Rewriting a Novel
I mentioned in Saturday’s post – Origins of a Novel – that there was another completed novel that I wasn’t sure what to do with. I have actually been rewriting that novel, transforming it from an American-set thriller to a British one. I’m going slow, finding that things an American setting allowed me work not so well on British soil, and so I’m having to find new ways of expressing them. Beautiful Vermont vs. Here’s the thing. American landscape is epic, vast, and in places untamed. It is conceivable that in that vast wilderness there might be a secret laboratory unknown to the rest of the world. Try and put an unknown lab in the British landscape – we’ve pretty much tarmacked over it all, there is nowhere for it to be – so I’ve had to retcon certain aspects of the beginning of the work. Such work has meant that later material won’t work either, so I’ll have to reconsider that as well. This means I’ll end up with a novel ...