Holla to this month’s co-hosts: Joylene Nowell Butler,Louise Barbour, and Tyrean Martinson! We appreciate you.
February 5 question – Is there a story or book you’ve written you want to/wish you could go back and change?
Oh, YES! I wrote my first two published novels in third person omniscient point-of-view. Though this POV provides a broad perspective to the characters and story, the downside is unfortunate head-hopping within the scenes. Cringe-worthy! I did seize the chance to edit my debut novel seven years after its initial release. To tighten the story, I chopped about 30K words, but changing the point-of-view would’ve been too extensive. My publisher released the edited ebook version but did not update the print copy.
Speaking of revising stories, I’m preparing to self-publish Behind the Catcher’s Mask, a short story that was part of the 2019 IWSG anthology, Masquerade: Oddly Suited. The theme of the anthology was young adult love featuring a mask of some sort, so naturally I turned to my favorite genre (sports romance) to pen a romance between a softball pitcher and a baseball catcher.
I hope to rekindle my writing and publishing mojo in 2025. I even signed up for a book event in Savannah, GA this fall!
Novel in Progress Update: Low Water 40,000 / ~85,000 words
Jennifer Lane Books 
Cringeing, updating, possibly change POV – Add the blue lightning speed with which almost everything has changed, how quickly would any revision seem dated ?
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Very true, Esther. So much change afoot!
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Congrats on getting ready to publish your story. I think all of us might find things to change in manuscripts we wrote seven years ago. I have one in a drawer I plan to revise next.
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Ah, the famous story in a drawer. 😉
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I remember that story – cool you are publishing it yourself.
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I thought I’d finally get around to it. 🙂
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Good luck on publishing your short story! Yeah, head-hopping can be a bit cringe-worthy…
Ronel visiting for IWSG day Help Needed for Spreading the Word About Irascible Immortals
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Thanks, Ronel, and congratulations again on finishing your series!
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I think that type of POV can work well but if characters switch between chapters etc rather than in scenes. But I’m glad you’re brave enough to revisit and republish old work. It seems like too much work to me!
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Nick, I agree that third-person-omniscient POV can work well between scenes or chapters–too bad I switched within the same scene! Glad to hear you’re on the mend.
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I’d love to hear more on this subject, Jennifer. How was the reaction to the change in POV? Did you get any feedback from your fan base? I get why they didn’t publish the hardcopies, but is it possible in the future? Did the new versions do better? Happy IWSG Day!
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Hi, Joylene, I didn’t end up changing the POV, just tightened the story. But I think most readers couldn’t care less about POV_-they just want a good story. A helpful author who read my book was the one to alert me about head-hopping after my release, and before that I was ignorant about POV for the most part.
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I’ve done an POV revision and you’re right, it was huge and exhausting. Good luck with the re-release. 🙂
Anna from elements of emaginette
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Thanks, Anna! We’re working on the cover now.
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Romance between the pitcher and catcher? I’m curious about how the softball and baseball games play in the romance. I think I’m hooked. Thanks for the email. Jennifer. Blessings
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I had to be creative to join a male and female athlete together for my story, so I chose a co-ed charity softball game. 🙂
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I’ve changed the POV back and forth in short scenes. It’s sort of a fun mental exercise but time consuming. Doing it for a whole book, I can’t imagine!
Congratulations on all your progress!
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I’m with you, Laer–I decided against all that work for an old book. But it was satisfying to tighten the story and jettison all the unnecessary adverbs. Thanks for the encouragement.
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