It's Panning Out

Last night, (or the wee hours of this morning if technicality is your thing), I finished the minor rewrites to my interquel Peter Pan: Betwixt-and-Between. Faithful reader and fan Anon had been kind enough to give me not only critiques of the story but editing remarks as well. This sort: combine these sentences, add a comma, please clarify... I’ve gone through all of them now. In most cases I took Anon’s advice and sometimes did exactly as suggested while in others I rewrote the lines entirely. I even cut out whole sentences. There's something quite satisfying about deciding to axe passages.

Now I can move on to the major revisions, the kind that will alter the story structure a bit. Actually, I have already tackled some of these changes along the way. While editing and looking right at a part that is known to be getting an overhaul, it only made sense to plink away at it then. I imagine the minor changes would have gone much more quickly if I didn’t fiddle around with the story aspect as I went along, too. Plus, I had already redone two chief chunks of the tale before handling the little bits.

At any rate, I can already see that it shall be (and is) a much better novel than it had been at first draft. I’d be worried if that were not true! I even managed to strengthen some ties between Barrie’s two books. Anon had wondered why I didn’t include one of Peter Pan’s skills in the mix. I hadn’t wanted to make a one-for-one back history. After all, at least some parts had to remain indigenous to Barrie lest I would ruin their impact, especially the scene where Pan demonstrates that particular skill in Peter and Wendy. But as I revised, I realized that this skill had actually been included all along and apparently neither one of us noticed. I simply re-tooled what had been written so as to subtlely hint at what happens in Barrie’s. As it now stands, Peter Pan will have developed this ability as time goes on… and thus in Peter and Wendy we are shown how well. It also gave Pan a little more fuel to his emotional fires and woes in the Betwixt-and-Between novel.

So all in all, it’s shaping up. Soon enough it will be off to Andrea Jones, author of Hook & Jill. Even though there is no actual appearance of Captain Hook in this tale, she has agreed to take a look at it anyway. (Yes, that's meant as a tongue-in-cheek comment.) What luck to have access to such an esteemed Barrie enthusiast.

Thanks Anon, Andrea, and any who want to read this book!