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How would you rewrite your least favorite novel?
One of my least favorite books is Dream Lander by K.M. Weiland.
So, if I was rewriting it, the main thing I would change is truly taking advantage of the premise. The book had a really interesting premise, but it was totally left to the way side for a generic and plot hole heavy adventure novel.
The premise is that when you go to sleep, you get transported into a fantasy world. Really cool right? But once the MC realized this, the whole story took place in the fantasy world and the the MC just ate takeout food in the real world. Making the real world totally irrelevant. (Oh, except when they needed some modern medicine and a car for some plot convenience)
So the whole premise was pointless and actually would have been better off with out the whole dream world thing because it just created plot holes.
If I rewrote it, I would make BOTH worlds vital to the plot. Like maybe a loved one died in the real world and the MC must try to find that person in the dream world. Or maybe the MC gets imprisoned in one of the worlds and must use the other world to free himself. Something like that.
I’m not sure exactly how I’d change it, but as long as both worlds are relevant to the plot. Because if one isn’t, then what’s the point of the premise?
What about you? How would you rewrite on of your least favorite books?
@kathleenramm I don’t have a least favorite book but there sure are some that I would like to rewrite. Especially the last book in the School For Good and Evil series by Somain Chainani. The first three I liked, the last three were a dumpster fire.
Before One True King came out my sister and I theorised about what was gonna happen and we thought it was gonna be bad but boy, it was so much worse than we thought it was gonna be. The first thing I would do is that the main character he killed off, make him stay dead. Also, develop the villain way more. And, like, change the two books beforehand. Change everything. EVERYTHING.
Ok, it was a while ago, so I don’t remember much, but, yeah.
Lately, it's been on my brain
Would you mind letting me know
If hours don't turn into daysthe series Raising Dragons by Bryan Davis
It’s biblical fantasy/sci fi/speculative fiction. It’s strange and twists many things, making Merlin a prophet of God, to name one, then Christians who have passed on from our world turning into little blue orbs ghost things and being guides for living people who are going through spiritual realms by a portal machine… heaven, hades, new eden, armageddon and stuff like that, seeing the past happen and the future, and the woman caught in adultery being noah’s wife somehow and magic stones that weaken dragons.
And Excaliber is a gift from God or something and can open portals to other dimensions like hades and stuff. Oh, and a demon is the school principal trying to murder two kids who end up being half-dragon because they both have a parent who is one of the twelve people Merlin turned from dragons to humans and have been alive for a thousand years and those kids have dragon traits, like breathing fire, and dragon wings. The non-dragonhuman dad of the girl is a scientist trying to use her and her mother’s genes for science experiments and stuff. it was weird.
The writer is incredibly talented and the books were very engaging, and I like fantasy and sci fi, and the dragon/human thing was a little weird but that isn’t the problem for me. it is the way the Bible is being warped. If it didn’t have so much twisted Biblical theology and such I would have enjoyed it, but the second you try to change the Bible and the spiritual realm into something it’s not, that is a problem that shoud not be ignored.
I'm 'a homeschooler' because cookie-making writing artistic animal-whisperer isn't a job title
@elfwing I see what you mean by twisting the Bible and spiritual realms and stuff being wrong, but if it weren’t for all the weirdness that sounds like it could’ve been be a really cool series. And the dragonpeople idea is something I’ve had in mind for a long time, although they are a separate species rather than being born from a human/dragon family.
@Kathleenramm That story sounds like it would be good if it were rewritten. Maybe you should do that!Where'd I get ya this time? The liver? The kidney? I'm runnin' outta places to put holes in ya.
@keilah-h yeah, I really like the dragon people part of it, that didn’t bother me; dragons who were turned into humans and could only marry a normal human, and if they did, their children would be half dragon, that was a cool idea. but the Biblical stuff was so suffocatingly present in everything I couldn’t just pick my way through it, like after chapter 2 of book 1 it’s every page. the whole plotline is about the realms coming in contact with earth and causing problems. Like, the demon guys hunting the kids. too much. He was literally chasing them down for two of the novels
I'm 'a homeschooler' because cookie-making writing artistic animal-whisperer isn't a job title
Ok, I hope I don’t make too many enemies from this, but I did not enjoy A Wrinkle in Time. I had such high hopes for that book. I thought it was going to be a cool sci-fi adventure story. Maybe it is to some people, but it wasn’t to me. So if I was rewriting (which I honestly kind of want to do), I’d make Meg way less whiny and self-pitying (seriously, on the first page she’s whining about her braces and glasses which did not go over so well with me, who had both braces and glasses at that time), explain Charles Wallace’s weird telepathy, include more space travel and just general sci-fi coolness, and make the message less cheesy. (Honestly, how much more obvious can you be with your “love conquers all” message? I’m not against the sentiment, but it was presented so sentimentally.)
The best parts of the book for me were Mrs. Who (I believe) quoting Latin and Greek and Aunt Beast. Aunt Beast was cool.
I just really, really wanted to slap Meg and tell her to get over herself. I’m sorry. I know I’m mean XD
While I’ve been exploring books, I haven’t found too many that would fall under a C tier for me. But, A year or two ago my sis and I challenged each other to go to the library and pull out a book that sounded good, then exchange books. I found for her one that really sounded great on the shelf, then I gave it to her, she read it and half way through recommended it to me.
The book was about humans hiding in a mountain from the world that they thought had burned down because of their own flaws in civilization. Two kids (one who’s parents are dead) in the book end up somehow outsmarting the adults to find their way out of the mountain and discover that the real reason they went to hide in the mountain was because of dragons. Dragons basically destroyed the world, leaving about 5,000 people to run and hide the truth from the future generations. How the dragons got there was very vague, especially since this was based in like, 2070 and the dragons began to attack 2010. It was based in America, and the politics of the situation were poorly designed.
If I were to rewrite it, I’d base it in another world to get rid of most of the technological and political issues, and I’d make the mountain leaders significantly smarter. Also I’d ditch most of the irrelevant tween romance.
Looking past that, the book was pretty good. I liked most of the characters, but for some flaws with the protagonist and the protagonist’s female friend. dating at 13 years old doesn’t count change my mind XD
Yea! I read that book a little bit ago and (in the best way) yea… it could’ve had some work XD Charles Wallace probably confused me most, as if the author just simply didn’t want to elaborate on it.
@elfwing
Literally not going to say anything because that is probably the only piece of Christian fiction I actually likedLately, it's been on my brain
Would you mind letting me know
If hours don't turn into days@devastate-lasting each to their own 🙂 i mean, i didn’t agree with the theology part if it but other than that I liked it
I'm 'a homeschooler' because cookie-making writing artistic animal-whisperer isn't a job title
@elfwing I mean, it is fantasy, he’s allowed to do what he wants. It’s not supposed to be taken literally.
Lately, it's been on my brain
Would you mind letting me know
If hours don't turn into daysTrue
I'm 'a homeschooler' because cookie-making writing artistic animal-whisperer isn't a job title
Oof. I know what that’s like. It’s so rare for a series to be good the whole way through.
That sounds like a really interesting series! But yeah, I get what you mean by it getting tricky with Christian Theology and stuff. Like you don’t want people to have the wrong idea of the biblical characters in the story, but it is labeled fiction… it’s not easy to know exactly how to approach things.
How would you have change things if you wrote the book?
haha, my experience with The Wrinkle in Time is much like yours! Some of my siblings liked it, so I thought it was going to be a pretty cool book, but I was mostly just weirded out.
It’s not that I don’t like books with a bit of bizarre things thrown in, but a big pulsing brain in the middle of space as the final boss fight… it’s a bit too much for me lol.
Woah, dragons attacking modern America? I’ve never heard of a book like that.
Oo, yeah. Dragged out politics can really weigh down a story. But I’m curious, how exactly were the politics poorly designed in the book?
@kathleenramm whoops lol I forgot I only answered in my head not on here xD
I guess that is important to me, yes, as someone who has met people misguided by ‘christian’ books, fantasy or not and them thinking somehow that counts as the bible it does bother me, a lot.
If someone doesn’t know the Truth of the bible first, that could lead them astray. not that they should count it as the bible but if they have a preconceived idea it can make it hard. Everyone has something that especially stands out to them, and mine is changing the Bible and scriptures to something it’s not.
To change it… I would take out biblical people and places made into something they’re not, like Noah’s wife for example, surviving thousands of years and actually being evil, other things like that. Travelling to different realms mention in scripture, like Armageddon, by a machine. So pretty much, if you take that out, it’s good. It’s hard for me to give reasons to criticize books for some reason, even though i can say them aloud, and keep in mind its been a few years, but I had to pick a least favorite, so there we go. XD
I'm 'a homeschooler' because cookie-making writing artistic animal-whisperer isn't a job title
@anatra23 hahaha sounds like someone got inspiration from Reign if Fire but didnt know how to play it out. In this movie the dragons also start attacking 2010, but most of the film supposedly takes place 2020 lol I joke with my friends that they predicted catastrophe but they predicted wrong; its covid instead of dragons. Idk which is worse XD
I'm 'a homeschooler' because cookie-making writing artistic animal-whisperer isn't a job title
What I mean by poorly designed politics, is that even though its a modern system, they disregarded world leaders. Like the president of U.S.A was irrelevant in all of this. I think the author was just tryna dodge work in figuring out how to add all the politics but still make it convincing.
I totally agree. This is part of the reason I really love books like Narnia and the Wing feather Saga which point indirectly to God and his good will.
XD that’s great. Have you ever read The Circle series by Ted Decker? (amazing series) It’s based around now, but was written abt a decade ago. In it there’s a virus taking over the planet and one guy named Tomas who’s blood is the only antidote. My family keeps joking that we need to find a guy named Tomas to create the ultimate vaccine.
The virus part from the book hit a little bit too close to home lol.
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