SUMMARY OF EDITS FOR CHAPTER ELEVEN

When I looked at the MS for chapter eleven there wasn’t a single comment by my editor on the first two pages. Great, I thought. I must be getting the hang of this now. How wrong I was.

Fortunately for me, revisions to earlier chapters enabled me to remove most of page three and tweak what was left. Page four was much the same. Page five required only minor changes and I incorporated a suggestion my editor made about the MC welcoming the opportunity to meet up again with someone she once knew.

The main change to this chapter came on page six where a plot line concerning a minor character reached its climax. I didn’t exploit this to its full potential in the first draft. Apart from the reader learning that the minor character’s scheming hadn’t paid off, it was a bit of a letdown. This was mainly because she didn’t react against the fate which awaited her. In chapter two, the MC’s best friend was completely caught out by events, so didn’t have any time to put up any resistance. In chapter eleven the minor character has plenty of warning. The new scene I have written now exploits this particular event to the full and adds a lot of drama. My post about character reactions is relevant here.

Pages seven and eight also contained material where character reactions could have been shown in greater detail and so I made some changes. I also added in some new material to set the scene for the next chapter and also to tie in with a future event I’d already written.


Just as a chapter ending needs to look forward and back, so too does your editing. Changes to one chapter can have an effect in both directions as they spawn new ideas you hadn’t even considered the first time round. 

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