I am so near the final edit of my still as yet unnamed novel; I have spell-checked it, read it through, read it through out loud to myself, edited repeats, added in extra explanations, tried my best to slim it down so it makes for a good read. It is the latest in my series of e-novels about Thomas Radwinter and his genealogical researches.
Now I have to take out my imaginary pruning shears, and go through it, cutting out all the repeated words, phrases, images, comments and deviations. In a way, this is more difficult because this novel is told through a narrator who has a particular style of speaking and thinking. I have to balance between what such a person might think and say, with all the natural repetitions, mistakes, and deviations, with the end product to be read by other people. My narrator mustn’t become distracting, waffly, confusing and above all he mustn’t be boring or irritating.
As a first person narrative there are all the little idiosyncrasies that each of us have, and in real life that can be boring or annoying for others – I know! Occasionally I have to reign in my enthusiasm when I can hear myself going on and on about something I find interesting or exciting; the people I’m speaking to probably have no such fascination. friends aren’t going to walk away because I’m a bit of a waffler, but readers might close my book and not bother reading another by me!
It’s such a fine balance between keeping in character and producing a good ‘read’. I know I am going to go through and cut out or find other ways of expressing how surprised characters are… it seems that on every other page people are ‘literally open-mouthed’, that my main character feels tearful too often, that he explains several times too often how he was bullied at school, how his first wife-belittled him, how much he loves his wife and adores his children… all these things need to be said – but maybe not as often and maybe using different words or images to elucidate or give a context to what is happening.
So, that is my task today; not tidying or cleaning the house, but tidying and polishing up my story… oh and trying to find a title for it!!
If you haven’t read any of my Radwinter stories, or my other e-novels, here is a link:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=lois+elsden
Lois Elsden 