I composed the first draft of the novel ten years ago after a long, collaborative world building project. I figure it took me about two and a half years to finish that draft. Being my first attempt at a novel manuscript, the first version teemed with amateur mistakes. Bloated by redundant exposition on every page, reams of purple prose, and only the faintest hint of a story structure, the original MS weighed in at 300,000 words (1135 typed pages).
I still can't believe I found stalwart souls willing to beta read that monster, but I did; and I'm forever grateful for their efforts.
I attempted sporadic revisions from 2005 until 2010, when Nick inspired me to get serious about writing. Looking at what I'd written confronted me with another rookie mistake: I'd started backwards. Or rather in the middle. My extensive world building had yielded four books' worth of notes, and Souldancer actually comes second in the planned continuity.
I resolved to start over and began work on Nethereal, the first volume in the cycle. Two years and three revisions later, I'd refined the story into a satisfactory form. Building on this foundation I revisited the Souldancer project. The futility of a line edit soon became clear, and I decided to redraft the MS.
Starting from scratch gave me the chance to correct structural flaws and clean up the prose. My chief working principles were (in no particular order):
- Narrative flow and economy.
- Logical story structure informed by theme.
- Believable, organic character development and motivation.
- Maintaining conflict, tension, and tight pacing.
- Original Souldancer MS (second revision): 300,000 words, 1135 pages.
- Current Souldancer MS: 88,000 words, 370 pages.
I'll let you know what the beta readers say.
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