My thoughts on Lesson 3

To read my thoughts on all the How to Revise Your Novel lessons, click here.

Wow, lesson 3 took no time at all. 2 days, that's it! This lesson is pretty simple: create a sentence describing each scene, using the protagonist, conflict, antagonist, twist, and setting. I've used this technique before in How to Think Sideways. I even posted some examples of this technique as I edited this same manuscript the first time.

So I got crackin'. At first, I was doing pretty well. I had good, solid scenes with conflict and twists and everything. Then I got to some of those half-scenes. You know what I'm talking about. Those one-page "scenes" that consist of a conversation or a character thinking something or maybe getting back to everyday life. Those scenes where nothing pertaining to the story happens. I probably have about ten of those.

The problem is, most of those scenes have my hero and heroine in them. The scene develops their relationship. So the scenes need to be in there. I can't just delete them. I'm going to need to flesh out these half-scenes. They need to have conflict, something at stake. And it needs to tie in with the story.

I think I've got my work cut out for me.