Last week, I finished the
first draft of book 2 in the MOONHILL series. I fast wrote it and it’s a crappy as heck.
Fortunately, I love revising and am dying to dive in. But the general notes
I’d made as I drafted led me to believe that the emotional arc of the story was
most likely off. Namely, I didn’t think
there was enough kissing and sex, and I wasn’t sure if the flow of the main
character’s emotions worked or not.
Below are the revision notes I took while drafting.
So, I first updated my barebones
chapter-by-chapter outline. Then I took that outline and listed the emotions
experienced by the main character and her love interest as they happened. I highlighted specific emotions I was
concerned about so I could see how they flowed and where gaps were. I also
highlighted where romantic scenes happened.
The truth is, once I pushed all the other elements of the novel out of
my mind and focused only on the emotions, it quickly became easier to spot
where things were off and think up solutions. So the yellow highlights are changes
I noted as I outlined the story’s emotional arc.
Here’s what the emotion
outline looks like:
Now it’s time to light my new
jasmine candle and start revising!
Good for you for organizing things and finding where the problems lay. I wish you lots of luck with the revision! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you so much. I'm excited to get going!
DeleteRevisions are time consuming and tough, but you have it all laid out beautifully!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm trying to forget how time consuming they are. Luckily, revision is by far my favorite part of writing.
DeleteBest of luck revising! It looks like you're far more organized than I am.
ReplyDeleteI have to force myself to be organized. I'd rather just dive in and start playing :)
DeleteI love how you highlighted every thing. I'm such a visual person, and emotional arcs are something that I'm working on. This is very helpful!
ReplyDeleteJenni, I'm visual as well and that's why I decided to do the highlighting. I think the other thing was to limit the highlighting to just the main emotions I wanted to check. However, I did list all the emotions in order. I can go back and check any of them by adding more highlights.
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