This is the continued saga of my foray into Janice Hardy’s Revise Your Novel in 31 Days at-home workshop (blog.janicehardy.com).

Today I am checking my narrative focus to make sure it keeps the text flowing smoothly and prevents the story from wandering off on a tangent.

I will look at whether the scenes move the story forward, then check each paragraph for anything unfocused or sluggish. Last, I will check for run-on sentences or any I need to clarify.

I found quite a few paragraphs that needed to be trimmed to keep the reader from getting bored. I also found a couple of run-on sentences.

Results:  I am combining this lesson on narrative with lesson 20 that addresses dialogue. I bought some Post-It flags and flagged each page that needed changes, instead of trying to fix them one at a time. I think this will be a time saver, since I can correct all these issues in one sitting.

Take-Away Value:  

No matter how well you write, you will find places where you waxed poetic or over-explained. Put yourself in your reader’s place. If this was someone else’s story, would you read those long paragraphs, or would you skip over them?

See you on the next page.