Today, my nanowrimo goal was simple: weed through various scenes and decide what I can save and what I can cut. To accomplish this goal, I opened a One Note document and titled it “Scene Description.” Each sene received a brief content summary and a corrective action comment. For example, scene 10a was where the antagonize revealed his master plan. Proposed fix: consolidate this with scene 10b, which is also the antagonist waxing eloquently about his machinations.

This is only an example. It is poor writing for your antagonist to explain his entire plan to the audience in a long-winded monologue. However, it is important in your writing to know what happens in each scene. This helps prevent duplicating material, as I did in several sections.

Like many new writers, I took advice from wherever I could find it. Some advice was great. Other advice, while it may work for the person proposing a specific method, did not work for me. I found this out the hard way. A podcaster that I follow and have found great advice from in the past suggested that I write each scene in a separate document. This may work for them, but for me it messed up my flow, and I ended up with repeated content because I lost track of where I was and where I was going.

My goal for the next few days of Nanowrimo is to cut or consolidate content in what will become chapters 10, 11, and 12.