Shaken Forever Rewrite

I got my letter last week from Deseret Books. Sadly it was a rejection. I'll admit I was a little disappointed, but I brushed it off. I had hardly expected it to be accepted for publication, after all it is only my first book (not counting the little practice stories I've written over the years)

I understand that most beginning authors who are rejected tend to give up. This was not my case. Actually it made me want to try harder. I originally intended to go back and polish up some stuff. Make it more exciting and all. However when I went back, I found that there were more mistakes and weak plot points than I had thought. I decided to completely rewrite the book.

I went online and found some creative writing tips. After reading them, I discovered more and more big boo-boos in my original story. After reading the tips, I came to the conclusion that Shaken Forever was poorly written with no hook, a weak plot, cruddy dialogue, and especially weak characters. It might sound like I'm only being hard on myself, but I'm being honest. While my book had it's good points, it was mostly a mess. I'm throwing this one into my pile of "Practice Stories" along with The Crossed Swords Series, The Emerald Arrow, and all my unfinished novels.

Taking advice from the writing tips, I began with redeveloping the characters. I won't go into detail, but they have a lot more depth now. After that, I wrote the first few paragraphs of the book (aka the hook) focusing on drawing the readers in. I then proceeded to make a rough outline of the entire story.

I have completely redesigned the book. I now begin the book with Moroni's earlier life. I changed his relationships with other figures such as Amalickiah. I have changed his romantic life drastically. Lastly, I have changed the events leading to his rise as Chief Captain entirely.

I also made changes for potential sequels. Now I am planning on three books. The first one (which I am working on right now) is about Moroni's rise to Chief Captain. The second will be about his issues with Amalickiah. The third will be about his issues with Ammoron. These are prone to change so I will keep you posted. The first is currently titled, Shaken Forever: Chief Captain, but might change.

I am praying that my rewrite will be much better than my original story. You can keep track of my progress by the box on the right. I am going to be more critical of myself on this rewrite. I will be sharing bits and pieces with the public to receive their opinions. I will submit it to a publisher when I am in college. (While in the midst of my research for writing tips, I found that authors have a better chance of their books being accepted if they are at least in the process of getting a college degree.)