Spent the last week editing, writing and working on the first two chapters. There have been a few changes and a couple of new scenes. The new scene introduces the Commissar and in effect the Red Clogs very early on. In the original draft it was 8 chapters before we meet The Red Clogs and enter the conflict. I want us to get an underlying sense of something odd and tense straight away, whilst maintaining the original humour.

I found that quite a bit of it needing editing as we didn’t need to read extensive descriptions of what the characters are like, what they don’t like or even include scenes that were’t relevant. I removed a huge daft scene about speed dating for example.

The point is to keep things moving but also to use the language to entertain. Although the first couple of chapters are to establish things I split the two chapters into four so it is succinct and well paced. I hope so anyway.

The aim of this current cycle of redrafting, rewrites and edits is to make the plot I have more focused, tidy and cut down the clutter. There’s an awful lot to get through, much to cut out. Will spend the next week on the new chapters 3-4.