Don’t Forget to Add or Cut!

There is a very high chance you will discover scenes are missing. Maybe you realize you need some flashbacks between Hannah and her sister Iris…or an extra scene showing how bad the villain really is.

When this happens, make a new scene card and slide it into your outline deck! You don’t need to write the scene now (unless you want to, of course).

Or it’s possible, on the flip side, you’ll realize you need to cut scenes! No problem. Just make note of that on the scene card. (But keep the card in your deck so you can remember to cut that scene when you get to it in revisions.)

And of course, you might decide to combine scenes. I do this frequently because I discover two scenes are filling the same role in the story, so I will take the most important pieces from each and weave them into something new.

Again, make note of that plan on the card, and write something like: Combine this scene with scene #.

At the end of this lesson, you should have a hefty stack of scene cards—possibly a taller stack than you started with!

And you’re also ready now to finally get to the main event: actually revising and changing your manuscript.