I am in the thick of revising KILLER EYES, and I can truly say that this stage of writing a novel, for me, at least, is the most fun stage. What I'm doing is rereading chapters and rewriting them where the prose needs to be improved.
And it is in this stage where I find parts that need to be added or deleted. When I delete something, it's usually words or sentences that were not needed. But I also add stuff that makes the story much better. And it was after I went to bed last night I realized what I needed to add and where.
There's a very important part in KILLER EYES where the bad guy, Karl Manoukian, makes a statement to the hero, Trent Smith. But near the end, the main villain, Ming Sang, makes the same statement. When I wrote it I figured it was just a coincidence that they said the same thing. But as I reread it, I realized that it's too much of a coincidence.
And so now at the beginning of the story I'm going to have Ming tell Manoukian to tell Trent Smith that statement. It will be a way she is preparing him for their eventual meeting. I know that this little bit of info is not very clear. I'm just saying that during this stage of the writing process you can really make strides in the improvement of both your writing AND the story, itself.
I know it happened big time with KILLER OF KILLERS, the first of the KILLER stories, and it happened with THE VASE, too. In fact, with THE VASE, I developed a major subplot during the revision stage. And it really makes the story three dimensional. It gives a real personality to one of the characters, when that character was only a minor player before. But now it's so much better.
I think that when you're writing your first draft, you are really just getting the canvas prepped. But when you're revising, you're filling in the color and adding the detail. Yeah, that's the artist in me speaking, but the comparison is valid, I think.
And as an artist I can tell you that when you're adding the detail, that's the most fun part of painting. So it's the same with writing. It makes sense when you think about it.
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