Hello Lovelies,
As I mentioned a few weeks back, I've started rereading and rewriting Xenophobia so we can have a nice, concise story.
Not gonna lie: kind of glad I decided to.
In starting the process, I've noticed a hilarious number of inconsistencies right off the bat that I wanted to share. Obviously part of the issues stem from the fact that the original Xenophobia concept was never meant to be a novel. In fact, the original idea was just a quick short story that examined humans/Earth as just being scary as all get out. I.e. Humans are the big scary aliens, not the aliens themselves. However, just going back and reading, I felt the need to share a few glaring inconsistencies that just tickled me all too much.
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- Cherryl
Let's be honest, I completely forgot about our innocent, little Celestial Commissioner. While starting off as an integral character in the original chapters, she's just kind of...gone away. And for no real reason! Totally just absentmindedness while I explored other characters. I've considered if the story REALLY needs her...and I think it does. I think she could fill in some gaps in the story quite well.
- Ferris and Darrian's Personalities
Another oddity that happened over the course of writing. Maybe it can make sense if I actually INTENTIONALLY make it character development, but somehow Ferris switched his personality with Darrian and Darrian...well...he just got old-man tired. Ferris was originally bubbly, bouncy, and a joker and Darrian was a horrible cynic. Somewhere along the line, Ferris became the cynic and Darrian just slowed to a crawl.
I had already intended to rework Darrian to be less of a pair of eyes and more of a character, but I didn't realize how badly I screwed that up til I started reading. Ferris will definitely remain the joker, just less giddy overall and more like how we ended. However Darrian needs to become more rounded and less a rolling dumpster fire full of glue.
- Harris
Not gonna lie...Still love Harris. He's probably the one who's stayed relatively the same overtime. The exception was he was a lot more excitable and a lot less of a smart ass at the beginning. Minor tweaking to adjust for character changes and all...but I just have to say I still adore him as a character.
- The Council and the Galactic Consortium
Easily the biggest miss. The Council and the Consortium were never overly fleshed out, got completely jumbled in their appearance, and consists of constant back and forth that was clearly never thought out enough until way to late. This is going to be SERIOUSLY reworked.
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And that's all for now, lovelies. I just wanted to share some incite as to a few things that I've immediately noticed and fill your head with the possibilities of the changes to come.
One additional note, I'm trying something new: Scheduled Posts. I've realized that I'm a terrible human being with a terrible capability to post WHEN I want due to work, fun, exhaustion, and/or lack of motivation. Moving forward, I'm going to try to blow out posts in advanced, schedule them, and then give myself time to work on Xenophobia in between. Hopefully this works better.
See you later!
-RB
Good luck on the rewriting, I'm sure you'll find some interesting things along the way.
ReplyDeletePost when/if you are ready. It shouldn't become a chore.
ReplyDeleteAnd good luck with the rewrite.
You've discovered my trick. Round about Thursday, I start thinking about what my posts for the next week are going to be. Then over the weekend, I write and schedule them all. It makes things much easier.
ReplyDeleteIf you're thinking of going much further into the future, there's a blog ahead blog challenge going on right now through March 15th. The idea:
This challenge it's all about getting ahead and giving yourself a blogging buffer.
It's amazing how much having extra scheduled posts can make during emergencies, vacations or just when dealing plain ol' blogging slumps. It can really cut the stress during every day blogging as well :) And what better way to get ahead than with the support of other bloggers?
(I took that from the blog hosting the challenge.) Just a thought.
Hi Robert - makes sense - re the blogging scheduling life we have. I blog about once a week, and have settled into that mode - it may hit a specific day, or just come along when I feel like - but I do have posts ready to do ...
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the rewrites ... cheers Hilary
At least you caught those things. I did notice Darrian growing a bit flat.
ReplyDeleteRewrites sure always bring much to light. At least things were caught indeed.
ReplyDeleteI've heard other authors say the same thing about rewrites. That picture is hilarious though. I've been scheduling posts for years. I usually have about 60 posts scheduled at any time with a few days kept blank for things I want to stick in there.
ReplyDeleteRewrites are always a good idea. I don't think I know of anyone who nails a perfect story on their first draft.
ReplyDelete