An Editing Gripe

I haven’t been able to access my blasted website, and that’s where I normally dump my editing woes. So, here I am, dumping the editing woes here on all of you.

I’m sorry.

My plot has developed too many kinks, there are too many random characters who contribute basically nothing, and my intrigue plot thriller is now 98,000 words long.

And I love it.

What is wrong with me? An additional 8,000 words is not good. I’ve eliminated four extremely minor cameos and removed at least two scenes. But then, I added a character in the second round of edits because I changed my secondary protagonist, and I don’t know what I’m doing here. Plus, I’m not sure my last couple of chapters aren’t just dragging on.

Well, no, the thing with Reichert had to be settled and he is the main secondary suspect. How does he tie into the main question of who is scaring Isabella? Problem- The main plot is discovering who is Isabella’s saboteur, and the question of who killed Chleb is only tied in afterwards. And Manfred and Reichert are the first contacts with the foreign duke plotting to kidnap the princess, so that is the subplot tie-in with that.

Ok, so I do have a single plot. Just too many damn subplots that I kind of can’t remove. Really peaking at — well, Johan’s ambitions, Chleb’s death and associated problems, Reichert’s scheme, Brynhild’s little self-realization, and Eric’s schtick. So that’s five subplots. Wait, there’s also Gerhard’s little thing. So, six. Seven if you think of Bigitte’s argument with Karl as separate from Wilhelm and Ermengarde’s problem.

Can I take out Wilhelm’s problem out? I can’t remove Ermengarde, I don’t think, or Gretl. No, Wilhelm asking Karl to keep Ermengarde out of the murder investigation is what pushes Eric’s paranoia over the edge, and that is what makes Brynhild drag Eric’s secret out of him.

Manfred is the step too far, isn’t he? But I like him, and Reichert wouldn’t have thought of that damn Hermes costume, which is key to…a lot.

I suspect I have an illness common to many newbie writers, character-generation disease. This is where it is easy to invent people but hard to find something for them to do.

I also have 14th-book-in-a-series syndrome. The only new people are Josefa, Mariska, Horst, Fitz, and Muller. Maybe include Prince Dante, but he’s four. He’s more of a McGuffin. Everyone else has been in an earlier book, and I am caught with the old characterizations. Reichert is the snob who would think he should be sole regent. Gerhard is the social climbing sociopath who would haunt a princess’s court for gain. Manfred is the showboat who has to make a spectacle out of everything.

No, I might just have to accept that my new story is 98,000 words long and see how I can straighten it out from there.

I might have to remove Manfred.

But no-o-o!