36 Hours Revision, II

My original version of "36 Hours" received many, many great reviews. It also received many bad reviews. I posted the reviews in this blog some time ago (see the post on January 14, 2009). I'm thankful for all the negative reviews I've received, especially the ones where the critics expounded upon what was wrong in the book. In my rewriting, I am dealing with the glaring obvious problems of the book, such as the lack of character depth and development, the jagged story-telling (I'm making the scenes more fluid), the difficulty in understanding what is happening (utilizing the style of Hemingway, I am making the writing simpler and less infused with unnecessary adjectives), and the overall striking misspellings and poor grammar. I've developed immensely as a writer since 2004 (compare the original "36 Hours" to my 2009 publication "Dwellers of the Night", and you'd never guess they came from the same author), and I'm enjoying using my new skills and my new style in the rewriting of "36 Hours."

The most difficult task has been figuring out how to add more material in the third part of the book, which is quite anemic compared to the other two. This is due to laziness in writing the original. I've developed several extra scenes to incorporate and have worked extensively on a new direction for two of the characters (the two main characters, Austin and Hannah). I think this new direction is haunting, chilling, prophetic. I'm excited to write it. I spent an hour at Starbucks this evening filling pages with notes and scribbles, and soon I'll be able to flesh it out on paper. I've also been developing a parallel story set in the present (fifteen, twenty years after the main events) that will enable readers to see what happened to Austin after his ordeal; and not only what happened to Austin, but to the world as well.

As of right now I am 253 pages into the book. I just finished Chapter 20. In the original copy, Chapter Twenty is at 250 pages. So it would seem that through all my editing and revising, I have only added three pages. Keep in mind that the print in the new version is smaller, and the margins are wider; I've probably already added about thirty, maybe forty pages. I'm also going to be redoing the introductory material (the days prior to the main events) to make them more interesting.

I'm really excited about it, and I hope my readers are, too. At first I just started rewriting it as something to do, but this book holds so much potential that it's difficult to not be excited.