The 12 Days of Liz: Day Five: Fast Forward

So I’m cutting Liz, trying to finish up Act One by tonight so I can pass it on to Lani. I’ve divided the act into scene sequences, the way I did a couple of months ago, only this time I’m doing it to streamline the story, so I made bigger chunks:

1. Arriving: Liz’s assumptions about Burney being treacherous are reinforced, ending with her finding out that people have plans for her to be the town fixer again

2. Resisting: Liz’s attempts to avoid getting drawn back into Burney, ending when somebody hits her with a rock

3. Reconsidering: Liz cautiously reconsiders her assumptions, ending with her agreement to go to Lavender’s bachelorette party, thereby putting herself on Team Lavender

4. Re-evaluating: Liz gets new information that makes her re-evaluate everything, ending with her becoming involved much more deeply with Vince

5. Surrendering: Liz agrees to stay the weekend to fix all the screw-ups she sees around her, ending with her defying her aunt and supporting her mother.

So with 49,000 words divided into five unequal parts, I can at least get a global look at what I’m trying to accomplish in those scenes. And once I’ve gone though a scene sequence chunk, cutting all the miscellaneous stuff I can, then I can read through it again at top speed, making notes of where I start to skim because the stuff isn’t as interesting. Once I’ve cut or tightened those parts, it’s ready to go to Lani.

And then I get to do the same thing to Act 2. And 3. And 4, although by the time I get to Act 4, I’m looking at about 15,000 words so I can pretty much do that one in one go. It’s always Act One that’s the tough one. Too much frontloading of info, too much stuff I came up with in first drafts that I have to let go of, too little awareness of what’s happening because I’ve read the damn stuff forty thousand times. First acts: Bleah. The only thing worse is third acts. The devil invented third acts.

And now, back to Act One.