The Nefarious Plan

BUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Jan asked yesterday WHAT my plan was, and since my plan was largely influenced by HER plan (but not quite so detailed) and since I actually wrote it OUT yesterday at Kimberly Loomis's blog because SHE was asking how WE edited... I thought maybe I would EXPAND on things here... Since I love y'all an' all...



1st: basic clean so I don’t make myself nuts on step 2

I would love to skip this step. There is no point cleaning it up when a significant portion is going to be changed, but I CAN'T not do it. For starters... I often ask for HELP after this and wouldn't want to be embarrassed by significant nincompoopery... but I ALSO just frankly don't have the ability to pay attention when there are blatent typos (which is what I hold responsible for most misspelling and grammar—I have a journalism degree that makes me not-incompetent in those areas, but my typing was never meant to be stellar—you know... world dominatrixes have secretaries named Sven and Raoul and all that...)  (Raoul ---->)


2nd: READ IT, taking notes to write the synopsis and taking notes on problems I notice (this would catch that too evil villain)

I will confess this is actually the hardest step... READING IT without TOUCHING IT (yes, notes on the side, fine... but I can't correct things and still read it with enough speed to notice the 'big picture'... if I succeed, it will be the first time, but it IS part of the plan.

3rd: WRITE the synopsis

I will credit Jan here. It is a bit of brilliance, I think... when looking at the big picture, to write it out as it IS, so you can see how strong it is. Then again, Jan wrote THREE, where I am only writing ONE. Though I am ALSO writing a scene summary (one sentence per scene)--also a Jan idea, though she called it something fancy... The purpose of THIS, is to figure out where to insert the things I've made NOTES on. The 'at a glance' work is a TOOL for the big fixes.



4th: critically evaluate at a synopsis level… what would make the GRAND PLOT better, FIX IT.

See—isn't this great? You LOOK at the big picture and then FIX the big picture. How much simpler could it get?!



5th: cut and paste (and write) so it’s all there in the right order

This is to meet all that synopsis and notes stuff... get all the pieces in place...

6th: Next round of ‘ordinary edit’ to clean up transition stuff   (Sven ---->)

This round of editing, is actually much larger than the first, because cutting, pasting, writing and rewriting can leave EDITING scars. I will need to REMOVE the repercussions of anything removed, add the repercussions of anything added, make sure the precedents and antecedents are all where they go, and that I don't repeat myself or skip something crucial.


7th: out of order read so each scene is as strong as possible

I've never done THIS before, either. I'm not positive I will have time for the Cozy, but it is definitely on my list for my suspense stuff, as it seems pretty darned important for suspense to keep pulling the reader... not that it isn't important for mystery, but cozies have other draws, too, besides just adrenaline...


8th: polish.

This is probably steps 8-20, but at least I have help finding the blemishes on this one...


So there you have it... all my secrets...

*****

And because yesterday was September 11... a day I find good for reflection, and because I have been bad and didn't really advertise as things were going UP, I invite all of you to check out our August Pay It Forward project, inspired by B. Miller (and she wrote the first drabble for this project) though the story can start anywhere, as it is circular...