Rewriting question

I'm about 40-50k words into an Alternate History novel intended to cover the first half of the 20th Century. The novel is not character driven, although there are recurring characters, and the story is told through letters, newspaper reports, government documents as well as personal stories. There are four or five story separate threads which sometimes merge or interact.

My problem now is that in a couple of areas I've written myself into a corner so need a substantial rethink which may have knock on effects in other areas. The problem has arisen in part because I had only the barest plot outline when I started, (which I can now deal with since I have much better idea of where things are going) but also because I haven't managed to keep the development of the separate story threads in step as I write, and bringing them together has left me with some plotting problems. I'm really struggling with managing the rewrite because of these complexities.

I'm looking for a) tips on how to handle rewrites on this scale with a complex plot structure, without starting over from the very beginning and b) for advice on how to keep the story threads in step in the future.

I'm not sure of the policy on posting links to other sites, but some of the story so far has been posted on an alternate history site. I can post a link if that's allowed.

Thanks for all the comments. I think I've tried all of them at one point or another although not systematically and I think that's the problem. If I'm honest with myself, I suspect the real reason for lack of progress is a reluctance to sit down and put the effort in, when it is so much easier to just pick up something else or even start something completely new. I have to decide, once and for all, if it's worth the effort to fix it, so the first thing to do is to read it as if for the first time. I think I'll do this as hard copy. I find the change in perspective on moving from screen to paper often helps.

rgroberts said:

I started by re-reading the entire thing. I didn't try to fix it; I just read it. Meanwhile, I made notes concerning what happened and when it happened--and when my timing was off.

Click to expand...

I started here, because apart from anything else I realised I hadn't read it as a single piece. That has thrown up a few things, including a bit of a scrambled timeline but that's mainly due to not keeping the strands in step. I also found an issue I hadn't thought of and that is the voice of the narrator of any particular section. In the case of letters, newspaper articles, reports that's reasonably clear, but a good 25% seems to be just telling the story from outside the events. I need to fix that.

My next step is to do a synopisis with dates. Some of the sections covered 2-3 year, others a single incident. I'm breaking down the longer sections into dated lists. Once I sort that by date I can start sticking it back together again and add on a more detailed plot outline for the part still to be written. I'm also going to have to do some serious editing. Fifty thousand words so far to get from September 1910 to February 1914. The end date was supposed to be 1947!

Thanks again for the advice.

Thanks for all the comments. To update anyone interested, I've started by reading without editing (other than the odd missing comma or typo). I made notes as I read to identify inconsistencies, time line errors, loose ends etc . My next step is to create a consistent timeline for what's written so far and a more detailed outline of the rest of it. Then I'll reorder the separate chapter files to match the new sequence of events.

What I'm still unsure about is combining everything into a single file. My current thinking is to create a single file for each strand and put some comments or some tags into each text at intervals to cross link them. When I create a single file at the end, I'll need to interleave these together, but in the earlier stages I think it will help me in monitoring progress if I keep each strand separatel.