I'm curious to hear your tales of when you realized you had to rewrite and oh, did it hurt so much? 
I was about 3/4 through my zero draft (90k), and had the entire thing plotted. But I was missing two little backstory details for two of my MCs, and when I finally figured those details out, the ramifications snowballed into me basically having to crumple the draft and trash it. This is the first time I've trashed so much of a project while actively working on it.
My plot skeleton of events is still exactly the same, but I realized all of my character's interpersonal dynamics were wrong.
I feel like that first 90k was just me sketching skits and ideas, riffing on characters and trying to figure them out... despite the fact I spent an enormous amount of time mapping characters before starting the zero draft. O_O Lesson learned: don't start writing next time until I figure out how to make every main character BULLETPROOF three-dimensional. Close to three-dimensional was not enough, and that was what broke me.
It was the necessary process to find the crystal clear vision of where I need to take things, so it's good. But. I feel slightly deflated seeing a new word count of less than 10k. I know it's not about the word count, at all, but my pride says HHHRRRRRRMMMMGGGGGFFFF. I wanted to hold a completed rough draft in my hands by the end of January. That was the original goal.
On the bright side, I had no idea how to deal with the fact I had a novella planned between books 1 & 2 (ugly situation for any kind of pitching or marketing). It occurred to me how to chop it, split it between the two novels, and reorder them accordingly (easier said than done), which will make everything WAY more marketable. It also let me introduce a theme in the first book that I wasn't sure of how to introduce later, from a marketing standpoint. My subconscious was chewing that dilemma for months.
So yay!! Yay for rewriting!! I also finally figured out a title.
I knew going into this project that I adhered 100% to "allow yourself to write crap," with a sense that I'd have to do some rewriting. I didn't expect an overhaul to the degree of lighting 90k on fire, but it serves the story.
The end.
I was about 3/4 through my zero draft (90k), and had the entire thing plotted. But I was missing two little backstory details for two of my MCs, and when I finally figured those details out, the ramifications snowballed into me basically having to crumple the draft and trash it. This is the first time I've trashed so much of a project while actively working on it.
My plot skeleton of events is still exactly the same, but I realized all of my character's interpersonal dynamics were wrong.
I feel like that first 90k was just me sketching skits and ideas, riffing on characters and trying to figure them out... despite the fact I spent an enormous amount of time mapping characters before starting the zero draft. O_O Lesson learned: don't start writing next time until I figure out how to make every main character BULLETPROOF three-dimensional. Close to three-dimensional was not enough, and that was what broke me.
It was the necessary process to find the crystal clear vision of where I need to take things, so it's good. But. I feel slightly deflated seeing a new word count of less than 10k. I know it's not about the word count, at all, but my pride says HHHRRRRRRMMMMGGGGGFFFF. I wanted to hold a completed rough draft in my hands by the end of January. That was the original goal.
On the bright side, I had no idea how to deal with the fact I had a novella planned between books 1 & 2 (ugly situation for any kind of pitching or marketing). It occurred to me how to chop it, split it between the two novels, and reorder them accordingly (easier said than done), which will make everything WAY more marketable. It also let me introduce a theme in the first book that I wasn't sure of how to introduce later, from a marketing standpoint. My subconscious was chewing that dilemma for months.
So yay!! Yay for rewriting!! I also finally figured out a title.
I knew going into this project that I adhered 100% to "allow yourself to write crap," with a sense that I'd have to do some rewriting. I didn't expect an overhaul to the degree of lighting 90k on fire, but it serves the story.
The end.
