So I took the novel out last night and flicked through a few pages, found all the breaks I’d pencilled in and broken the novel up into these pieces in Scrivener.
The main selling point of scrivener for me as far as I can tell is the introduction of a file system not unlike the one used on computers. It is interesting that is is the most comfortable form of organization to me now - file and folders within each and a snippet of text at the core. It helps me see meaning in the novel as it stands, I could now happily write a short essay on the themes featured in my novel - I knew them before, but I didn’t know where their weight was.
A few thing occurred to me while chopping this novel up:
- It’s pretty short
- But some of those chapters are pretty long
- I’ve still got a lot of work to do.
So night my plan is to flick through the MS again and take on the first chapter. I think Scrivener has a panel for adding “themes” to it, I might even plot a theme chart to see what I can lose (if indeed, I do need to lose something) - I’m sure some of the ideas should be dropped, it feels messy at the moment.
I’ll take on the first chapter, buff out the crassness, break it to my will and maybe even add a little worthy flourish.
