My first draft was a mess until I tried the 'reverse outline' trick

I had a 50,000 word draft for my fantasy novel that felt all over the place, so I printed it out and wrote one sentence for each scene on index cards. Seeing it all laid out on my floor in Seattle showed me three whole chapters that didn't move the plot forward at all. Has anyone else tried a method like this to fix a draft that's gone off the rails?

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3 Comments

nina_johnson866mo ago

Love the index card idea for spotting dead weight.

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jade5406mo ago

Printed the whole thing and used different colored highlighters for plot, character, and world building. The visual mess was a real wake up call.

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paulw876mo ago

Oh man... @jade540, that sounds like a crime scene photo from a craft store. Hope the rewrite goes better than my eyesight after looking at that.

1