Revisions Status: Feb 7 2015

This is the first of a series of posts on the status of my revisions to Axon, Inc.

It’s a puzzle: the best way to convey how much is left to write and revise. If I lay out exactly which scenes still need to be written, necessarily there will be spoilers. In theory I could give a word count — “15,000 words to delete, 5K to add, and 7K to change!” — but I obviously don’t actually know how many words it will take. This is a novel, an organic thing, not just a pile of bytes.

Instead I’m going to reference my Story Map here. The Story Map reveals the basic shape of the novel, without being specific about what actually happens. So, without further ado, this is what remains to be done for each of the main chunks of the novel:

1. DEPARTURE

   1. The Call to Adventure.

      1. The Opening Image. I’m dissatisfied with the current opening image, and am going to completely rewrite it. I know what it’ll be, though, and it’s going to be awesome.
      2. Setup of Home, Work, and Play. These scenes also need to be redone, but I have a very clear idea of what needs to happen, and I’ll be able to reuse parts of the existing draft.
      3. Catalyst. This scene is just about perfect as it is.

   2. Refusal of the Call.

      1. Debate, Break Into Two. This is awful in the current draft — it’s all existential hand-wringing. I’m going to rewrite it as a physical debate — in fact, a physical struggle. And I’m really looking forward to how it comes out.

   3. Supernatural Aid.

      Similar to the Home, Work, and Play scenes above, this section needs extensive revision, but I’ll be able to reuse and repurpose a lot of existing draft materials.

   4. Crossing the First Threshold

      This section just requires minor revisions.

   5. Belly of the Whale

      This section just requires minor revisions.

2. INITIATION

   1. Road of Trials.

      This is by far the longest part of the book. But it needs to be even longer, in order to beef up some of the primary themes, and explore the character relationships in more depth.

   2. Meeting with the Goddess

      This is in pretty good shape: just needs minor revisions.

   3. Woman as Temptress

      1. All Is Lost. Minor revisions.
      2. Dark Night of the Soul. A fair bit of work is needed here — several pages of additions, but pretty straightforward ones.

   4. Atonement with Father

      This section needs minor revisions.

3. Apotheosis

   This section just needs some small revisions, and is combined with the Ultimate Boon in the final scene.

• RETURN

  I don’t think it’s spoilers, if you’ve read this far, to say that the book doesn’t spend much time on the ‘Return’ section of Campbell’s story arc. After all, these are characters based on the Norse gods. They had no happily ever after… but their end was spectacular.