Bylina's Top Ten Ways to Overhaul Your Novel
1. Save everything. Throw nothing away. Put it a separate file folder. Read either Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott or On Writing by Stephen King.
2. I have no experience with all these fancy-dancy software programs and just use old reliable MS Word with a decent format set-up. (Stop laughing y'all at poor old Billy Gates and his current financial woes.) Though software helps some people, it's still all about the story. Tattoo that on your forehead so you see each time you look in the mirror.
3. Write a 25-word synopsis of what it is you think your story is about.
4. Then, write a 250 word synopsis of what the story is all about. Refine it. Capture the essence of what you thought you were doing.
5. Recapture the goal, motivation, and conflict for your three or four main characters. See Debra Dixon's Goal, Motivation, and Conflict if you need to. Borrow it.
6. Create a story arc for your story. Perhaps reread Story by McKee for inspiration. What is the:
- Inciting incident...the event that actually starts the story.
- Plot Point One...the event that changes something fundamental about what the protagonist thought was true.
- The Midpoint...where the protagonist's world is changed 90-degrees.
- Plot Point Two...Where the protagonist realizes what he/she must really do to achieve the goal identified early in the story.
- Black Moment...When all seems lost for the protag.
- Climax...When the protag rises above antagonist.
- Denouement...When real life returns forever altered.
8. When your mind is settled, work on the rewrites or blow it up and start over.
9. Don't let us make up your mind for you. Us poor critters will drag your sorry butt all across the scope of the literary world based on our own preferences and it might not end up being your story but a collaborative effort of shotgun comments on the submitted chapters. IWW's strength is on chapter by chapter peaks into the progress of the story; it's weakness is the holistic view of a novel that we see sporadically over six months or more.
10. Have lots of beers during steps 3, 4, or 5 with two or three trusted friends.
1 comment:
Thanks for laying this out like this. I've made copious notes about what everyone wrote about overhauling a novel, but I like your nice step by step approach. I think I'll need a whole case of Guinness.
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