It has been a busy week. This past weekend was rather lazy except for the work I did on my Sunday post. That post was an accomplishment in itself. I turned two paragraphs into a page, maybe a page and a half, which sounds and definitely works better with the scene.
But, because of that huge revision of the scene, what is now chapter eight will become part of chapter seven. It continues the conversation, but it’s being shortened from three or four pages down to a page or so. If Sabrina is part of a secret society, or once was, she wouldn’t be divulging quite so much information, even to someone she considers a friend. Mindy, her best friend in the Society, even though she doesn’t fully trust her at this point, knows all about what is going on. Actually, she knows more, but I didn’t say that.
I offer this comparison for everyone. First, the original two paragraphs:
“You follow me, drug me, twice, and now have me captive. I’m not sure I can trust you, right now, Sabrina, but…” and he let the pause linger while he chose his words very carefully, “… since I don’t have much of a choice, I’ll listen then decide later if I believe you or not.”
With a nod, Sabrina said, “That is all I ask. So that you fully understand why I am doing what I’m doing, I’ll start at the very beginning. It all began during the Great War, when I was just a little girl of about eight years or so…”
Now, the link to the revised conversation; http://candacegauger.wordpress.com/2012/10/21/sunday-excerpt-excerpt-amwriting-fiction-sonl/. To get the full conversation (most of it anyway) you can find it at this link; http://candacegauger.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/.
These are set to open in another window so you can see and compare better.
To me, the revision sounds better. Jason isn’t giving in too easily and Sabrina doesn’t sound like a pushover. She is given a bit more attitude and shows she cares for him as a friend and wants to see him live. It also shows she’ll do what she needs to do to make sure he understands.
I can sum up the current chapter for the curious. It tells about Sabrina’s youth at the end of the Great War, how she lost all but her cousin Shyleah, and entered the Claw and Fang where she learned to be an assassin before meetings her various beaus.
The first draft had her with seven boyfriends; some which became husbands if briefly. That’s way too much for such a young lady who doesn’t have a sex fetish or anything Sabrina is a proper lady in many ways. The seven were trimmed down to three which were spaced further apart to give her ‘healing time’.
There’s no way she’d talk that much. She’d keep it short and to the point and give Jason just enough information, plus let him know of the characters he needs to worry about other than his twin brother, Devin. Which reminds me, I need to make a small revision to add a talk with Gerin where he tells her the particulars of her mission to get her cousin back alive.
There’s a lot to add and change in the next to last draft. If I can get a few people in my NaNo group to do a full edit to point out areas needing further work and suggestions to tighten and polish it up, I’ll be ready to start querying agents. (That’s next year at the earliest. March, I hope)
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