Dear Writers,

Before you finish revising your WIP, please do the following:

1) Decide the time frame for your novel including the backstory. For example, novel takes place from October 1-31, 2012 but there are many references to an incident that started in May 2011 and ended in June 2011. If you don’t have a specific time frame in mind, pick one anyway. You don’t have to actually give the dates in your novel.

2) Once you have done #1, Google the words “calendar October 2012” for each month you need. When you find the month (usually they’re posted in PDF format) click Print so you have a print copy of the calendar.

NOTE: If you don’t want to Google & print, go find an actual calendar and photocopy it.

3) Once you have all of the months you need, go through your book and write down every chapter in the box for the day/days it spans. Do the same for the important elements of the backstory.

4) With your calendar on the wall or table in front of you, read your manuscript. Every single time you refer to a date or an event with an implied date (for example, last week, last month, the last time I saw her), check the calendar to ensure the reference makes sense. This is especially important for backstory. If I have to read ONE MORE BOOK where a character has a baby 11 months after peeing on a stick, I will throw something hard at something fluffy.

*Smooshes*
Moi

This past weekend, I attended a workshop that was given by writer Roxanne St. Claire. This workshop covered scene revision and pace. First let me say that, if you have the chance to attend one of Roxanne’s workshops, GO! She’s brilliant and funny and she says things about hospital corners you’ll never forget.

I learned a thousand things at this workshop but will be covering only one today and that is this:

Every scene in your novel needs to have three things: a goal, a conflict and a change.

Sound familiar? Why yes, Ms. Bodger, that sounds a bit like a logline to me! Now Roxanne did not suggest we write loglines for each of our scenes. She suggested we make sure we have a goal, conflict and change, but because I LOVE loglines so much, I decided to try to write one for each scene of my WIP. To do that, I first had to make obvious breaks in my scenes (I usually separate them by spaces or chapter breaks but I decided it would be easier to use chapter breaks for all of them for now). Once that was done. I highlighted the scene/chapter number and added a revision note that gave the time & date (I always do this) as well as the character’s goal, conflict and change (or result).

Here’s an example of one I wrote for the second scene in my WIP:

The deal is off if Emma doesn’t get Rachel’s coffee to her before 7 am, but when Emma gets to Starbucks, she realizes that she can’t remember the order and forgot her money. Matteo, the Starbucks cashier, is sick of bratty rich kids who annoy him and so when Emma offers to pay after she brings the coffee to Rachel, Matteo refuses. In the end, Emma gets the coffee but only because the other barista gives it to her.

As far as loglines go, this isn’t great. It doesn’t cover much about the characters since we already know them by this point and it gives away the outcome which you also don’t usually do. But despite this, it does what it needs to do for my revision. It establishes Emma’s goal, her obstacles and the outcome.

Now, you’re probably looking at this and thinking this is a lot of work. You’re right. I have 42 scenes in my WIP and it took several hours (and that was just to write them, not to fix them!) However, in doing this exercise, I was able to identify all of the scenes in my WIP that were lacking a purpose (goal) or real tension (obstacles). For example, in the one above, before I did this, I still knew what I wanted the scene to do but I didn’t know how to make it do it BETTER until I’d identified the real conflict.

If you’re still not sure this will help you, try it for only a few scenes. Maybe the ones that seem too short or maybe the ones that seem to drag. Even if it doesn’t result in any changes, it’s a great way to keep track of what’s happening in your scenes.