July IWSG: Revising the Past . . . Again

This week, I met with my small writers' group and told them about the post due today -- and my ambivalence in writing it. At the name, The Insecure Writer's Support Group, everyone said, "Oh, I need that," and "Send me the link, Beth."

I was reminded again how difficult it is to write a story. We may quibble over plot and conflict, character arcs, degree of backstory, authenticity of setting, or even correct grammar. But when we share our stories, we may not control the theme.

I'm in deep revision just now of Book 3, Rivers of Stone. That doesn't really describe what I'm revising or why. For somewhere along the way in generating this story, all the way through the first and second and third drafts, I fell back into a theme I thought I had long left behind. Instead of writing a serious historical romance, I wrote about an abusive marriage in the 1840s. Ugh. This subtheme did not fit my story. It made my characters unlikeable, and a happy-ever-after ending unthinkable.

So I'm working through all 70 chapters, reshaping, recasting, and re-imagining. I hear the echos of my childhood in all I've written. I'd like to forget (and have done my best to do so) that morning when I was 9 and my sister 8. We were awakened by the sounds of my mother being badly beaten. We huddled in bed, too frightened to do anything. At dawn, my stepfather brought my mother into our bedroom and said, "Take care of her." I'd like to say she left him, but she didn't, not for another decade.

My dear hubby says that very good writers write intuitively, drawing on their subconscious. Oh, that didn't work this time. But I still believe in my story. Maybe the revisions will be done in roughly five months. That's not so long a time to get it right.

Your turn: Have you considered what themes run deep through all your stories? Have you ever been surprised by a turn one of your stories took? And what did you do?

May the coming month be a good one for us all. Don't forget to go exploring on the list of some 230 followers of The Insecure Writer's Support Group. Find out what we've been up to this last month. Be inspired -- and write!