Phew.

The latest draft of Decaying Orbit (previously known as Persephone) is done.

This is the last of the heavy lifting (if I’ve done my job right). All of the characters are in place; all of the plot is there. Everything should make sense.

For this draft I went through every scene, line by line, from the point of view of one of the characters in that scene.

Making sure that their responses made sense. That they have something they want, and that they’re angling to get it. Adding new scenes when required for characters whose story was missing something. And deleting scenes that don’t move the plot along.

(Which means, sadly, that the last gratuitous sex scene has now left the script. Oh well.)

And then, when I finished, I went back to the start of the scene and did the same damn thing for every other character in there.

This takes a hell of a long time. I’d say in terms of hours spent, this has probably had as much time spent on it as Draft Zero. If not more.

I reckon overall about a third of the words have been changed in this pass. Pretty much every page on the printout I worked from is covered in unreadable scrawl. And now it’s been typed up and (glory be!) makes sense.

Only two more drafts to go before I can start sending it out.