Gaaah! It's hard to toss stuff you like. Kicking characters out into the ether is bad enough, but somehow it's worse when I have to drop scenes that have quality interplay between characters.
I'm working on draft 2 of Night Shift, my paranormal novel. I made an outline for it by cannibalizing draft 1. Reading through draft 1 for the parts I can edit and re-use, I'm finding some great dialog between Devorah and Kazimir that is downright painful to dump. The passages really illustrate their relationship. Those characters are just not going to be the same people in draft 2, and it's a loss. The start of their kind of nutty relationship is, to me, just priceless, and it explains why they become the people they do later in the book.
*sigh*
Had an even more painful revelation recently. Thinking about each main character's place in the overall story, and what I wanted to say in the story, I realized that before I did the outline for draft 2 I should have reversed Devorah's and Kaz's roles. She should have been the 400-plus-year-old demon and he should have been the recruit. That would have made Devorah the natural choice for the POV character, the way Kaz wants to be.
However, each of them goes through specific changes in their current roles that would have been impossible if those roles were reversed. They would have become completely different characters. That might have been okay for readers who never met them before, but I like the plot points in the outline and how the characters change. It's a good story the way it is.
And honestly, I'm so not willing to tear the damn thing apart and start from scratch. Rebuild both characters from the ground up? Ehhhh, nope. Should I get enough feedback from draft 2 that suggests I should do that, I'll consider it, but for now, just gonna roll with what I have.
I also realize that my blog desperately needs an overhaul, but who's got time for that? I'm beta reading for somebody, got a full-time day job, do some online work after the day job because it's fun and brings some extra money, am one of several moderators on a critique site, do admin and moderator stuff for Weekend Writing Warriors, and work on my novel in between all of that. Not to mention that gardening season is approaching and I need garden time.
Poor little blog, starving for attention :-)
Thanks for popping in today. Readers are the backbone of what I do and I appreciate you coming by!
