My revision is going slower because I’m still learning this new skill at my day job. My time is still limited on weeknights so the bulk of my work is happening on the weekends.
The good news is that I’ve had some productive weekends so far. The bad news is that this draft needs a LOT of work!
It’s not a total mess but one of the downsides of writing a “fast draft” — a draft where you keep pushing if you can—where you put notes saying, “Enter motivation here” or “Put in background here”—is that you have to organize all these holes and figure out how to fill and fix them.
This past weekend, I broke my novel up into thirds. It’s way more manageable that way for me and it also corresponds to my 3-Act structure. My goal is to concentrate on one act at at a time and revise to a point where I’m happy and then move on to the next one. So this month, I’ll concentrate on Act 1.
I have 25 scenes. I’m still not sure if I should separate them with with a scene break mark or connect them with transitions to make it seamless. I’ll worry about that later. However, I did find the chapter breaks and right now Act 1 has 10 chapters. This could all change by the end of the month, but my goal is to whip these 10 chapters into shape.
This third of the book has a lot to accomplish. Act 1 of a book should have these elements:
Setup: What is this novel is going to be about? What kind of story is this going to be?
Hook: What is the “inciting incident?” What is going to get the reader interested in what happens to the protagonist?
Characters: Who are the major players? Who are the supporting players? What roles do they play in this novel? Who’s for the protagonist? Who’s against the protagonist?
Turning Point: What happens to the protagonist that changes her world and puts the novel in a new direction?
