Gleeful Rewriting

Pardon me a moment while I gloat. I just finished a new proposal and a synopsis that I’m happy with, and since I can’t let well enough alone, I decided it was time to haul out my first book YET AGAIN and see if it was fixable. It’s not.

But that’s okay. I realized that what was bugging me was the fact that it has an opening that was a complete cliche (all right, all right. The whole book is a cliche.). Hero interrupts heroine’s wedding. Heroine flails and screams. Hero grabs her onto a horse and takes off across the countryside. Heroine flails and screams.

Parts of it are funny, but most of it made me want to grab the heroine by the throat and smack her silly.

So, I decided to do an exercise in Entertaining Michelle(tm). I decided that I would take every cliche and stomp it flat—starting with that infamous wedding scene. Instead of the heroine flailing and screaming….she gives the hero a black eye. She tries to kick his *ss (unsuccessfully, but she gives it her best shot. Or three good punches, anyway).

When the scene was finished, I printed it out and reread it. It made me laugh. I really enjoyed it. I think there may be hope for this story yet. I’m going to rewrite it from scratch, and this time–the goal is purely for the love of writing. I want to laugh at these people and in general, feel good about the book.

The hero had better watch his back, is all I can say. ‘Cuz this is one heroine who won’t let him get away with anything!