Edit with Me: Enchantress, The Re-Vision

Stories are built in layers and erasures

When we left off, I’d just finished re-reading my historical fantasy and decided it was worth salvaging. However, deciding it was worth salvaging isn’t the same thing as deciding it was ready to go. As I mentioned in my last article, in 2018/2019, I had re-written the second half with subplots I never wove into the first half.

Early in Enchantress, Celeste becomes engaged to be married. When her wedding day arrives, though, she’s somehow surprised by it. She was engaged, but didn’t know her own wedding date. The plans for the wedding don’t show up in any other scene.

But beyond half-finished ideas, I had problems with how I’d decided to tell the story. A mentor character is introduced in letters back and forth and doesn’t show up in person until nearly 40% into the book. I had a triggering scene with a side character. It made Celeste decide her fiance was evil because he did something incredibly evil. This didn’t sit right with me — it felt easy as far as plot devices go, and also, I wanted to show Celeste fall to being the villain herself. Getting justice against someone who deserved it didn’t feel appropriate for a fall arc.

I decided to redo… approximately everything.

• the mentor character shows up between the first plot point and the pinch point, instead of just before the midpoint.
• a character who had been evil became benign. One who was benign became an unintentionally bad influence.
• the implied romance became both intentional and a huge motivation for many of Celeste’s actions.
• the prince’s character arc changed completely.
• the magic system was refined, and I completely changed the consequences of using magic.
• plot ideas that felt poorly thought out got removed: from the evil action her fiance takes, to a series of letters that muddied the first act when a conversation or two would suffice, to Celeste not knowing about her wedding day.
• Celeste’s want changed to something that felt more appropriate for her character.
• the dark moment after the third plot point didn’t feel right for a fall arc, so I removed the entire sequence of about 7,000 words and replaced it with something else.

So for NaNoWriMo 2021 (and for about a month beforehand and two months after), I rewrote the book. My goal in the beginning was to earn the third act I’d enjoyed in my read-through. By the time I’d reworked the first two acts, though, I realized the third act, too, needed to change. I removed and rearranged, excised and reworked, massaging the plot into something I was proud of. The goal for draft four was to have the major arc right.

I spent February 2022 rereading the whole thing. Sure enough, I’d done what the draft needed to do. Major plot points and character arcs didn’t irk me. That doesn’t mean the book is ready, though. As I read, I left comments about places the scenes felt less than ideal, or small contradictions existed, or I really needed to develop a timeline. Then I printed the whole manuscript, comments showing in the margins. Next, I’ll revise by hand.

From here on out, the Edit With Me series will look at concrete examples of fiction revision techniques I use in my own writing and when coaching or editing for others.

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