I was able to get all 3 scenes edited and sent to a peer to review. I did add in a few more paragraphs to two of the scenes to add a bit more depth, and one of them now reminds the reader of a small detail in an earlier scene and hopefully makes it more cohesive overall.
One of the issues I’ve experienced in my writing journey is how disconnected later chapters can become from earlier ones, especially when it’s a book executed over several years. I’ve read many self-published books that have this problem, and as much as possible I want to avoid this. There’s nothing more frustrating than reading a novel from cover to cover and by the end there are one or two things that were never or poorly explained. While I’m trying to be proactive about this with my work, it’s inevitable that I won’t catch everything.
This is why a beta reader is a must when the draft is finished because they can identify inconsistencies and discrepencies from throughout the book that we as the writer will miss. Everything flows in our head at super high speed, especially stories that have been near and dear to us for years. A new person who knows nothing about it reading it through from start to finish is the only way to truly find these “agent killers.” Cause that’s what they are. If there’s confusion somewhere, an agent will kill your manuscript and throw it in the burn pile. Ruthless. But that’s the truth. Agents exist to make money, and a book that needs reworking is not in their acceptance criteria.
Peer reviews scene by scene are great, but without that cover to cover beta read (at least once), it is just not enough to polish your manuscript for an agent.
For my scene I needed to finish this week, I almost got a very rough draft done. I rushed through a lot just to get it down and have somewhere to work from this week, and I’m still missing a small part of the scene that’s pretty crucial, but it’s like 90%.
A lot is happening in this scene and it’s going to be quite a large one once I get it polished and fill in the blanks. There are some tragic things happening here and happening fast, and it’s going to be a hefty chapter when all is said and done, but hopefully it will be an exciting read.
This scene still needs a lot of work, so my goal for this week will be to finish the last missing piece, revise it, and get it ready for the editing process.
5/52 weeks of 2020 are gone, and I’ve completed one scene so far. I’m happy with how I’ve kept up with my goals, but I’m realizing that if I really want to be done by this year I need to pick up the pace a bit. There’s a lot left to tell between current scene and the end.
Happy Writing!
