The Great Scene Excision of 2019

This is what I'm looking at right now.

 

It's every scene in Cold Blooded, or rather, in the rough draft NaNo abomination that is going to become Cold Blooded. I took my list of scenes, and starting putting notes on them, determining the fate of that scene. Then I color coded them, because colors are pretty. So green is things I'm keeping, red is being cut,  and yellow means that some part of the scene is being kept, but a lot needs changed. Blue denotes flashbacks, that may or may not stay, or be changed, or whatever. The two pink scenes involve a Food Network expy that I called Tasty TV, and I just haven't decided whether to cut them or not. I probably will, for copyright reasons.

You might also notice that there are several scenes that are not yet colored. I don't know what I'm doing with them. I have several things that I'd like to add, and so those might stay in limbo until I determine how they will fit with the new content. Maybe they'll find homes in new parts of the story. Maybe they will be rendered irrelevant.

One of the things that definitely needs work is how characters learn information. I don't like how I did it. Like, people need to learn about murders, and side characters need to learn about the existence of vampires. And they just kind of arbitrarily find out, just so I could move on the next thing. It's not good, narratively.

There are some thing that I know I want more of. Like the Creamatorium, and the Legume Festival. They are kind of a part of the setting, being places and events within this little college town. The town could really have a greater presence in the story. It doesn't even have a name. Both the university and the county are called Colburn, but for whatever reason, I wanted the town to be called something else. I have a hard time naming places, like I think that a place name should be significant to the story, but also not, because that would be too on the nose.

So now I have kind of figured out what to keep and what to not. Now I have to craft a proper plot arc, which may involve rearranging some events, and definitely adding more. I have some thoughts involving water… and steam tunnels… it's kind of nebulous right now. Honestly, I'm kind of excited about this, because it's like coming up with a new plot all over again. It's going to be fun.

I'll see you next week.