Drawing from the Well
Queries Sent: 1
Total Queries: 4
Scenes Arranged: 2
Total Scenes: 210
And here I thought I had a zero-scene day. That’s a relief. I’ll have to work hard today to shoehorn in some scenes. It’s going to be a weird busy day.
Filling the Well
That Hideous Strength: 89%
Elegy: Page 20 of 89
Almost there with That Hideous Strength. Some exciting stuff has happened and yet it still feels bland. Perhaps its the archaic writing style but still…
Polishing the Well
Last night was pretty chill, which I needed after a crazy day at work. My kids went to church and my wife and I stayed home and relaxed with pizza and beer. It was just what the doctor ordered.
Well Chat
Rewrites and Revisions
For me, there are four types of edits: structural, copy, line, and proofreading. The biggest of these to me is structural editing, so we’ll start there.
Structural editing is the process of making sure your overall story makes sense and flows. Some of the finer details of this are handled in copy editing and line editing, but structural looks at the high level. What’s happening? In what order? Do the events make sense? Does the order make sense? Would my characters do what they’re doing on the page naturally or am I forcing it.
This process involves a VERY hard look at your manuscript. It’s being honest with yourself about the quality of what you wrote. It involves potentially throwing out A LOT (hence the section header picture).
I spent a lot of time in structural edits for Book One. I thought I had moved on to later stages only to come back time and again because the bones of my manuscript were a jumbled mess. Many of the original scenes made it to the final product, but many also did not and those that did were heavily revised. In the structural editing phase, my concern was always with the story structure itself. Part of why I had to do so many rounds of this was because I did not put the time in on the front end and didn’t fully understand what “story structure” was or its importance.
Now, I know better.
That’s why for Book Two, I’ve changed my process to start with the bones (biggest first and working my way down until all the bones connect). I start with the structure of the story and how it should move from one moment to the next instead of the moments themselves. Part of this is scene structure as well. Determining my characters’ motivations moving them from scene to scene informs the underlying structure of where to go. It’s working out great for me so far with this second book.
This sounds like a lot of work. It is. For some authors, a lot of this comes naturally; it doesn’t for me. Some authors are also far more comfortable having the structure come later as they would rather write the story, the scenes, and let the words flow. That’s not me but it might be you and THAT’S OKAY!! However you write, write, as long as the process feels like it works for you. Just be prepared for more reworks and revisions if you’re a pantser.
Unless you’re some kind of new age Shakespeare, in which case, good on ya.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG