by
Scott D. Parker
I think it's common knowledge that a good
rule of thumb for reviewing your own work is to read it aloud. I do it
all the time. I find easy-to-miss grammar snafus, but I find this method
especially good with dialogue. I'll always read the dialogue (with
voices!) to hear how it sounds. If I find my mouth adding words or
saying the prose differently, I change it on the page.
Side
note: if you have a computer that has the capability of reading text to
you, that's also a good way to go. Just be sure you have a computer
that'll sound more or less normal.
The reason I bring it up this
week is that I completed my index card outline for my next major novel
on Thursday morning. It's around 100 scenes or so--some smaller than
others. It was kind of an exciting thing to be writing that last index
card right as my alarm to signal it was time for me stop working on my
new book and get ready for my workday.
Later on Thursday, I
cornered--er, asked nicely--the wife if she'd be game to listen to me go
through each notecard and tell her the story. She agreed, but initially
didn't know what I was asking of her. She much prefers to read the
drafts after I've finished them. She's a voracious reader, knows what
works and what doesn't, and I rely on her all the time to course correct
a story.
All I needed her to do is take the tale on a test
drive. Did it make sense? Did the scenes flow nicely. Was there a huge
plot gap in the middle of my story? Did she even like it?
We sat
at the kitchen table. Initially, I laid out the first forty scenes or
so, but swiftly realized it was much better with just the stack right in
front of us. I talked over each scene, one by one, taking her through
the story.
There's a look she gets when she glazes over and I
stopped when I saw that. What was the problem? It was the sub-plots.
They seemed extraneous. I reminded her they were sub-plots, but I
adjusted on the fly and just kept to the main POV character--since it is
her story.
The entire process was incredibly enlightening. I
got to tell the story to someone else, serving as a way to get it out of
my own head. I took notes along the way, mostly with nips and tucks my
wife suggested.
But I came away with the idea that some of the sub-plots likely bogged down the story.
Look,
I've written books like this before and I've written books without an
outline at all. Each method has its merits and I stand behind both of
them. But for this book in particular, I needed to verify that the story
structure was solid. It was. Side benefit: I might actually have fewer
scenes to write since I'll be proactively cutting some fat.
Saturday, October 17, 2020
Proactively Trimming a Book's Fat
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