Third Draft – Completed
This week I finished up draft three of the sequel to The Kill Chain. I still have the working title of The Kill Switch and I feel that is going to stick now. Looking at last weeks post, I listed a number of titles of future novels in this series. I came across another possible title this week, The Kill Net, which is kind of obvious when I think about it. However, I have since found that this name has already been adopted by a Ransomware gang, so I don’t know if I will use it in future.
What next? I’m using my writing time today to think. This will involve finishing up the words for a web interview I was asked to do, selecting the questions for another interview I was offered, reading over my notes for what the next book in the series could be and catching up on some reading, both fiction and non-fiction. I’m also writing this brief blog.
I’m very pleased how The Kill Switch has turned out. I think I have covered off any potential plot holes that could easily have appeared. I feel the story hangs together and has some solid references to The Kill Chain, with some of that plot spilling over into The Kill Switch with devastating consequences. I feel a lot better about it than I did with The Kill Chain, and it seems to have come together well.
Working through draft four is fun. There has been a lot of hard work to get to this point and I can now concentrate on polishing it up. It’s a different type of work and pressure, but I do look forward to it. Looking back I enjoy the process of novel writing more with each draft and by the time I get to draft four, I know I have a story and it’s working. I suppose the idea that many writers express, I don’t like writing, I like having written is relevant here. I like writing, but being able to work on draft four makes all the effort to get to this point worthwhile. For me there is nothing like being at this stage in the process. It’s all about keeping going, and turning up every day and doing a bit more. It would be fair to say all writers have their days when they would rather be doing something else, and on those days going away and doing something else may be the right thing to do. Writers, however, know they will return to their desks and continue with the job of writing until it’s completed. There is no magic formula. It’s all about one word after the other.
There will be frustrations along the way, and once draft four is passed to an editor, I fully expect to have all manner of issues exposed for me to then go away and fix. That’s the nature of writing a book. My judgement is clouded by having lived this story for several months. I need the clarity of another writer to show me what is working and what can be improved. However, for the next week I can enjoy going back over it and tweak whatever I feel needs tweaking.
The Fiction Factory 