Outlining My Third Draft

Breathing time is over. It is time to take a third look at Tess and the Trinket and see how it can be perfected. If you follow me on Instagram (@emilyhjeffries), you know that I took a week-long writing retreat to dive into rewriting the first four chapters (basically from scratch).

It went really well! But I shouldn't go any further until I have outlined the ENTIRETY of the rest of the book. Already I am coming upon plot questions whose solutions require tweaking in the beginning of the book.

Rather than moving chapter by chapter, I am outlining according to scene. I am assessing whether each scene has a nice opening image, then a well-paced rising action, and a climax. Not every scene has to have a falling action, since they can be left with cliff-hangers. But this method has proved incredibly helpful, since it has shone light on several chapters that were weak structurally and needed reworking.

Some notes I took this week over lunch with Husband Hill

I am also coding my outlines according to storyline, because (like many epics) there is a shift in POV about halfway through the first half of Act II, and so the reader follows a few splintering storylines from then on. Tess's storyline is simply numbered, Ryon's is listed under B1, B2, etc. Prince Christopher's plot points fall under C1, C2, ... and Pider and Nabal each will tell the story from their POV for a chapter.

To stay engaged in my outlining, I doodle around the scene titles :)

The good news is, I have a plan. I like having a plan. But it will just take time. I have outlined to almost halfway through the manuscript, which is great. And I'm taking all the feedback from this past winter into account. I think the book is really getting strengthened. 

Let me know if you would like to be a beta reader for this latest draft! Should be ready by the end of summer. **Muse laughs in Emily's face**

Ttfn!

Emily