Rewriting Water and Fire

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As I've been rewriting Water Princess, Fire Prince, I've noticed some changes that have happened. Some of these changes were intentional, others, not so much.

So, I think I'm going to share with you some of the changes I've made.

Andrew is now the eldest of his brothers. When my mother and I originally came up with him, we thought that he was the youngest of his brothers. However, I was thinking about him one day, and about the fact that he pretty much took over for his mother after the accident, and I realized that it would make much more sense if he was the eldest.

Clara Quotes. Yes, you may have noticed a few in that chapter 1 that I posted, but in the original version of the book, Clara's Classics obsession doesn't exist. There's a long story for how it came to be, involving how Clara and Andrew meet at the beginning of part 3. However, the quotes haven't been as frequent as I had planned, which has been interesting.

I've split them up. As you read in that first chapter, in the original version, I flipped back and forth between their stories at a dizzying rate. And I realized that it was hurting Andrew's story. This was my time to let each stand on their own and define themselves as individuals before I thrust them into each other's arms and made them fall in love, and playing their stories side by side wasn't cutting it. Also, I was having trouble keeping track of who was where and doing, and I felt repetitive at times. So I'm separating them. First I tell Clara's story in part one, and then Andrew's in part two. I did Clara first because I had her story better fleshed out, and also because she's the first in the title.

Clara and Andrew's Relationship. In the first draft, Clara has about zero respect for Andrew until the end of what is now part 4. He, on the other hand, was absolutely smitten with her. This draft, however, partly due to the fact that I'd taken the time to get to know them each alone, they've actually been pulling back from each other about equally. Andrew, in fact, has gone to Clara and told her that they should try to be "just friends" for as long as possible. In doing this (and because of other things) he had gained her respect, though she thinks that respect is a very different thing from love. Her main issue this draft, has not been Andrew himself, but the fact that she believes that, at barely sixteen, she's too young for this sort of a relationship.

Jakob has a Twin. Jakob is one of my favorite of the minor characters, a great guy. (If you'll remember right, in my last Character Encounter, he bought me a necklace, which you can see on one of my bookshelves that I shared yesterday. However, while he was talking to Clara in part 1, I suddenly had a realization. He sure knew an awful lot about girls. I'd already established that he had sisters, but he suddenly came out with the fact that one of them was a twin, and that she'd been turned to ice by the Dragon.

Laura. I knew about Laura this draft, and now she's shown up three times. Twice with Andrew, once with Clara. It was fun.

Nerissa. In the original draft, Nerissa was a doll that I gave Clara as a counterpart to the sword that Andrew received. She was weird, as a result, she disappeared about a quarter of the way through and I gave Clara a sword as well to compensate. In this draft, Nerissa doesn't exist at all, and Clara gets the sword.

Bigger. Let's face it folks. The last draft was (in my estimate) around 75,000 words. This draft is already at 90,000, and I'm only about halfway through part 4. So, basically, more story this time around.

Now just to see if I can stretch the 25,000 words that are the draft of book 2 and stretch them into something at least close to WPFP's length.