At last I have plucked up the courage to relook at the creative part of my Ph D thesis – this 100,000 word YA novel. One major change – and this was signalled up as being necessary by two of my readers, is to the title. I still keep the three titles for the three parts of the trilogy, but now have them in a different order. The Peace Child concept remains.
I’m now going through, reacting mainly to the comments of my external examiner, though my inner critic is doing a fair amount of work also. So, I’m strengthening two characters, making life harder for my protagonist, changing a major term, making a war look more like a war and addressing one or two anomalies which have crept in within the setting.
Once you’ve made the first cuts, it gets easier. I do have to be rigorous – akin to “Killing off darlings” in fact. I’m also hanging on to what both examiners said: that they do expect to see “Peace Child” published in the future. It is a case of really, “if you do A, B will happen”. The question is, can I do A?
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