Picking Up The Pieces

One of the problems I've consistently had with this historical YA fantasy is whittling down momentous, national and political events to the personal, then including enough to give the story the needed weight and heft, but not so much that it swamps the characters.

So as I picked up the project again, I thought I'd try a few techniques, and I'm going to talk about them here because I think they apply to most big revisions.

The problems I've had with the story are:
A cast of thousands
Historical an...