Search results for character sheet

CMwww.chaptermuse.com › Guide › Revise a novel

How to revise a novel so the revision ends

Everyone was right, and it is not the useful part of the advice, because it doesn't distinguish between a draft and a lap.

• Four passes is not four drafts if they were all the same pass
• Structure, character, scene, line, proof, and the order is not a preference
• A pass needs a definition of done and a list of things you refuse to fix
• Reverse-outline the book you wrote, not the one you meant to write

CMwww.chaptermuse.com › Guide › Plot grid vs timeline vs mind map

Plot Grid vs Timeline vs Mind Map

Across the top, the four or five things you would name if someone asked what your novel is about: not every character, the threads.

CMwww.chaptermuse.com › Guide › Create a story bible

The story bible you'll actually use

There is a character sheet for the sister. It tells you that her name means dawn in the old tongue, that she is a Capricorn, and that her defining childhood memory involves a kite.

CMwww.chaptermuse.com › Guide › Format a book

Format a novel for submission, print and EPUB

The publisher's rule was to take the character count, spaces included, and divide by six: six being one average word plus its space.

CMwww.chaptermuse.com › Guide › Sagging middle

How to diagnose a sagging middle

Go through the change column and find the first line whose second column says "the protagonist" and means it, where they did something the plot did not require of them, and the next three chapters are shaped by that decision…

CMwww.chaptermuse.com › Guide › Track character arcs

Character arcs: want, need, and the lie

Contents 01An arc is what a character becomes willing to do 02A want that can't generate a scene isn't a want 03A lie that was never useful is just a flaw 04Proof is a choice the earlier self could not have made 05Change is not…

CMwww.chaptermuse.com › Guide › Local first writing software

Local-First and Offline Writing Software

Exposes: the company's balance sheet, an automated moderation decision, a card that expires while you're abroad, an exporter that was never anyone's priority, and the network being down when you have two hours to write.

CMwww.chaptermuse.com › Guide › Dialogue and subtext

How to fix on-the-nose dialogue

The characters say what they mean. Nobody is confused about anything, which had felt, up to that point, like a virtue.

CMwww.chaptermuse.com › Guide › Point of view and psychic distance

Point of view: psychic distance is a dial

Contents 01Your point of view is fine: it's your distance that keeps wandering 02Free indirect style is the character's voice wearing the narrator's clothes 03Head-hopping isn't changing heads: it's changing heads without a…

CMwww.chaptermuse.com › Guide › First pages

First pages: what makes an agent stop reading

A character driving down the road and seeing a dead plover is also action. A character reading a newspaper on the subway is action.”