To know where you’re going, you have to see where you’ve been. So, this morning, it was time to start cutting my novel up. I split it up into scenes and divided my past story from my present story. This is what it currently looks like:
I originally had the past story as flashbacks, but I think it might work better as the first half of the book. But, by having all the scenes separated, if I find it doesn’t work as two separate halves, I can still go back to flashbacks. Next step will be to figure out where each scene would fit according to the beat sheet and separate them out that way. Then the culling will begin. What scenes stay? What scenes go? What scenes get a complete makeover?
I have done revisions before, but it has always been kind of like painting a wall that’s crumbling a different color. This time, I want to make sure the structure is sound first. Then, we can see about the decorations.