Hmm. I’ve always thought of BECOME as either a two- or three-book series.
However, the way the reorganization of the first draft is going, maybe not. It might still be two books, but I doubt it will be three.
This is good, in some ways. One of the things that’s always bothered me was that it looked like the first book was going to have to end on something of a cliffhanger. Not the nothing-has-been-resolved kind of cliffhanger. But definitely the kind that leaves something way too important unresolved. And that didn’t make me happy. I hate those endings as a reader, so I didn’t want to commit that crime as a writer.
Now, it looks like that won’t be necessary. After reorganizing to a non-linear story, it looks like I might hit that point much earlier.
Probably two books, come to think of it. That’d work well with the significant interruption in the timeline. Yeah, I think I’ll plan for that.
Meredith Mansfield, Author 
I am also in the middle of a massive rewrite. If you don’t mind me asking, how do you approach your revision process?
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This is more like a partial rewrite. I’d only gotten maybe half-way through what I thought was the first book when I realized that telling the story linearly just wasn’t going to work. It was taking too long to get anywhere. So I decided to try non-linear for this story. And, in this process, I’m basically writing some new scenes and chapters and fitting some of the existing material in between. Very little of the old material need significant changes. The biggest change to that was the last chapter that I switched from one brother’s point of view to the other.
On the other hand, I’ve done significant rewrites of other stories.
FIRE AND EARTH was initially something called SEVEN STARS–which just wasn’t working. After letting it rest for a while, I ended up switching the gender roles. That worked, but was basically just throwing out everything but the world building and starting over.
There were earlier versions of both THE SHAMAN’S CURSE and THE VOICE OF PROPHECY (which was originally THE IGNORED PROPHECY). For THE SHAMAN’S CURSE, I basically reread the original and then wrote it again. It’s main problem was just that I’d really learned so much more about the craft in the interim. THE VOICE OF PROPHECY didn’t suffer so much from that, but needed better focus on the central problem. So that was almost more like an extra heavy revision.
I’ve got a rewrite of another story, presently titled MAGE STORM, on my schedule. That one involves changing what was a middle grade story into an epic fantasy with slightly older characters. For that one, the original is probably going to be more like a rough outline, though I expect there’ll be a few parts I can use almost as they are now. Very few.
Basically, I guess every rewrite is different, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. And the process has to follow what’s needed.
Sorry not to be more help.
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That is great! My current rewrite focuses on establishing major thresholds within the story and reinforcing character motivations. It was pretty plot heavy and the original protagonist didn’t really exist as person, but more as vehicle to experience the story. The current changes have pretty much forced me to completely rewrite the voice of the character.
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