How’s It Going:
I…feel like I never actually finished this lesson before. Like I don’t remember doing it. I know I have, but…
Maybe I’m just going crazy. That happens a lot in this process.
How’s It Going:
Lesson 12 is about evaluating my characters but, quite frankly, I tend to be very tight with my cast, and this book is no exception. I have added a few folks who are 100% new, but they are all individually necessary to the story I want to tell. I do want to make some minor tweaks, but that’s going to be done on a scene level basis, not an overarching, whole novel basis. So, uh, the bulk of this lesson went even faster than I expected.
How’s It Going:
I didn’t add as many scenes as I wanted, but I managed to come up with some brilliant ideas (that I’m honestly surprised I didn’t think of until now) and I’m really excited to write them. But I’ve got a few more lessons to go before I can do that in Lesson 17. Thankfully, most of them are pretty short and I should be able to knock most of them out in just one week apiece.
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.
Meilo Zaborowski: Author 