🌎🌍 Third Draft Plans

This is just a brief post to give an update on where I'm at with Two Earths Are Better Than None.

I've now received some excellent, detailed feedback on the second draft. Combining that with my thoughts, I'm ready to begin working on the third draft.

It's now clearer which bits are working and which need effort to make them effective. As expected, part two is slightly flabby, and part three is underdeveloped. A gradual shift in tonal style across the central three parts works okay, but if I leant into the absurdity earlier, it could be more fun.

Several details about what's really going on have come across more ambiguously than I realised. That's easily fixed, as are most things along the way. I need to lead into a couple of character developments more carefully.

Putting it all together, I have a plan! The more significant changes will start in the second half of part two, where I'll be reframing/replacing most of the scenes. That'll introduce a theme much earlier which I can use throughout part three, having plenty of fun with it along the way.

It'll be a reasonable amount of work to get there – maybe a couple of months – but it'll be worth it. Pleasingly, the story itself is unchanged. I'm just improving the telling of it in places and using a couple of clever ideas (he says modestly) I've come up with in the interim.

I'll start that afresh next week. I'm meeting with my son tomorrow to discuss his feedback face-to-face and ensure I've caught everything crucial before starting.

As you can see above, I've tweaked the font style on the cover again. This is much better, and I think I might finally be happy. Now, I need to finish the book.