My thoughts on Lesson 2

As you probably know, I'm working through How to Revise Your Novel. I thought it might be nice to provide you with a little feedback on each lesson. I'll share my own personal insights that I glean as I work. Hopefully there will be some gems you can use. You can see my thoughts on Lesson 1 here.

Okay, I admit it. I kinda sorta cheated on lesson 2. I peeked at it before I was done with lesson 1 and decided I could combine them. Lesson 2 is on finding the promises you made to your reader. I got a smallish version of this lesson in How to Think Sideways, so I was pretty confident I could handle it.

I found some broken promises. Not a ton, but a few. I'm not sure if it was because I was familiar with the material when I wrote the last draft, or if it was because I was too focused on lesson 1 stuff. I'm gonna go with the I'm-already-so-awesome theory. ;)

Anyway, I found a character that seems to be very important. He has a name and dialogue and dominates a whole scene. Actually, he's an extra and I need to get rid of him. He's distracting.

Another broken promise: I may have said something about my world I didn't intend to. Well, my character did. She sees a ghost do something and makes an assumption. The assumption was wrong, but it doesn't seem that way. So it's gotta go.

There were a few others, but these were the major ones. (I'll admit I'm embarrassed, but I think most writers do it.)

What about you? Do you find yourself dropping hints about things that aren't there?