One of my favorite writers is Alexandra Stoddard, who writes a great deal about home decoration, the art of living, architecture, beauty, and philosophy. She was mentored in the interior design business by Eleanor McMillen Brown, owner of a very fashionable decorating house in Manhattan, New York. In one of her books, Stoddard quotes Mrs. Brown as telling her, “If you change one thing, you will have to rethink and change everything.”
Such words not only apply to interior design, but for this manuscript, I’m discovering they apply to my writing journey at the moment as well.
I thought when I started editing based on the feedback I got that I would drop a new “chapter” in each section and make various other editing changes throughout, mostly deepening character motivations for minor characters.
So I wrote one of those new parts and dropped it into the first section that’s from Carlton’s point of view. And immediately realized that I needed to add several new pages to the ending of Carlton’s narration because of this new scene. It raised the stakes exponentially in that particular situation.
I’m starting to draft the new section for Cassie’s narration, and I’ve already figured out how it’s going to cause a huge ripple effect that will reverberate through the ending not only of Cassie’s section but of all the other characters’ narrative arcs.
And I haven’t given enough thought to the third new section I’m going to write, but I can imagine that Merrilyn’s narration will be altered as well.
But this is the best part–all of these changes are improving the story immeasurably. And I am having the time of my life drafting them and making the puzzle pieces fit to make it look like the story has always existed in this form and events could not happen in any other way.
So remember changing just one thing has the power to change everything. What change have you been afraid of making in your work-in-progress? What are you afraid of? Overcome the fear and make the change–and surprise yourself!
Julie Liddell Whitehead 