How’s It Going:
This lesson is for either lengthening or shortening the story, so since I came in about 11k words short of what I really wanted and I’m already set to cut several scenes, adding is definitely the way to go. I think ideally I’d like to add 8 more, but we’ll see how it goes.
How’s It Going:
52 lines for scene complete.
This is another one of my favorite lessons, by the way. It’s not easy, but it forces my brain to organize the story, or at least attempt to, and I come to some interesting realizations about scene order and juxtaposition. I’m not gonna lie, beyond some vague ideas of the general area where some scenes should be (this one should be closer to the beginning, this one has to go after that one, and the finale obviously goes at the end), I had no idea what order they were supposed to go in. Reading the rough draft the first time felt like I’d just dumped a handful of vignettes in a blender and gave it a few pulses. Even though after this lesson is done, the order I have isn’t perfect, it gives me a much clearer idea of what it should be to make the most sense and flow naturally from one scene to the next.
It also pretty neatly cooks most of the fat off and leaves the meat of the book, so to speak.
How’s It Going:
20 lines for revision complete.
Onward.
How’s It Going:
You know, I know I’ve done this lesson before, I have the worksheets from the last 2 books to prove it, but I have zero recollection of actually doing it. Wild.
Next lesson is the “Dreaded Monastery” so my updates will be brief the next 2 weeks (he says, when the updates lately have been quite short already).
How’s It Going:
Ahh, probably one of my favorite lessons, this one, where one of the parts is I get to pretend to be a disgruntled reader leaving a 1-star review…always a fun exercise.
Meilo Zaborowski: Author 