How to fix a bumpy story and make it flow

My second chapter was terrible! I wanted to show time passing, and cover a few events along the way, but it wound up a bunch of disjointed scenes jumping for one place to the next. It's a balancing act, showing enough for world building, but without boring readers with unnecessary travel. (Unfortunately I’m a klutz and that’s how this chapter came off, clumsy.)

After working on it for a week (yes, an entire week for one 5000 word chapter) I've ironed it out quite a bit. It now reads more like a chapter instead of a bunch of scenes haphazardly stuck together.

Here’s how I did it.

~CUT SCENES~

First cut out any scenes that aren't necessary. I keep asking myself, okay I like this scene, but how important is it? I keep everything I cut just in case, but some things have to go.

~REARRANGE & COMBINE~

The next step is rearranging and combining scenes. Which scenes can be changed to go together? If I move this scene from down here, I can add it to this one up here, and ta-da no more jumpy scenes, but one longer one.

~SMOOTH TRANSITIONS~

Finally smoothing out the last of the bumps and making sure the transitions are clear. When there a change in time, location, or character it has to be obvious to the readers.

I added parts to make it continuous instead of lots of little scenes and some lines of narration could be told by the characters instead. (Wallah! (not sure how to spell that) Instant showing instead of telling.)

I have to keep telling myself, ‘this story isn't set in stone, I can change it.’ Just because I wrote it this way the first time doesn't mean that’s the best way to tell my story.

Curious what I did? Click on the image above for an example. :) (Note: I’m still not happy with this chapter, but it’s certainly better than it was.)

What do you think the best method is for showing time passing?

How to find out how many words made the cut

I've done so much editing and rewriting I wanted to know how many words from my rough draft made the cut.

Open Microsoft word, you don't have to open a document.



1. Go to the review tab.

2. Click on compare and select whether you want to merge the documents or just compare them. Select Merge.

3. Under original document choose the rough draft and then under revised select the edited version. (There are options on what you want to compare, but I only compared adds, deletions, and moves.) Make sure your rough draft has a different font!

4. Open the merged document, it should have red font all over it. Under Review, track changes click the bottom for change tracking options and it pulls open a window. Change deletions to #.



5. Click on the black font in the document, (the part that didn't change) and click the home tab, on the right side there are selection options.  Select text with similar formatting.



Now the hard part, wait. On my old Acer computer this step took 10-15 minutes and it locked up if I tried to do anything. (Oh, how I wish I had patience.)

6. Copy the font, ctrl+c (Don't cut, that made it lock up for me too.) and past it into a new document.

7. Ta-da! Now you have the words that made it from the rough draft to the final!

How many did you have? I only had 38,000 words out of 108,000!

Woven Magic ~ Writing Update

It’s amazing how different my book is from when it started. Out of 108,000 words only 38,000 words are still the same as my rough draft! (That's a lot of rewriting!)

I saved every version of my book, including my rough draft. It was worth it, not just to compare them, but because it's hilarious reading it now. They say rough drafts are meant to be crap, yup mine was.

I still have a three page to-do list, but (I think) I'm finally done with major rewrites. (I like to-do lists, it makes me feel like I've really accomplished something when I get to check it off.)

From what I've read it takes everyone a different length of time to write their first novel, from a few months to a few years. My goal was to get mine done in a year, but that's not going to happen. (Since that would be next month.) So, I’m shooting for the date I finished writing, the end of July. I want it to be as good as I can make it, but I know I have to eventually stop editing.

How long did it take you to write and edit your first novel?

Writing Internal Conflict

(Yes, I made this beautiful picture myself.)

Something was missing from my book, but I couldn't figure out what. After reading my story for the umpteenth time, I realized my mistake. I forgot to show the internal struggle going on inside her head. A character can be complex and likable, but if the readers aren't inside her head, they’ll feel like the book is lacking something. (Which is what I was feeling.) I had to go through my entire story again and rewrite a lot of her internal dialogue. (Just what I needed, another rewrite...)

I know things are going to go wrong for my main character, so I started her out happy. That isn't realistic though, everyone is unhappy about something. It’s important to show what makes the main character unhappy in the beginning of the book, whether it’s loneliness, feeling stuck in responsibilities, or whatever.

I wanted my heroes to come off as brave, but I realized that doesn't mean they shouldn't have any fears or worries. Overcoming your fears is braver than not having any, that’s just stupidity. (Which is how my character was coming off...) So I had her put on a brave face, but added her worrying if she'd made the right choice. 'I could die. What have I gotten myself into?’ This also raises the stakes when the character realizes how dangerous things are.

My main character had changed after all of her experiences, which is why I was having trouble with a scene towards the end. I still had her acting like the character she was at the beginning. I had to realize that something that would be out of character for her at the start would totally be something she'd do after a year with my other main character. (He’s a bit of a bad influence.)

What does your character unhappy about? Do you fix it for them or just give them more problems?

My character is lonely and wants to have friends and fit in. I don’t make it easy for her, (my poor little characters.) but I do give her a couple of friends. She’s a stronger person than when she started her journey, but she doesn't fully accept herself yet. (She is only twelve.)