The Sultan's Eyes

So it turns out I’ve finished the first draft of The Sultan’s Eyes already.

It’s pretty hokey. There’s a lot more work to do.

But it’s done.

There have been some long days tucked away here in my quiet room, lots of muttering and walking about and finding plot twists I’d completely forgotten about.

So now comes the satisfying noise of the printer churning out page after page. I love that bit.

I’ll spend the next week reading and scribbling on the hard copy - it is, in a sense, my first proper read-through. I’ll fix anything glaringly wrong. I’ll notice how many thousands of times I’ve used a certain word and hit the thesaurus. I’ll realise (I hope) that I’ve got people lighting candles in broad daylight or sitting down when they’re already seated or talking to people who’ve just left the room. 

I have a bit more research on details to do too. In particular, I have to get my hands on a copy of Lady Wortley Montague’s account of her trip in Constantinople in 1717. I think I have a copy at home somewhere, but it’s ages since I read it and I’d forgotten she visited Constantinople. Several sources cite her descriptions of the clothes worn by women of the palace. She would know: she visited them, she dressed in the same attire, and her descriptions are always evocative and detailed (and in most cases) free of the nonsense you read in other contemporary travel accounts. Bless her little felt slippers.

Then I’ll leave the draft alone for a couple of weeks. It will settle, or possibly congeal, in my mind. I hope.

When I come back to Brisbane next month, I’ll start on the first round of redrafting. 

How many redrafts will there be?

Impossible to say.

The second draft is usually the hardest redraft. That’s when you really have to work through any structural issues, make sure your characters and all their words ring true, iron out the pace and the tone.

After that, it’s anybody’s guess. You just keep going until you get to the point where the changes seem to make things worse, rather than better, when you delete a scene or a line and then put in back in again. When you can’t stand the sight of the bloody thing.

At that point, it’s time for someone else to take it out of your hands.

And that is why editors exist.