Prep Your Novel For Self-Editing In Scrivener
A Method of Organizing Your Book Before the First Edit
As an advocate for the Nanowrimo writing process, I firmly believe that a writer should write the rough draft of their novel as quickly as possible and let the words flow as they will. The most important thing to remember about writing the rough draft is to finish without letting your inner-editor stop you. Once you finish the rough draft, there is still plenty of work to do before you hand your manuscript to a hired editor and begin the publishing process.
Breaking it Down
When my rough draft is completed, I break the entire manuscript into scenes. A scene is defined by a single place and time in the story where action or dialog happens. I write a short synopsis of each scene in a paper notebook that I can remember and I color code it with highlighters. I label “good scenes” and “bad scenes”. Each type of scene is color-coded with its own hue.