WRITING ANALYSIS

End of Week Report

This will be brief as life here in rural Italy can be relied on provide me with regular 'challenges'. This week it's the electrics - which to be fair are ancient - and we have been relying on battery power. Hats off to one Writers Abroad member who lives 'off the grid' in terms of electricity. 

Anyway I digress when time (and batteries) are short.

This week I have completed a full chapter/scene analysis on All Will Be Well. What does that exactly mean? Well, I've gone through each chapter and recorded in one of my beloved journals the following; current chapter position, scene number, total number of words, setting, characters involved, point of view and then made detailed comments, thoughts and observations on each scene. This has taught me a number of things the most important being:

1. It has been a most valuable way to spend my time on my work in progress. Not only has it refreshed myself with the story and the characters but it has got me back into its 'groove' again, something that I think had been holding me back.
2. It's shown me those scenes which need to be cut without hesitation, those that need a little work and the important (but behind the scenes) backstory that I need to keep safe somewhere.
3. Undertaking the analysis has shown up the yawning holes and great leaps (not of faith that is for sure) and whose story this actually is... something which nearly knocked me out.

So why has it taken me so long to do this? Not sure, not even sure if I've read about doing this kind of navel gazing activity. But it's worked for me and for All Will Be Well. So that's something else that is going in my list of 'must do's ' for future works in progress...