The Importance of the Re-Write!: Intro

RE: Bobby's Biggest Bubble and its Re-Writes
Before finally printing my first book last year, I gathered all the past information and images I could find. Some things were lost due to a broken hard drive or merely misplacing a file or two. But most of the material was archived on several backup drives.

Somethings didn't change that much at all. The original cover from the B+W dummy book .

Since the book's first version was made nearly 19 years ago, the story itself has gone through quite a few major revisions over the years. I found one of the original dummy books that I tried to get published nearly a decade ago (this, in particular, was made during my second attempt of breaking into the publishing business.) All of the following images for this posting will be from this black & white mock-up book.

Just to Note: It's safe to say that I HATE seeing my old work. I see so many poor decisions in the storytelling from looking at these old alternative versions of Bobby's Biggest Bubble. The main elements are all there: the gumballs, the big bubble, the meteor and of course Bobby. But much of the story's flow and structure has been tweaked.

So . . . I'm going to share some of these alternative versions of the book here in 3 parts this week. Think of it as one of those DVD extras where the clips that were edited out.
These postings will assume many have read the story - and if you haven't, there will be spoilers (so don't spoil it for the children!)

Part One will be about the arrival of the gumballs and the neighborhood children.

Part Two will look at Otter and how the bubble was originally going to get around town.

Part Three will show the not so great original rushed ending. (sigh)

You know, I'm starting to think I shouldn't show this stuff. But hopefully, in doing so, others can see how important rewriting a story really is when trying to craft a better story.