Revision

With the baby's unique sleep schedule, revisions of my book are going a bit slow. I have decided to completely rewrite chapter one, not just edit. The biggest change is that the story is beginning a few hours earlier. Before, the novel begins with Inesh's dad's funeral. Now it begins with him returning to camp and discovering his dad is dead. Why the change?

1) Contrast of emotions- now it starts with triumph and drops to despair. I believe this contrast makes his despair stronger.

2) More immediate emotions- at the funeral, the emotions are slightly less raw. By showing the moment he finds out, the emotion is deeper, unprocessed.

I also made a slight change in how Inesh's father died. Before, his father was on the battlefield. Now, the demons infiltrate the camp and kill his father. It is a strike force. This is far more personal and represents a clear change in tactics. It also would make Inesh feel more threatened because the demons have entered his world, a place that is supposed to be safe. On the battlefield, men die all the time, but they rarely die while in their tent. While a minor change, I think it will make the rest of the story flow better.

These two changes pretty much require a full rewrite of the first chapter. Starting a few hours earlier changes the way things are presented so it isn't just telling what happened a few minutes earlier, it is changing how the world and characters are shown. It is redundant to look back at the battle if we already saw the character in battle.

Once rewritten fully, I'll have to read both chapters and decide which way works better. And then on to chapter 2, which also has bigger rewrites needed. More on that later.