La Vie Boheme

Love-hate relationship

I love The Exile's Daughter: I think it's the strongest thing I've written to date. It moves (albeit slowly at times), it has characters I'm very proud of, there are bits of writing that make my throat get tight and achy.

I hate The Exile's Daughter: There are plot holes you can drive a truck through. People do stupid things in order to advance the plot. There's no setting, no sense of the world, and nobody wears any clothes.

I finished outlining every scene this morning. I have a stack of 90 notecards detailing each scene's action, where in the timeline it takes place, and what POV I was attempting. Breaking it down that far really did help me figure out what holes need to be plugged up, where I want to add material, where I want to cut material. I think my next trick will be to set up an actual outline and figure out the rewrite from there. I still have a few worldbuilding issues going in my head, but I think (I hope) they might sort themselves out while I'm rewriting.

One minute this task looks impossible, the next I'm absolutely confident that I can produce a much stronger second draft. At least I'm consistent in my inconsistency.