Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Strike a Match

Now that the first draft of The Hushing Days is staring up at me from a ream of paper, what’s the next step?

“Put a match to it and we’ll toast s’mores!” my always helpful four-legged, furry muse quips from my side. (Her addiction to anything even smelling of chocolate is quite absurd, and needs Dr. Phil’s attention ASAP.)

Don’t worry. Nothing is being put to flames just yet. (And my dog is getting zero chocolate. Ever.) I have other plans for the draft.

I’m doing a hard read-through of each chapter, noting which scenes are completely done (i.e. connector sentences are up; grammar is A-OK; sense, style and romantic feels are present and accounted for.)

Then, I’m noting which scenes have all their skeletal bones in place but are just needing a little fleshing out (i.e. dialogue with no “he said/she said”s; descriptive bits without human frankness; etc.)

Finally, I’m then jotting down scenes I’d like to see fill out that chapter to its fullest. These are mostly tiny encounters between characters that help the flow and the overall shape of the chapter. (I always consider each chapter a work all unto itself.)

When this is done, I will either a.) rev up the writing engines once again and get very busy, or b.) bib the dog and get ready for s’mores.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Post Note: After HUGE thunderstorms rocked Tallahassee yesterday and left me without power for 6 ½ hours, the bonfire plan was seriously considered.  

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