Blog: “How Much It Changed”

If you haven’t read Divergent yet, (go read NOW!) you may want to skip this blog update for now. There are spoilers

“The Twitterverse throws a lot of questions my way, and the most surprising one (surprising because of how often it’s asked, not because of what it is) is: how much did Divergent change between the first draft and the published book?

This question is often asked by aspiring authors, and I never know quite what they want to hear. Do they want to hear that it didn’t change at all, because that means their manuscript might not change that much? Will they think I don’t deserve the book deal if they find out it changed a lot? Or do they want to hear that it changed a lot, because that means their manuscript might get snatched up by a publisher just because it has potential, regardless of whether it’s perfect or not? The lesson in this is really: don’t compare yourself to other people. Every manuscript and every writer is different. But just because it might interest you, I’ll tell you about Divergent.”

You can read about the whole process here on Veronica’s blog.

Tags: Divergent, Editing, Veronica Roth, Veronica Roth Blog, Writing