Why Do You Need a Plan?

- Draft Faster

- Improve the Quality of Your Draft

- Remove the Dread of Rewrites

- Have More Fun

- Make more Money (Maybe)

Situation: First Draft is Now Complete

- I Have this Pile of First Draft Words – What Do I Do With It?

- Key: The Basis of the Story is There, but the Complete Story May not Be

- This Stage of Writing is to Get the Story Quality Right

- Forget Grammar, Spelling, and Plotting for This Stage

- If You Structure It properly, Editing can be Just as Fun and Creative as the

Original Draft

Caveate: Just because you have a system doesn’t mean it will always go

super-smooth

Step 1: After You Type “The End” on the First Draft: Leave It

- You are Too Close to Your Work at This Time

– You Tend to See what On the Page (because It’s Still in your Head)

- You are Word-Blind

– You Need Distance from the First Draft

– This Takes Two Weeks to a Month

Step 2: Begin Deconstruction

For Each Scene, Write a Summary – no More than One Paragraph

(Note: Plotters Often Write Summaries of Everything They Want in the Scene Before Beginning the First Draft: The Interim First-Second Draft Summary Need to be a Separate Document)

Summarize the Scenes in “Reverse Order” – End to Beginning

Why Do This?: You See It in a Fresh Perspective

- Because at the Time You Were Writing the First Draft, You Hadn’t Finished

the Whole Draft

- When Complete, You can Immediately See If the Scene Does or Does Not

Belong in the Story – or Maybe Belongs Elsewhere in the Sequence

- Another Method is a Daily summary, while Ideas are Fresh in Your Mind

- Even if You are a Plotter and Did This in the First Draft, This Time It Must

be in Separate Document – So You can Rearrange without Affecting the Original Documents

Reverse Outlining Without Plot Structure is What You’re Actually Doing at

This Stage

Not Evaluating at this Point – just Summarizing

Don’t Edit at This Point – That would Delete or Greatly Alter Some of It, and

Alter the Summary, so Don’t Waste Time

Get Down on Paper What It Is at This Point – Warts and All - Not Good/Bad

This is to Evaluate the Story You’ve Written

To Practice - Take an Existing Book You Like and Do the Exact Same Thing

Or Screenplay/Movie and do a section of it

Even if There isn’t much Action, Pay Attention to the Emotion from It

Step 3: Add Story Structure

- Evaluate Genre – Obligatory Scenes, etc.

- Evaluate Story Length – Each Genre has a Max/Min Length Beginning

Authors would be Wise to Adhere To

- Compare Your Scenes, Chapters, or Sections to a Plot Structure

         Any of the Accepted/Preferred Ones (See Below)

This is Where You Begin to Evaluate Story Structure

A Scene is a Mini-story Within Your Book – It Must Have the Same Elements

as a Story

A Scene is a Specific Part of a Story, and It Tells a Small Story within the Big

Story

Take Your Time and Understand What Happened in Each Scene

If not Much Happened, Don’t Fret About It At This Point

It Will be Taken Care of Later in the Editing Process

Expect Steps Two and Three to Take the Major Part of the Second Draft

Editing Process

If You Get These Right, The Rest will Flow Quickly

What You Have Will be Apparent and What You Need to Do will Become

Obvious Once You Establish the Next Step – Story Structure

Step Three is To Evaluate Where Each Scene should Fit in the Overall Story

Structure

However, Don’t Rearrange the Scenes to Fit the Overall Story Yet, That

Comes Later

Next Step: Compare Your Structure to an Accepted Plot Structure

Step 4. Add Story Structure

Why Add Structure Now?

- Helps You with Pacing

- Fills Plot Holes

- Makes Sure You Resolve All Story Lines

This is the Step Where We Finally Get a System to Begin Editing

- Do Events Happen in About the Right Place for the Genre Structure You’re

Using

- Check Structure – Holes, Things Needed but Missing – Like, Why is This

Happening, It Did not Get Set Up Until a Later Scene (In Your Head You Knew It Happened, But That Never got Transferred to the Page)

- Help Pacing

- Find and Fix Issues Before Going Further in the Writing Process, Where It

Becomes Exponentially Harder to Fix

Different Plot Structures

- Three Act

- Four Act

- Five Act

- Seven Point

- Hero’s/Heroine’s Journey

- Save the Cat

- 14 Signposts (James Scott Bell)

Your Choice Depends on the Type of Story You’re Trying to Tell

How to Map Plot Structure

Plottr – Scriviner -  By Hand

Doesn’t Matter, each is Just a Tool – The Key is Doing It so You Can See and Evaluate the Manuscript

For this Example, We will Chose the Hero’s Journey with a Twelve-Step Plot Structure

- You Need some Methodology to Map the Story before Proceeding

Understand Each Plot Point – What Should be Happening at Each Point

Understand What Needs to Happen at Each Plot Point – Is It in Your Story?

Map Your Scenes Against the Required Scenes in the Story Structure for

That Genre

Match for Pacing, etc

Does It Match – Or Do the Scenes Need Rearranging to Better Fit the

Intended Story – as a Whole

(You May Have to Take Some Time to Evaluate What Story Structure Best Fits This Story You are Trying to Tell)

(Plotter has a Window Showing What is Supposed to Happen at Each Plot Point - Does Your Story Match this Structure – or Should You Use a Different Structure – or – Fix Your Story to Match the Structure?)

Map Your story - Scene by Scene – to the Accepted Structure – What is Missing, What is Extra? Fix It

Write any Missing Scene/Obligatory Requirement – Decide what to Do with the Extra/Leftovers: Do They Add Value to the Story – Why – How – Delete?

Step 5. Evaluate the Puzzle Pieces (for Now)

Put All the Pieces in Place in the Structure You’ve Selected

Evaluate Story Parts - May Change in Revision – This a Second Draft

What Happened in the First?

Why Do This Now?

It is Only When You have Gotten to This Point that You Have the Established

The Required Editorial Distance from the First Draft

Step 6. Apply GMCV: Goal-Motivation-Conflict-Verb (Feeling)

Evaluate for each scene

- What Do You Want the Reader to Feel – to be Emotionally Invested in the

- The Character’s Goal(s) – What Does the Character Want or Need

- Why Write This Scene – How Does It Pushed the Overall Story Forward

Motivation

- What is the Character’s Motivation in the Scene

- What Do They Need or Want

- How Does This Relate to Their Overall (Story) Motive

Anything in the Scene that Doesn’t Relate to the Story Motive is Subject to

Editing Out

Conflict: What is Stopping or Propelling The Characters Toward Their Goal?

What is the Central Conflict in This Scene?

Note any Missing Goal, Motivation or Conflict

If the Scene is Missing

- A Goal: Do You Really Need the Scene? Want’s the Point?

- A Motive: Does it Move the Story Forward?

- A Conflict: If You Want to Keep the Scene, You Need to Add One

Examples of Conflict:

- Violent (A Fight)

- Verbal (An Argument)

- Emotional

- Anxiety

- Stress

- Circumstances

- The Ordinary World

Verb of Emotion

- How Does Your Character Feel During this Scene? How do They React to

the Goal, Motivation or Conflict?

- How Do You (the Author) Want the Reader to Feel when They’re Done

Reading this Scene?

- Use the Right Verbs, Adjectives and Nouns to Elicit this Feeling

How Does Each Character Feel and Make Reader Feel theSsame

(Use An Emotion Thesaurus)

(A Goal is usually Tangible, the Motivation is Internal – the Why)

Read Through One More Time

- Read Aloud Through the Scenes in Backwards Order

- Listen to Your Book

- Use Macros and Tools

Goal: This Forces You to Look at Each Section in a Different Manner to See If

It All Hangs Together