This is going to take a little longer than I thought. Editing The Coppersmith, that is. My big frustration – going as far back as 2006 when I first finished the book, is that my characters just don’t come off strong enough. The main problem is with the main character – Janelle Becker. She’s just not compelling, I’m afraid.

I’ve started giving her a problem – hinting at something dark within her past that gives her panic attacks now, but the problem is that I haven’t fully told her story within the novel – and in order to do so, I’m going to have to radically rewrite these parts of the narrative.

Anyway, based on a dream I had just before waking up this morning (Hey, it’s when I do my best thinking!), I’ve decided to remove her from being an FBI agent, and just have her be an FBI consultant. This will give me the option of removing her from the investigative “heavy lifting,” and allow me to explore the more darker aspects of her personality – which all center around fear of abandonment, etc., something that will hamstring her from really being able to solve this investigation. It will still pivot on being able to identify the killer through the Bible, which is a wonderful device in the story, but her fears need to get worse as she gets closer to catching the killer.

So I’m going to continue with the basic edits I’ve been doing right along, and then I’m going to have to go back through the story, identify all the parts where Janelle is actively interacting or reacting, and rewrite those to reflect her darker character.

This isn’t going to be easy.