I'm coming to the end (I hope) of some extensive rewrites to my book. It's a bit like cooking a dinner party for some people you want to impress, without using any kind of recipe. You bung in a bit of this, slosh in some of that, taste it yourself to see how it is coming along and then perhaps ask someone else to taste it too (an agent, a mentor or a friend).
My agent told me that one of the characters who barely appears needed a greater presence in the story.. Hmm. After a lot more bunging and sloshing and some vigorous stirring, I think I've found a way of giving him a voice without disrupting the overall balance of the narrative. To my total astonishment, it seems to have transformed the whole book. At the risk of extending the cookery metaphor even further, it's a little bit like adding salt: it enhances all the other flavours.
The reason I'm sharing this with you is that, when you're grinding away with rewrites it can be easy to lose faith in what you are doing. Drafting and re-drafting is often a thankless task. But what I have found is that sometimes a relatively small adjustment, if it is the right one, can completely transform your work. The slightest twist of the kaleidoscope makes the pattern fall into place.
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