Okay.  Here is the new process I am trying out for this book.

*PRE-WRITING;. snatches of dialogue, notes, character profiles, and ideas from everywhere

*DRAFTING; expanding those notes into a discovery draft

*REVISING; sculpting a powerful story out of the draft then adding layers

*EDITING.; format and polish then SUBMIT.

I am now at the Revision Stage and even after selling six books I know that I have to go back to Story Structure to make sure that I am going to sculpt the most compelling story possible from my draft.

So today I am working on the scene list and thinking through how and what and who and why. Especially the why. Plus checking the pacing and scene length and chapter lengths.

And this is why I think writing shorter books in any genre is so tough.

You have such tight word counts, you are compelled to set boundaries – so you pour your passion and characters and story into a crucible so that you can light a fire underneath and watch the story boil inside the restricted boundaries you have set.

Tight, focused and intense story writing has to be the goal.

WARNING. All pantsers may now look away. Because I am a structure queen and proud and at this point I am talking numbers.

I know that my scenes are usually about 4 to 6 pages long [ 1000 to 1500 words based on 250 words a page Times New Roman 12 point double spaced – rough, rough] so that if I am working on the Act 2 Revisions which covers about 60 pages – I know that I only have 10 to 15 scenes in total to achieve that part of the book.

Not a lot. In fact – very hard. So pulling out the scene list and working on the flow is important to check that the story arc, the character arcs and of course the love story arc are all there in those scenes. And if not? Well I had better create some new and better ones.

Sticky posts. One colour for the hero, and one for the heroine. In columns – the ones in the pics would not work for me.

This is from a screenwriters desk. Notice the difference?

Author and presenter Will Self seems to have gone a little over the top = but his books are biger than mine and everyone has their own process.

This is the kicking off point of course-  they are not fixed and depends entirely on the story and the characters, and these are tent pegs holding everything up. That is all.  A skeleton we attach muscles and skin to.

 I cut about 10 pages on my own revisions last night – so lots to do today to create new scenes before proofing – this book is off my desk tomorrow.

 Revision is HARD but can be a chance to ‘layer in the lusciousness” as well as make the book more page turning – or at least that is the idea. LOL