Wednesday, January 13, 2010

WIP Wednesday: final Bell-Men installment

At least, I hope I'll be done with the Bell-Men rewrites by next Wednesday. I'm to the point at the ending where I'm stripping out almost everything I wrote in the first draft, so wordcount is actually shrinking--which is good, since at the moment it stands at 123,000 words, which is about 20,000 words too long. The next revision pass is going to be cut cut cut cut cut.

I'm truly so close to the ending I could finish it in about an hour, except that I'm still not 100% sure how to end it. The bad guy is dead, Cam and Tomas have been reunited, but I still have to resolve the murders and set up for the sequel. You know, that actually won't be as hard as it seems right now. Maybe I should just settle in and write the rest of it tonight (yeah, right I will).

I've been thinking of retitling the book from Bell-Men to Bell-Men and Bloodhound. What do you think?

I've been thinking all day that it's January 14. Apparently it's only the 13th. I feel like I won a free day in the lottery or something.

16 comments:

Danielle Birch said...

I must start doing WIP Wednesday. I should have put that in my goals. I like Bell Men & Bloodhound. It makes me curious.

BT said...

It's the 14th over here - maybe you just have this secret desire to move to Australia ;c)

Richard said...

Come on, make with the Spoiler Alert! You just gave away the ending before we'd even read it! Argh!

Richard said...

BTW, not so sure about the retitle; "Bell Men and Bloodhound" reminds too much of a buddy-cop movie. Which one is the soon-to-retire veteran, and which is the wacky sidekick?

K.C. Shaw said...

Danielle--That title is a little more descriptive too.

BT--This time of year I definitely want to move to Australia for a few months. :)

Lertulo--Oh, come on, you know the bad guy dies at the end and the two main characters are reunited. But I'm not done writing!

Aw, hell, you're right about the buddy cop title.

Fox Lee said...

I'm going to go with "Bell Men," but I'm partial to short titles. I'll be interested to see which wins!

Unknown said...

I like "Bell Men" too, but go with your gut!

K.C. Shaw said...

Natalie and Jeremy--I think I'll keep it Bell-Men after all. I can call the sequel Bloodhound. :)

Jamie Eyberg said...

I like Bell-Men without any added modifiers.

K.C. Shaw said...

I think I'll keep it as just Bell-Men then. Thanks!

Aaron Polson said...

Who does "Bloodhound" refer to?

Personally, I think The Bell-Men or simply Bell-Men sounds more ominous. I'm all about ominous.

K.C. Shaw said...

When Cam goes to the bell-men's world, she works as a bloodhound for them--someone who can magically trace people who have been abducted by vampires.

I don't know if I'm going for ominous, but I do want memorable. I think Bell-Men is probably better than Bell-Men and Bloodhound.

Cate Gardner said...

Well I was going to say stick with just Bell Men, but I see a few wise sages got there before me.

Strange word verifcation: ungeek

K.C. Shaw said...

I don't know how to ungeek. It's ingrained. :)

LMEighmy said...

123,000?!?! I have a hard time reaching 70k! :P How do you do it?

K.C. Shaw said...

Well, first I write a 90-some thousand word novel, and then I decide half of it's crap and rewrite it, adding a lot and keeping some. Suddenly it's way too long!

Easy, really. :)