Questions

As I mentioned previously, I’m working through First Step and tightening it up. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks editing, other than when I put out The Drop in audio format. Can’t remember if I mentioned this before, but the chapters alternate POVs between Eve and Ray, the narrators of their respective stories. Parts of Eve’s story lagged or seemed repetitive when I did my look at it from a higher level. I’ve fixed a lot of that and am changing an entire chapter today to show more action as well as foreshadowing of later events. I’ve told people before that it’s okay to scrape and patch the story - nobody who reads it knows when you wrote each word, so there’s no flashing light when people read a paragraph added in the last round of editing. Beyond that, I’m reading through Eve’s chapters and asking the following questions about each:

• Is this a set piece? Like a vivid scene from a movie

• Does it advance the plot? In other words, did something change between the first sentence and the last?

• Is it repetitive?

• Does each character feel developed?

If I can’t answer each question with full confidence, then it means the chapter needs some work. That last question includes development of “off-screen” characters. You can flesh out a character with what people say about them just like you can with what they say and do. I’m sure there are author sites with better questions and approaches, but this is what works for me. The first two questions help make the story and each chapter stand on their own and give the reader something to remember. If I have a chapter where I want to show the character doing something routine, I’m probably going to bore you. But if I show the character in a routine that is interrupted and places the character in danger, that becomes interesting. Anyway, that’s what I’m doing these days. I hope to be finished by next week so I can return to my draft of The Drop: Season Three.