I've been working on agent revisions for my novel the last few weeks. It's been wonderful, exciting, terrifying, scary, and unbelievable--all at the same time. My novel is 20 times better than it was two months ago. I'm forever grateful to Vickie Motter for her enthusiasm and her suggestions for some necessary additions.
One thing I found really helpful during this round was creating a scene inventory. Organized person, I am not--have I mentioned that before? Sitting down and tracking each chapter, the characters in each chapter, what happens, and the date on which it happens, has been something I've avoided like the plague.
But guess what? Making a scene inventory helped. It helped me add some things into my timeline that needed to be added. It helped me stretch out some drama that needed to be stretched out. It helped me see where I needed to go with several difficult scenes.
I went bare bones--just used an excel spread sheet. But I bet you could get fancy if you needed to. :)
12 comments:
I think everyone can do timelines as part of revision. Sometimes we just can't see the problems.
I've found scene summaries really helpful during the revision process. It's a way for me to focus on the purpose of each scene. I can see what needs to be stretched out (key scenes where I want a realization to happen) or summarized (scenes of less importance) or cut (scenes with extra action that is not essential to the plot).
I outline, and writing downt the date and time of the scene is part of that process. That's helps big time. :D
Good luck with the revisions.
I learned to do a scene inventory from Darcy Pattison's book Novel Metamorphosis. It helps with a ton of different things you need to do to tweak during revisions. I will def be doing it with my next wip.
I'm so not an outliner, but I do have to make timelines for a lot of my books, so I know what characters are doing on what days.
I think revision is where the hard part of writing takes place. It's not all fun and games, but it's where the meat of the story starts to emerge. For me, the problem is getting the first draft finished so I have something to revise. Congrats on your progress!
New follower here. :)I love scene inventories. I think they help immensely.
Great meeting you through the A-Z!
www.thewritingnut.com
Great post! Yeah, we focus so much on the overall story, sometimes those chapter points get neglected. At least for me, I didn't sit down and say, "Now, this chapter is like it's own little story. This, this, and this is going to happen to produce that result." I didn't realize how important it was until I was finished!
You know what happened next...revision, revision, revision..oh wait, one more revision (will it EVER end?!).
Thanks everyone! I've been away and haven't been able to comment, but I've been reading all your great comments!
I love the idea of a scene inventory because I often lose the day count in my novel.
That's so great, congratulations. I think revisions can be so exciting when you have a clear idea of what you want to fix/change/improve.
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