Rewriting Radiance - chapter 1

    "Asher had been sitting in the bath for the better part of two hours when the knock came. The water had long since become tepid, his skin wrinkled as too much liquid passed the boundary of his skin. He watched the tap drip, slowly adding more and more water to the tub.
    The knock came again."

In what I hope will be a series of blog posts, I wanted to show you a look at my rewriting process that I'm currently going through with Radiance, by taking sections from the novel as posted online and showing you my thoughts and then final changes.

We begin with the first chapter, in which our hero is sitting in the bath.

My main comment on this (and indeed on much of my writing)? More! Show more, take a bit longer, flesh it out.

The new version is after the jump (major changes in bold):



"Asher had been sitting in the bath for the better part of two hours when the knock came.
    The water had long since become tepid, his skin wrinkled as too much liquid passed the boundary of his skin. He watched the tap drip, slowly adding more and more water to the tub. Ripples spread and crossed one another, spreading to the edge of the tub and rebounding until they faded to nothing - like sound waves, plucked from a guitar string in never-ending succession, musical echoes that outlive the musician.
    He should call someone he thought. Okay, so most of his college friends no longer lived in New York, and it was still too early to call anyone in London - but Dan was probably still in the city. They hadn’t spoken in ages, he should really give him a call.
    Asher didn’t move.
    The knock came again."

As you can see, I wanted to bring up two important aspects of the character and the novel much earlier - Asher as a musician, and the character of Dan Black. I felt that Asher was the kind of person to at least think of calling someone in this situation, and Dan was the obvious candidate.

"And then a massive hole was torn out of the wall.
    Bricks and mortar simply fell away into space. The stifling heat of the New York summer burst into the bathroom like a kiss, sticky and wet."

The original version of Ashmedai's entrance read pleasantly enough, but I didn't like the passive voice of the first sentence, or the clichéd, pulp metaphor at the end. The revised version felt a bit smoother:

"And then a massive hole ripped through the wall.
    Bricks and mortar simply fell away into space, tumbling down into the street below, crashing with a muted thud. The stifling heat of the New York summer burst into the bathroom, punching through the air-conditioning like colliding weather fronts."

Finally, I was never happy with the riddle Asher uses to make his escape:

"“Then the question I want to ask is,” his mind churned, “why is a raven like a writing desk?”"

Always meant to be a place-holder for something better, I never got around to it before putting it up on the blog. The new riddle calls to mind the religious nature of the text a little better, and speaks to Asher's situation, finding himself all alone:

    "“Then the question I want to ask is,” his mind churned, “what is the sound of one hand clapping?”"

Hope you enjoyed this little insight into my editing process, and I hope to bring you other updates as they take my fancy.

What do you think of my changes? Let me know in the comments!