Greetings!
Due to life and school interfering, I have not gotten back to editing until tonight. As it is I'm typing this from backstage of my school's rendition of Macbeth. Someone just walked by me covered head-to-thigh in fake blood; I've been braiding hair all night; it's all crazy fun.
So. Today was beautiful; Spring in Kentucky is the most beautiful season I've ever seen. My college campus is gorgeous, and it's really inspiring. I've also been doing a lot of good reading for school; Macbeth of course, Emma, Murder in Amsterdam, etc. and now that tech week is dying down for the play I'm ready to use all this momentum and good energy and imagination towards my own projects.
I'm working costumes for Macbeth, and between that and knowing I'll be back in town for the next larping event has made me super pumped about redesigning my costume and sketching characters again. I'm super rusty so no sketches to post yet, but soon.
Today I looked at my editing notes again and decided on my game plan this time around. Last edit I was mostly just fixing whatever I could and making it so I was comfortable with the size and quality of what I was really going to work with. Now I have to do the major changes and heavy cutting and pasting, as well as fixing major plot holes and character and scene inconsistencies.
Right now I have a small list beside my original outline (which turned out to be mostly accurate, besides not including the events of two full chapters and almost the whole of Elle's trip to the Mountains) but it's not very detailed and I'm sure I missed some problems. So I've decided on a three-part plan.
First I'll read through the whole manuscript, without stops. I'll write down all the problems I have and where they affect the story and just general problem areas.
Second comes a revamped outline. On Scrivener everything is set up as an outline in the left margin, which will make it much easier to outline and remember chapter names and things. This outline will concentrate on the main plot and goal of each chapter or part and the things that need fixing to accomplish the goal for that section. I'll code things that are local problems and the ones that are farther reaching-that need fixing in multiple places, such as agreement with a certain scene or character trait. This should give me a good guide to what I have to do.
The third part then should be relatively easy- it's daunting now to say "just go and fix everything" but once I have done the first two parts I'll know exactly what needs to be done and a better idea of what specifically I need to do to fix it- I will use my new outline/editing guide and do the fixes. This will involve mostly cutting and pasting and adding or deleting or tweaking scenes to make things agree.
I'm going to go continue my outline now. Wish me luck!
