Yellow Edit: The cards

The yellow edit for this book is an interesting one. I found that I'd edited and re-edited so much that everything was all mushed together. Yes, mushed is a technical word. LOL So, in an attempt to step away a bit but not stop editing altogether, I printed off each chapter individually. I then used large notecards for each chapter. For each chapter, on the top half of the card, I wrote the main ideas contained in the chapter. The bottom half was used to write the main ideas in my father's letters.

In addition to this, I used a screenwriting technique, breaking my story into three acts. I'll talk more about that later. Each act was given a specific colored card. I also used something I learned in my screenwriting class, and that is to be sure that every act, or in this case, chapter has a whole mini-story to tell. It has a beginning, middle and end. And I noted if the chapter had a teaser at the end (more on this later too), which would make the reader want to read on.

I am nearly finished with this edit and I think it was successful. I read each chapter out of order. That way, I was able to concentrate just on the chapter and nothing else. It did raise a few questions about continuity and I noted those and will feed those in when I type them into my word processor. But each edit is a little, or sometimes a lot easier than the last.