Notes from the revision trenches

[pbray]

A few days ago mizkit posted how she'd once obsessed about having a hero and heroine whose last names both began with "K".

I have so totally got her beat. This book is all "Z"'s, all the time, with Zuberi, Nizam and Zorion, not lead characters but all three are significant--two of them are viewpoint characters. And, of course, it's too late to change since all three were inherited from the first book in this series.

Not to mention I used the name Prokopios twice by accident--once for a character in the funeral scene and later as the person voted Most Likely To Be Assassinated. At least that one's an easy fix.

But other than the minor annoyances, the revisions are proceeding. One trick I've learned over the years is to create a scene list as I'm writing the book. It's a separate file that lists each chapter and has one or two sentences for each scene. A typical entry is:

Chapter 7
Lady Ysobel's POV--meets with Captain Zorion before he sets sail, summoned by council to discuss news from Ikaria.


The scene list serves as a master index for revisions, so rather than skimming through the entire manuscript, I can jump right to where I need to be. And, given that this book has two separate story lines, the scene list is a quick visual guide showing how I'm balancing the two, and whether I need to rejuggle before the reader forgets what's happening on the other side of the ocean.

Comments

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Every time I ponder this, I think how Bujold wrote a series where the surname of just about every pivotal character began with Vor-.

I wonder if she ever regretted it?

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I like your idea of the scene outline, btw, which is something I could probably do with Scrivener.

[melissajm.livejournal.com]

Fortunatly, most of the main characters are referred to by their first names,

My WIP has two characters with the same name. On purpose. I must be nuts.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

After a while I just ignored the Vor as null characters and focused on the rest of the name :-) Though it did give it a bit of a Russian novel feeling.