Final Edits... For Now

This has been a fun week. My beta reader finished reading Isle of the Forsaken Gods and had a lot of great suggestions for edits. I'm more than half way through them now and I feel as if the book has improved. After I've finished going through these edits I'll so another round of major editing and then I'll read the story through again. This is always a fun part of editing because I feel like the book begins to feel more real once someone else has read it. If I don't finish going through suggestions tomorrow, they should be complete by Friday. 

In the book I'm currently writing, I've just reached the beginning of the climax. When I say beginning, I mean very beginning. With my current manuscript, I'm thinking I may need to go back and add a few scenes so I would be happy if the word count by the end was on the smaller side. Currently, I'm at about 80,000 words. I may need to go back and delete a few things for this book in order to add other parts of the story. 

I'm sure many writers feel this at times, but I was feeling quite discouraged with the manuscript just a few days ago. Because of that, I've reworked a few things and am now feeling better about it. I added a scene based on gut feeling yesterday and I'm happy I did. I think it adds to the story and adds to certain characters. It's scary making those decisions at times. I recently finished reading a book and the author mentioned how she changed things last minute with a few of her books, even though she had planned out an entire series. I drew some inspiration from that. If my characters take turns that feel right for them, I should be willing to adapt. 

Thank you for reading this article. Do you often add scenes you didn't expect in your stories? How much planning do you do for your stories? Do you prefer reading novels that are carefully planned out?

Keep dreaming and daydreaming of all the wonderful worlds in your head.