Prequels and Second Drafts June 2020

Hey everyone! This past month I have been jumping around a little. At the beginning of the month I wrapped up the first draft of Mirrors of Ice, and it was much shorter than I thought it would be. About 30k shorter than I expected, which I knew was a big problem. I thought about just jumping back in and trying to tackle the missing 30k especially since I had a pretty good idea of what the weaknesses were, but I decided to take a few weeks away from it anyway.

In the meantime, I had the thought that it would be really interesting to write a prequel novella for Mirrors of Ice. I decided to focus it on the six months prior to Mirrors of Ice so I’d still be closely entwined with the world and most importantly developing and understanding the exact point my main character, Eirwen, starts at.

Part of me wished I could have written it about my deuteragonist, Sterling, to help me with the issues I’ve been having with his point of view, but there wasn’t really any conflict that he could be involved in that worked for a prequel. Because of how the plot worked out, Mirrors of Ice had a pre-made conflict for Eirwen, so it made more sense to explore that than to contrive one for Sterling. So, I wrote the prequel and it came in around 20k. At some point down the line, probably after I’ve finished any major rewrites on Mirrors of Ice, I’ll go back and refine it.

Since I wrapped that up for now, I decided to dive into the second draft of Mirrors of Ice for the remainder of the month. Honestly, this is going to be so painful, because I know exactly what’s wrong with it, but I’m having such a hard time figuring out the best solution. Honestly, sometimes I feel like I way over complicate things. Even though I am a hardcore outliner, I still come out the other side with plot issues. I wouldn’t call them major; they don’t really require me to rewrite massive chunks of the book. It’s like a puzzle I somehow made but didn’t give myself all the pieces, so I’ve gotten the majority of the puzzle together, but there are pieces missing or sections mismatched that I still have to figure out.

Don’t get me wrong, I do end up rewriting parts, mostly the beginning. For Stalks of Gold, I wrote about three completely different beginnings, and for Mirrors of Ice I’m on my third beginning that is more of a combination of the first and second. I’m also expecting to add a few scenes especially later on in the book, which is really the hardest section because of the character arcs I’ve set up. No spoilers, but hopefully if I do it right, it’ll be impressive. That’s the dream anyway.

So, my plans for the next month are to work on this second draft, and hopefully finish it so I can return to Stalks of Gold and focus on tidying that up. I’ve also been doing a lot of reading this past month; I’m not sure how many it was. I think it was anywhere from 5-10. I’m thinking sometime soon I might start making some lists of my favorite reads. But, I certainly will keep reading regardless.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got this time! I’ll see you all next month, hopefully with a second draft done!