4th Draft – Challenges Defeated.

I’d been set two challenges when working on my second draft of The Catalina.

My first draft was written in present tense. Learning that most historical fiction novels are written in past tense, my first challenge was to rewrite the story in past tense.

The second challenge came from my editor who will be providing me with a manuscript assessment mid-January (only time her schedule could fit me in). I need to cut the wordcount from just under 130,000 words to under 100,000.

Both of these challenges were daunting.

My first priority was to tackle the rewriting in past tense, while at the same time, edit the second draft of the story. When I’d completed that challenge, I had my third draft of The Catalina.

Then, the mountain I had to climb, or maybe a more appropriate metaphor is the mountain I had to tunnel through, was to reduce the wordcount.

Honestly, I didn’t believe I could do it when I started. I told my writing buddies that I thought it impossible. I was too close to the story and for a fairly positive and optimistic bloke, with this, I was quite pessimistic.

My first attempt got the story down to 120,000. My second attempt, down to 110,000 and I couldn’t see how I could reduce it by another 10,000.

However, I started. Word by word, line by line, scene by scene, chapter by chapter and today, as you can see in the screen shot, it’s done.

99,319 words.

So, what’s next?

I’ll soon be asking for a select number of interested people to read The Catalina and provide me with their feedback.

My manuscript assessment is four months away—a long time. Too long!

So, now I take a break from The Catalina and move onto writing my second book. I’ve got some brainstorming to do, alone and with my writing buddies to determine what the next story might be.

I’ve got some ideas bubbling away already. Two stories that I’ve already made a start on, but at this stage, unsure if one of them is the next one.

When I work it out, I’ll post it here and hope you’ll continue following along.