It’s hard for me to believe that I wrote The Orchid House nine years ago! Back then it was a novel held on to for some time by one of the big publishers only narrowly missing publication – at least that’s what they said. Why did they finally turn it down? I think the major criticism in the end from both Headline and Bloomsbury who said great things about it, was that the protagonist Anna was too passive – classic mistake (for more on this read the six biggest mistakes)
So how to address this without a complete re-write? After all my protagonist was a woman in shock, buried in her grief and to some extent cut off from the outside world – (living at Trescombe a Cornish estate and its gardens owned by the Russell family)
In the end it wasn’ t too diffcult, although it involved a lot of work. I realise I’ve learned a lot in nine years as when I read it through I saw plenty of opportunities to change passive reflection and reported action into real time action – even if the action was only minor. I also included more dialogue whenever possible. I needed to see Anna differently so I changed her name – amazing how liberating this can be – she became Roma and she instantly had more spark!
Other significant changes I made were to loosen the language. It felt mannered to me and indulgent. I made it more natural, let it flow for the reader but without losing what I thought was the best of it. I paid a lot of attention to the words. I always try to..
The themes seemed less like threads woven into the fabric of the novel and more like threads which just hung there and didn’t always connect. I took my needle to this and made sure the loose threads were sewn in.
I did some fresh writing. In my story Roma (a painter) is working on the illustrations for a Victorian Journal written by Head Gardener of Trescombe – Henry Dodson – I decided to begin each chapter with something from Henry’s Journal of 1887. A challenge at first but one I really enjoyed and I think really adds more depth to the narrative – another well connected thread.
Finally, throughout the whole process I tried to keep the reader in mind.
The result? It’s a better book than the one I wrote nine years ago. It’s not the book I would write now but it’s a book I’m really pleased with and proud of.
For much more on the process of editing – inc, scenes, story arc, character… go to Editing Your Novel in the drop down menu under Select Category (left hand side bar)
Next Kindle Post – Copy Edit and Cover
