It’s been two weekish since I started editing the Queer Croc Book for Camp NaNoWriMo and, thanks to my beta readers, I’ve actually made real progress!

Word Count

The original word count for this draft was roughly 129K and I wanted to cut enough words so it’d be more like 120k, maybe even in the 118-119K range. So the goal for Camp NaNoWriMo is to cut a total of 10k by the end of the month.

So far I’ve cut 2,493, so it’s now 127kish, which is very exciting! Cutting words is always so hard to predict but so many chapters are going to be completely restructured that I’m optimistic I can get close to my goal.

Structural Development

Thanks to my wonderful beta readers I was able to identify a couple of chapters that could be cut or merged. So far, I’ve cut an interview and merged the information contained in the interview into a Publisher’s Note and letter. I’ve also taken three chapters and merged them into one super chapter (which makes me a little nervous since it is long, but just going to push forward right now and come back to it later). I’ve also added a few interviews though, so the words add/deleted sort of balances out. 

The originally structure looked like this:

• Letter
• Interview
• Chapter One – inciting incident
• Chapter Two – meet the crew
• Chapter Three – drink with the crew
• Chapter Four – sewers
• Chapter Five – bombs
• Letter – everything is shit
• Chapter Six – hm coup
• Chapter Seven – assassination
• Chapter eight – big leader dude
• Chapter nine – prison break
• Chapter ten – why we fight
• Chapter eleven – i love weddings
• Interview – former best friend

And now it looks like:

• Publisher’s Note – wow isn’t this book intense
• Letter – why am I here?
• Chapter One – inciting incident
• Chapter Two – meet the crew
• Chapter Three – sewers
• Interview – my, aren’t you a jerk
• Letter – everything is shit
• Chapter Four – hm coup
• Chapter five – assassination
• Chapter six – big leader dude
• Letter – I need to get my life together
• Interview – former best friend
• Chapter seven – prison break
• Chapter eight – why we fight
• Chapter nine – i hate weddings

I think this makes the flow and plot stronger, but I am a little worried I may have sacrificed character development for plot. I either sacrificed it or I pushed it all to the later chapters, so the first five chapters are very plot heavy and then six to nine are character building, which could work? Just pushing forward with this rewrite and then I’ll go back and touch up any spots that are rough with this structural change. 

Character Arcs

With that being said, these rewrites have strengthened several of Kingsley’s relationships.

His cousin, Siegfried, is more of a character as opposed to a presence and I think it’s clearer how much Kingsley worshiped him (but also why other characters would have beef with Sieg)

Kingsley’s friends, Ernest and Asia, have been brought to the forefront. I think Ernest has a stronger/clearer motive and strangely echoes another character’s arc, almost as if Kingsley can’t escape the same three problems that hound him no matter what he does. 

Devin is also coming through as a proper secondary character and I think it’s clearer that he is Kingsley’s foil and maybe the only person Kingsley’s ever truly cared about (sorry Oisin). Because of spoilerish reasons, Devin is a key witness, not just to Kingsley’s trial, but to the story as a whole and he provides a needed perspective that sometimes clashes with Kingsley’s story, but provides an emotional response that Kingsley sometimes finds impossible to convey. And Dev’s POV adds an extra dimension to Kingsley’s trial. It’s not just if Kingsley will live or die, it’s also how much longer will his legacy taint the work of Devin and their friends? As Devin says, “it has to be for something” and if it’s only Kingsley’s life, then that’s not very satisfying is it, haha?

I think the only two characters who have been minimized by the changes are Gary, another one of Kingsley’s friends, and poor Heron, the former rebel leader and a family friend. So I need a portion of chapter nine to be a Gary chapter and I think I’m ok with Heron being a lingerer until chapter eleven when something spoilerish happens. 

I’m still struggling with Captain Bernard Griffin, one of the main antagonists, a character. I wrote this book knowing that Kingsley wouldn’t waste any ink on the Hevians (his oppressors) unless he absolutely had to and so it feels like the Hevians enter and leave the story through a revolving door (which I like). A lot of Kings’ opponents are political leaders in a “democracy” so this makes sense, but Griffin is supposed to represent the military/police forces Kingsley has to fight. He’s sort of a terminatoresque character who is just constantly there and is seemingly impossible to kill (to Kingsley’s immense frustration). Per a beta reader’s suggestion, I introduced him earlier in the book so when he returns at the midway point he has some context for the reader, but I’m still not sure if he’s working within the context of the story as a whole…

Overall though, I’m pretty happy with the progress I’m making and I think the story is stronger for it. Now I just need to keep this up while moving.