I have just finished my word count reduction review of Chapter 24, the final chapter of Lament of the Dove. Y’all may recall that I’d already yoinked out a huge number of words from this chapter taking out Nine-Fingered Rab’s final scene, now targeted for the beginning of Shadow of the Rook. I did however want to make one last pass through it just to see if there were any other words I could lose.
Now that that is done, I can commence Draft Six. This will be the pass through which I will implement the bigger requested changes from both Carina’s editor and the beta readers who’ve given me the best feedback. I’m not going to go into detail on the planned changes here for purposes of avoiding spoiling anybody.
Suffice to say, instead, that Draft Five’s final word count clocks in at 104,504 words, some of which will come back as I add in new content for Draft Six. And Draft Six begins NOW.
