Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The Never-Ending Chapter

Has this ever happened to you? You're revising a manuscript and it seems like you're never going to get out of a chapter? In my case, with this story, it's Chapter Fourteen.

See this picture? Every post-it is telling me where to move or add something. I took something major out of Chapter Fourteen. It will come into the story later, but it means moving things that were later earlier, including into Chapter Fourteen. Which also means I've been stuck there for what seems like forever.

When you see what I do when I revise, maybe that makes more sense.

3 comments:

Amy Ruttan said...

So why does this give me a bit of confidence knowing it's not just newbies like me pulling apart their manuscripts like this.

My friend Red just twittered she had 12 possible chapter twos to chose.

*shudder*

Leah Braemel said...

Looks familiar. Mine has post-it notes and lots of different colored marker scribbles. I just cut 11K as you responded to on twitter. Needed to do it, but ouch.

It's always comforting to see that other authors go through a similar process. Thanks for posting the pics, Margaret.

Margaret Moore said...

Yep, I've been at this for 20 years and still have to cut, paste, move, etc. Of course, back in the olden days, it was literally cut and paste onto the back of scrape paper. I wonder if I kept one of those drafts???