After stopping Book 2, the first thing I did was to copy the entire 250,000+ word Book 1 into yWriter5. The second thing was to start editing Chapter 1. That's right: I started Revision 4 even though I'm still less than half finished with Revision 3, which only goes up to Chapter 11. But there was a reason for that: I wanted the best opening possible for Spanner, and I spent nearly a month just on the opening. Together with the Intro (to which I added two sentences providing a clue to the pilot's identity) and Interlude 1 (still unchanged), Chapter 1 represents the pilot episode of the hypothetical TV series I'm novelizing. Now that I feel the "pilot" is as solid as I can make it, I can go back to Revision 3 and the Shira/Leila relationship line in Part 2 (Chapters 9-15).
Here's the problem I'm about to work on: how do Shira and Leila escalate the passion of their love, and how does it connect with the political disaster in Chapter 15? Part 1 leads up to the point at which they establish their relationship. In Part 2, they defy the entire political order (which, in Cascadia, is led by Leila's grandfather Governor Brinkman, who, being the Corporate overlord he is, thinks he owns her) in order to love each other, and it should end up enraging Brinkman into decreeing the takeover of Seattle that turns catastrophic for the Conservative Revolutionary regime. The Shira/Leila relationship line is the heart of Part 2, but in the current Revision 2 it's incomplete.
Of course, I'll be taking my time with this, since right now I'm preparing to take part in the 2012 edition of February Album Writing Month. If I can complete Spanner's relationship line (and therefore Revision 3) up to Chapter 15 before National Novel Editing Month starts in March, then good. Otherwise, it'll be my first order of business when NaNoEdMo begins.
So far, every new draft improves the story greatly. The improvements shall continue apace...
