Revising Purchas

[poliphilo]

I'm in the middle of revising the four interconnected novels over at purchas. I wrote them very fast- in less than a month each- and with very little forward planning. My main mistake- first time round- was to introduce a new villain in book # 2 when I had a perfectly amenable and very similar one to hand. That has been rectified. I have also rewritten a chunk of the second book where the action was particularly implausible and one of my people was acting out of character. Otherwise it's been a matter of going over the surface with a soft cloth.

Now I need to get started on book #3. 

Comments

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

I'd definitely like to see more Purchas, kind of makes me happy you're going back to it (even if only to tinker and re-edit). It seems like a great output source, a great way to express yourself and use creative energies that are otherwise mostly channeled (I imagine) through this blog.

I wonder if you've considered writing about Purchas in the modern day? Is that perhaps the premise of the fifth book? What would she make of the modern world? What kind of position would her enemies be in? Surely that would provide a whole new raft of ideas for you to write about with her. You could even go on into sci-fi territory, if the fancy took you. That's one beauty of the Purchas premise.

Also I wonder if you've thought of re-submitting to agents. Already you've done editing that might help with that. The books were short so that might have been an obstacle- I wonder if it would be possible to compress the four into two books, each longer? From my perusals of the Writer's Yearbook it seems most publishers/agents want at least 80,000 words. Any less is a novella and hard to sell.

Well, whichever way you go, I'm keen to see it.

Mike.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Strange you should suggest that. I was only thinking this afternoon that one way forward would be to revisit the characters in the modern world- or perhaps in the 20th century. I don't have any storylines in mind, but maybe if I sat down and just started to write one would suggest itself.

The fifth book is set in the 18th century. It begins well...