One thing I can say about my current NaNoWriMo camp attempt is that: unlike with normal NaNoWriMo, there's no easy way to gauge progress when it comes to editing. Oh and I'll also have to decide how to segregate the manuscript again. The current chapter breaks were determined by how much I could write everyday during NaNoWriMo and less how logical they should be.
The word count shrinks smaller and smaller everyday as I go through the manuscript with a fine comb tooth (and some rather big rakes as well).
Less info dumps
A good portion of the interactions on the oil drilling rig was rewritten. Namely, I would like to make Han a lot more helpful and perceptive than in the first draft. All things considered, I should also rewrite how Sasaki revealed the portal device to him. It felt too easy in the first draft for something so significant. I would have to rework that in a way that forced her hands to play that card.
There has already been some groundworks for the cunning leader of the traffickers so I just need to develop the scenario where the two of them were cornered by the leader and had to jump off the platform to escape, giving no time to explain how they would survive the leap.
The part after the jump where Abujamah was introduced and his relationship with Sasaki is also better developed now, through gradual dialogues and clues, rather than heavy-handed info dumping in the narration. Sasaki got a whole new scene with Han in the infirmary where she fixed him up with some nanomachines spray and they talked about linguistics. I'm making that as her own banter topic to make their interactions easier.
Han receives a new trait where he can profile people and determine the best way to get on their good side; a skill necessary for his survival in the underbelly of Kowloon.
I also fixed some plot holes in the first draft, particularly why Han even bothered trying to interpret Japanese documents on the computer when he had a translator pen and why he didn't use the translator pen to talk to Haruko.
Being able to talk to Haruko does open up a few possibilities. Haruko is THE sociable character in the cast so she will act as a front for readers to dive into Han's history naturally through interactions and dialogues rather than info dump.
Han's criminal history would be profiled gradually by both Haruko and Lancaster, who will have a longer segment in Dubai in third POV with Daisuke and Sasaki concerning Han.
I swear making everything less info dumpy takes more efforts than penning down the plot progression.
New affiliations
I haven't decided which conversation topic Abujamal would favor. For the time being, it would be on the topic of succession and future partner for Sasaki after his retirement. He is now making a direct offer to Han, one that gets the greenlight from Daisuke:
"As her guardian, partner, and therapist, I'm worried about her future. It's unhealthy to grow up surrounded by adults, doing adult things, and having no friend close to her age. The nature of her work meant the first two things couldn't be helped, of course, but the last thing…"
After the lab arc, Han would be given two contracts. Not to choose from but to sign. In this draft, Han would be associated with both Kiyomizu Technologies and Gladstone Three. In this draft, Kiyomizu Technologies would just be a proxy, a common framework where several organizations share personnel and resources instead of its own faction (until later).
So it would be more like, Imperial Household vs. Gladstone Three with several other "frenemies" nudging taking sides behind the two. While China was waiting in the backstage to mope up whoever remains after this civil war.
Release date?
So...what will happen to the publication of the new draft? Well, who knows at this point? I have been cooking this for 12 years so a few months in editing hell isn't going to make much difference. It will come when it comes and I really shouldn't be making promises I cannot keep from now on.
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