To change something that had been so integral to the plot before is never an easy task, but I knew as soon as I made the decision that the story would be stronger for it. Chapters and chapters had been dedicated to Scarlet and Wolf trying to find out more about his past-hunting down police records and the like-and those chapters now either had to be deleted or altered to fit with Wolf’s new reality. So I decided to do away with the amnesia entirely, which changed the basis of a lot of scenes throughout the book. I wanted him to be filled with internal conflict that stemmed from conflicting loyalties to Scarlet and to his Pack (which wasn’t possible when he had no idea who or what a Pack was). But in reading that draft, I was unhappy with how passive of a character this made him. I review those BIG issues I want to fix and start brainstorming solutions.įor example, in the first draft of Scarlet, Wolf had amnesia-he couldn’t remember anything of his life prior to arriving in this small town in France. Once I’ve finished my read-through, I’m starting to have a sense of what’s working in the book and what’s really, really not working. Plan the Revisions, Starting with the Big Stuff Or, Give Cinder something to do during this conversation-maybe have her fixing something? Or, Give Thorne a knife here (he needs it later).ģ. These will be things like: Insert Iko into this chapter. I note these changes in the “Document Notes” portion of Scrivener, so that they’re kept separate for each chapter. I’m noting smaller changes on a chapter-by-chapter basis. I’m looking for things like plot holes, flimsy characterization, twists that seem contrived, villains that are too boring or too easily defeated, romances that don’t sizzle, and the like.ģ. I’m updating my list of BIG changes I want to make (I almost always have a list started from back when I was writing the first draft and already thinking up things that needed fixing). She sees Cinder on the netscreens and stands up for her. We learn that her grandmother is missing.Ĭhapter 2: Scarlet meets Wolf in the tavern. Not using Scrivener? You can do the same thing by making a list in a separate Word file, i.e.:Ĭhapter 1: Scarlet is delivering food to the tavern. This way, when I’m done, I’ll be able to look at the 2-3 sentence summary for each chapter and know what happens in it. I’m updating the synopses (aka notecards summaries) for each chapter in the Scrivener file. While I’m reading, I’m simultaneously doing three things:ġ. I try to read the first draft as quickly as possible (within a day or two), so I can get a feel for the big picture. I might fix a typo here or there, but anything more complicated than that gets marked as something to fix later. I am not making changes when I read this draft. So it goes.īut before we can make anything better, we have to figure out what’s wrong with it, which is why this initial read-through is very important. No matter how inspired I was, no matter how thorough my outline, no matter how excited for the story-the first draft is inevitably a disaster. Reading through the first draft is often a humbling experience. I separate each scene into a different Scrivener chapter file. So for me, the first step of writing the second draft of a book is to transfer the text of the first draft into Scrivener. But I still prefer to write my first drafts in Word, because it’s easier for me to keep track of word counts and my daily word goals. It really plays to my neurotic sense of organization (more on that later). I started using Scrivener with Cress, and I love it. I’ll include notes following each step for how I used to do this before I had Scrivener.ġ. I’m a big fan of Scrivener, but it’s certainly not necessary. Note: This is the stage where I start using Scrivener, an organizational software program for writers. The second draft is the most complicated stage of my writing process, and half the time I feel like I have to re-learn this part with each new book, but I’ll do my best to break it down into something that seems halfway logical… Naturally, the first stage in revisions is. Once I’ve had some time away from my first draft, it’s time to start in on revisions.
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