Revising

Yesterday I gave the second half of my mini-lesson on plotting at Kate Messner's Teachers Write Camp. 

As part of that lesson, I mentioned that I use a Chapter Chart when I'm revising, just to keep track of what characters are in (or mentioned) in each chapter, the main threads of the story, what day the chapter takes place, what changes for the main character, etc.

Here's one I used when I was working on Touch Blue.



It's a mess :-)  But I just do these for myself. 

Touch Blue was set on the ocean, so I also marked my chapters out on a tide chart to be sure that I had the tides right for the amount of time that passed between chapters.

And I always lay my story out on a calendar so I can be sure if my main character is walking somewhere after supper that it would still be light out. Or what time Tess could see the sun rising. Here's a page from the calendar with sunrise/sunsets I used for Touch Blue.



I have charts and calendars running for my new novel, too.  For this one, I've added in a place on my chapter chart to mention the weather. I tend to write about sunny days, but this new story is set on a lake. Having grown up on a lake, I know that people who live on lakes are extremely connected to weather.  It was a constant topic of conversation: what color the water was, the waves or lack of them, and whether you could see the mountains on the other side of the lake. A lake looks very different on a foggy day than it does at sunset or on a sunny day. 

  

To help me, I've found some webcams that I just love for this new book and I've captured screen prints of various weathers and times of day. As I'm writing, I look at a photo of that weather and it puts me there.  I have several webcams bookmarked, including this video cam of Sebago Lake, Maine, so I can watch the water moving.  (Though I have to warn you, there is a spiderweb on the camera today! So don't be shocked if a huge spider suddenly appears in the scene :-)).

And this one of Ossipee Lake in New Hampshire, which is not far from where I grew up.  In fact, we used to get a huge puddle sometimes near our garage when we had heavy rain. My parents joking referred to it as "Ossipee Lake."

  

  

  

  

Now, I'm off to practice what I preach.  :-)  I'm revising and cleaning up five chapters a day to be able to get the whole book to my critique group by Monday.  That'll give them a week to read, me a couple weeks to revise again using their comments and then it's back to my editor. It's always a little bittersweet to send something off, and I'm getting ready to let it go.