Continuity is A Wonderful Thing
Too bad Twilight doesn’t have it (and I think this needs a different name, too, but that’s for another day). I have a lot of cutting and pasting waiting for me as I sift this timeline.
Lest you think I’m not happy about this, I think the parts of revision where I find the obvious errors in my first draft and can fix them are enormously entertaining and satisfying. I can tell the first thing I need to do after my initial read-through is the timeline for a work (assuming I don’t learn how to do one before I write, but since I write too, too organically at this point, I’m working with where I’m at). After that, I should consider typing in the easy fixes and cutting and pasting to get things where they belong. Then I’ll need at least one more read-through for continuity–or is that when you foist the beast onto your brave, adventurous first readers?
I have a lot more cutting and pasting to do in Twilight than in PBOTL. I believe that’s related to PBOTL only having one main POV character–although I had to introduce a minor POV character to get a few ideas across more effectively. Twilight has at least three–maybe as many as seven POV characters (and, yes, I agree I should know that number by now without having to sort it out, but I just don’t). It’s one of many things I have to assess with this beast but not right now.
I’m using the Outline feature of Inspiration to track the timeline. I used it for PBOTL but I didn’t do it quite right. I’m getting the hang of it now. (And, yes, it will transform your nice, neat outline into a spiffy diagram layout–pretty slick.)
So, I’m having a blast with these revisions. And it’s a good thing, too, because I’ve been playing with them since around six-thirty this morning. I did take about ten minutes out to ride the bike (had to increase resistance), and I walked the neighborhood loop tonight for the first time since way before the knee surgery. My time was three minutes slower than usual. For where the knee is now, that was fast enough. Other than various other minor flitting tasks, I’ve been working on this most of the day. I’ll probably do the same tomorrow.