So, I’m a little obsessed.
I figure it might have to do with wanting to Control the Universe, and since I figure my actual control of the universe is extremely limited (my scale leaning towards Choice of Breakfast Cereal, Blueberry or Strawberry Accompaniment) creating a world where I get to make up The Rules–fairly awesome.
At the moment, I’m working on edits of my 5th book–1st was an epic disaster (but with a core of gold, I swear, and someday I’ll chop it down to size, fix that puppy up and shop it around) 2nd got shopped, no takers, third, the same, 4th needs some chopping before it makes the rounds, and 5th–love, love, loving it! (don’t all writers love their darling creations? or feel obsessively chained to them, one of those)
Too long, as all my novels are. My natural writing length seems to lean towards 160K. Go figure.
But I took this FABULOUS course with Laurie Schnebly, Plotting Thru Motivation (WriterU) oh, heck, I’ll give it the full plug as I really recommend it. http://www.writeruniv.com/index.htm Laurie Schnebly Campbell is the instructor. The class in question won’t be given again until Feb 2011 I believe, and it runs a month–but at the end you have a fully plotted novel. It may not work for everyone, but it helped me LOADS. I’m still unwinding from it…
ANYWAY–the reason I think this will help me with editing is I now know which questions to ask (myself) about getting to the heart of the story, and only keeping scenes that build on the strengths and strongest motivations of the main characters. Sounds like magic, feels like magic, in reality is a slog–but it seems DOABLE rather than an overwhelming mountain of climbing through brambles and thorns of excess verbiage and round-about scenes.
We’ll see! Scene list is done. Now, chop, evaluate, combine, Let Go of lovely scenes that don’t Do The Job, and…
Wish me luck!!
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