Revision Eight

Eight.

Just typing that headline makes me cringe.

It’s not uncommon for books to go through a lot of different drafts, but this is a little bit different. After a serious reevaluation, a split and a renaming, the first book in my epic fantasy series is now in its eighth full rewrite. That’s eight times I’ve started at the beginning with a book full of notes and a pile of index cards, tearing the story apart and putting it back together. And in some ways, this one–the eighth rewrite–is the hardest rewrite I’ve ever done.

Splitting the first book in two does a lot of things, one of which is messing up the pacing. Though there wasn’t really any fluff in the first rendition, it was long simply because the book had a great deal of territory to cover. But in the end, this ended up working against it. I reached a point where I had to go back and ruthlessly chop out pieces of the story for brevity’s sake. Prior to splitting, the book was 182,000 words, which isn’t bad for an epic fantasy story. But I encountered two problems.

One, agents kept telling me it was too long for publication (For epic fantasy? Really?) and encouraged me to reduce the word count by half.

Two, the first version of the book would have been closer to 240,000 words. Ultimately, paring out so many side stories reduced the epic scale of the whole thing and didn’t do it any favors.

So if 182k was too long, 240 was way too long.
But with a little care, maybe splitting could work out better in the long run.

I split the book exactly at the midpoint and started with an endingless manuscript just under 95,000 words long–the count agents kept telling me to shoot for. There were exciting things happening at that part of the book, and it was right around the time when the first character arc ended, meaning it told a full story on its own. I roughed out an ending when I did the seventh revision.

But it didn’t feel right, so the eighth revision began, and some of the cut content has started filtering its way back into the story. One third of the way into the eighth revision, the first book is just under 98,000 words long. I don’t think it will end up anywhere near the 120k it would have been the first time I wrote the story, if only because I’m better at writing now and can say more in fewer words. But I expect it will creep over the 100k word line, and the second half–which will become the second book–will probably be a shade longer than that, as it lost the most content in early revisions.

What comes after this, I don’t know. I don’t feel like the next book in the series lends itself to splitting, but it’s also the shortest of the original three, at 160k words. I actually think it’s the best book in the series, but there are a lot of logistics to consider and what path I take to publication will play a large part in the decisions to be made. Right now I’m just trying to finish book one.

I war with myself a lot on the decision to break it up. It’s easier to present to traditional publishers, and easier to turn into a readable paperback if I take an independent publication path. But it’s hard to stop thinking of the book as three books instead of six, because it’s been three in my head for half my life. I even had visions of covers in my head. The first book was to be green, the second blue, and the third red. I made a cover mock-up for the first, featuring Rune’s sword with a vine coiled around it, the bark turning to scales. I kept it to myself for several years, using it as something to encourage myself with as I slogged through each draft of the book.

But no matter how the book ends up reaching readers, it won’t be the cover used. If I go with a traditional publisher, I won’t have any say in the cover, and if I go independent, I know now that “iconic” covers rarely perform well and I’m better off having one of the characters front and center. Might as well share the rough mock-up. I even changed the text on the front to try to sell myself on the title change that went along with splitting the first book.

While I’m feeling better about the choice to break it in half these days, I’m still mired in revising (or re-re-re-re-re-re-re-revising, as it happens) and publication is a long way off. But learning what I have about the publishing industry, its current practices, and the way they treat their authors, I’m less confident than ever about traditional publishing and strongly feel like independent is the better option for me. I never would have signed a contract that required me to surrender my rights to the world and characters I’ve created, and my aggressive desire to have say in things like the covers and how the print books look means I’m probably better off doing things on my own, anyway. It will still be a quality book, with pretty pictures, beautiful formatting, and a whole team of skilled editors. I just want to take my time and make sure everything is done right, no matter which way it reaches the market.

Yet I also don’t want to sit forever, waiting for a contract offer that probably wouldn’t meet my desires, anyway. Were I to sign a contract for this book today, it would not hit shelves for around two years. I don’t want to wait that long, but I guess I may if that’s what’s necessary. I just have to accept that I can’t have it both ways.