match, not a did-you-mean, nothing. I’m wondering if it was a pre-internet garage band album. Whoever you were and whatever became of you, that turn of phrase has stuck with me for 30-some years, so I applaud you.
Also, the way I gasped:
Your friends don’t dance like grammar and if they don’t dance like grammar, well, they’re no friends of mine.
Granted, I recently bounced off a grammar book because the writer was a pedant bent on stripping all the fun from words both written and spoken, but grammar wasn’t at fault there.[efn_note]It’s a set of tools, not a wrathful god or man-eating bunny, sheesh.[/efn_note] Not even academic writing needs to be as stiff as he prescribes. I shudder to think how he’d mangle fiction.
188 rough draft pages have become 305 revised pages.
When last we met, I’d recognized the necessity of some second-act restructuring. Since that involved only moving an existing event and cutting some ineffective attempts to solve the pacing problem that was resolved by said relocation, nothing that follows is significantly affected. We love it when that happens! Hi-ho, onward we go.
An insignificant effect of the change was that they previously had a different mode of transport for much of the journey to Big City II. Getting over a lower mountain pass earlier in the story required overnight camping, and they don’t have time for that now because they already burned a day of their deadline dealing with Everything Going to Shit in the Middle. I contorted myself and applied a generous dollop of handwavium to get it done—and then I remembered they have a motorized vehicle, which is no longer stuck at the far end of the valley because I didn’t make them go there. There’s no way a twisty mountain road that hasn’t been maintained for the past 300 years will be passable its entire length, but I can plausibly get them far enough to cut two days of mountain climbing to one, AND it will be a timesaver when they come back—that twisty mountain road neglected for 300 years isn’t going to be any more passable from the opposite direction. Now I don’t have to ignore the ravages of time on infrastructure or make them walk all the way after a “realistic” obstruction because there’s another ride not far below.
This is the stage of revision where I start making a lot of notes about things to tweak way back. I’ve mentioned before my inclination to tell you everything I know right now and get it over with, and how that’s often not the best narrative choice. When most of the story is behind me and I need to make use of previously established tools, it’s easier to look back and see it would be better if X didn’t occur until after Y. Same X and Y, different order, in service of internal logic and pacing that are only now beginning to firm up. Things won’t petrify into their final form until after Editor Angie has a crack at them, but as they find their proper positions, there will be more resistance to moving around. Their present eagerness to slide elsewhere proves they weren’t where they belong.
I needed another character name. Important character, disposable name for a fake identity she’ll be shedding soon. I blabbed out some random syllables and toyed with spellings and—cannot emphasize enough the importance of this step—consulted the oracle of Google about potential real-world associations, thereby sparing myself from labeling this character “foul-smelling” in Latin. It was obscure enough that it didn’t ping through my medical training, two romance languages, and general word nerdery as “this is obviously Latin,” which is a level I will sometimes let slide, provided the definition isn’t wildly contrary to the desired characterization. I’d name a bandit hiding out in the sewer “smelly” and let the one Latin-geek reader have an “I understood that reference” moment. I just don’t think it’s a great idea to create that impression, no matter how obscure, with a future main character. Some letter swapping ensued, and a better option was found. And that’s how one word that will be used a few dozen times and then retired forever ate up nearly an hour of my limited creative time.
Previously, I defiantly declared I wasn’t going to have another sex scene[efn_note]Bravado and a fuck-up often go hand in hand. “I won’t be pressured into writing more sex (in this place where it’s impossible to make it work because I’ve butchered their vibe too much for it to plausibly happen)!”[/efn_note], but previously, I had 20+ pages of weird, uncharacteristic behavior following their first Interlude in the Nude. With that removed, it makes more sense that two people who have previously established sexual interest in one another would use their one narrow bed at the inn for more than sleeping. In fact, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t logically avoid it. Editor Angie, who prefers at least two iterations of a thing to prove it’s not a fluke and to demonstrate its evolution, will be pleased. And since someone’s heart is going to get a little bit broken the following day, a little extra intimacy will make it that much more of a gut punch. It’ll be a good change after the new material is smoothed out and painted to match its surroundings.
I’m also echoing some previous dialogue at this point, but it’s been so long since the last time I saw it, I have no idea what the exact words are or whether they even survived the revision, so I’ve left myself a lot of [OR WHATEVER ____ SAID] notes to check on the between-drafts read-through. If I go back looking for things now, I’ll end up reading, make “a few” changes, and lose what little forward momentum I have. We forge onward, leaving notes to give Future Me something to do.