Structural Editing for Romance Novelists

1. Introduction: Structural editing for Romans novelists. Hello, I'm Nina. And in the last ten years, I published 19 award-winning Romans and romantic mystery novels with mills and boon, community UK and Harper Collins. I've also a self published a series of bestselling, fast-track nonfiction guides and online courses for indie authors. I've been honored to give presentations at the annual conferences of the romantic novelist association in the UK and Romans Writers of America and many other presentations. There's one common theme running through all of my contemporary Romans books. I wanted to create light, fun and escapist entertainment. Wonder we did picks up a romans book or goes to the cinema to see a romantic comedy they expect to be entertained. But more than that, they want to step into the shoes of those characters and be swept away on their journey as they fall in love. Romans and romantic comedy have always been a literature of hope. Hope that that is somewhere out there who will see through your surface and come to love the real person you are inside. This is a unique power of the romance genre. I wanted the many reasons why romance or romantic comedy are still extremely popular in all forms of entertainment. Were not creating fiction or a screenplay. We're creating an emotional experience for the reader. In module one, I be giving you an introduction to the course and also how to make best use of the course materials. In Module two, we're looking at character arcs and how to use them. The secret behind all successful romance fiction of the characters. And how there was overcome internal and external challenges before they find love. The path your two main characters take on the pages of your book has be choreographed and shaped in a most effective and engaging Sequence possible. The great the page turning emotional experience for the reader. How to achieve that by leveraging the power of story craft and in particular, story structure. Character is plot and plot is character. Once you have created a working first draft, your Romans project, the hard work of self-editing begins starting with the fundamental infrastructure of the story. Story structure editing result known as developmental announcing it as the important stage in a self editing process. In this course, I will share with you the storage structure editing techniques that I use in my own award-winning romance fiction. In Module Three. Billy, working through how for AC, story structure, which is the core of all commercial fiction, can be applied. How to get started on structurally editing your own work. In particular, I want to share with you the eight-step structure editing process that I use. My eight steps structural editing process can be applied to the first draft of any Romans writing project in funny short stories and Vallas and screenplays. In module four. And for the deconstruction of the Milton Boon romance hired sassy as distant. I look forward to welcoming you to the course. 2. Welcome and Introduction to the Course: Hello, and thank you for joining me here today. For those of you who do not know me, my name is Ryan. We are probably more familiar with my pen name as Nina Harrington. I have written 19 contemporary Romans and romantic mystery books for Harlequin and Carina UK. Over 1.6 million of these romance novels have been solved and 23 languages worldwide. And I've even won awards for them, which I'm deeply grateful. I also write nonfiction books and training courses for other writers, and I've self-published 16 books to date. Today I want to talk about structural editing for Romans, novelists. You've done the hard part. You've created a good working draft of your romance novel. Now it's time to switch into editing mode and shape of that draft into an effective page turning Romans that your readers will love. Please note there is a very comprehensive handout available in PDF form for this presentation, which I hope you will find useful. The day you're working on the detail and understanding of what is structural editing, the types of book editing, the four act story structure, and the eight Sequence Troy structure. Then how to get started with editing your work. And the eight-step editing process are use. To support this training. I'll be using an intact worked example for a published romance. Structural editing. I'll share with you a secret. Great stories are built on strong story structure combined with innovative ideas to write stories that are fresh and new, your ideas, your genius ideas. This applies to any genre and any story Length. Bl, I believe is particularly true for genre commercial fiction, such as crime and romance novels, where readers expect to be entertained. It does not matter whether you're a plotter who uses storage structure to plan their novels in advance, or you are editing a finished draft. At some point. You have to take your ideas or your finished manuscript, your first draft or your manuscript, and put on your editor's hat and get to work on applying a story pattern to your work. The kind of hat you select aware is entirely up to you. Let's start with some definitions. But the types of book editing we're talking about here, self-editing is not an easy thing to do, but we can work through it in a methodical way. There are five main types of book editing. Structural editing is also known as developmental editing or substantive editing. It's editing that aims to improve the content and the structure of your manuscript is called Development because you're developing and building on the entire shape of your book. It's extremely comprehensive and we'll cover the plot. The characters and the character arcs, external, internal conflicts, timelines, the stakes of your characters, and the order of scenes and chapters. It's very comprehensive. Essentially, you're taking your raw text and reshaping it and molding it into the best form possible and a high structural level. After several rounds of structural editing. And yes, it may take several rounds. You should expect to see major changes in the manuscript and tie it seems sequences may need to be rewritten from a different point of view. Could cut scenes at new scenes. And in my case, tighten up, destroy. I tend to overwrite or expand the story to create a more compelling experience for your reader. And that's the bottom line. That's where I'm doing this. Story editing is different. Here you're looking at story elements such as the point of view and every chapter, making sure it's consistent. The pacing of your work, your voice, your narrative voice. Narrative descriptions that balance between narrative passages where you describe things and dialogue and action passages. For Roman sources, this is where what I call we lay in the lusciousness. We layer in the detail and move from telling to showing, to the use of language. Evocative language sends you a language. At the end of structural editing and story editing. You are now ready to go off the final polishing steps. Copy editing. A copy editor examines and correct the major grammatical and structural elements of your work regarding the text, the spelling, the grammar, the word usage, and overuse of certain words. And we all use certain guys, var2, much dialogue tax. He said, she said they said point-of-view, tensing consistency. Don't start the book using first-person point of view, then suddenly switch to third person in the next chapter for another character or the same character, and then switch back again. Stroke copy editing picks it out. Descriptive inconsistencies. You must be consistent in your character description, settings, names, backstory. I'm sure we've all read books where the character's name changes in the middle of the text or something else, and then magically reverts back to the original again at the end. Copy edits, I should pick that out. Plus, if you look at online reviews of romance novels or in the most common negative comments is the book was full of typos and spelling errors. That's not acceptable. That is one did difficult area which copy editor can pick up. A word can be spelled perfectly correctly, but it's the wrong word in that context. And your spell check on your text and documents system, it will not pick it up. But incorrect word pulsars me to out of the story. Bricks the engagement with you on romance novel. Copy editing ensures that errors like this shouldn't happen. So you are writing is as strong as possible and your reader remain focused on the story, which is what it's all about. Then we have lined editing, line, editing, literary does what it says. It goes through your manuscript line by line. Looking at the style, the content, the flow of your text, making sure it's logical and consistent throughout the novel. Then the final stage is proofreading. Have you been to all these other editing processes that proofreader is the final check before the worker goes to publishing or goes to an ancient or editor, the proofread and make sure that no spelling or grammar errors have slipped back into the manuscript affords published. This meticulous work best the final polishing your text before your readers enjoy your work. So it's very important. So after just try what kind of editing the available, but why do you want to self edit or when the main regions is cost? According to read C for a 60 thousand word book, say about $1400, about $7 a page for structural editing. For copy editing, about $1000, that's about $5 a page, and proofreading about $700 for $3 a page. And that's for 60 thousand word book. It's a lot more the longer books. One of the reasons why self editing is so important, it can save you a series of time and money while you're self-publishing or work or service into an agent for submissions editor. But as one more important thing, which is super important, self editing your work develops your own personal knowledge of story craft is super important. The days where an editor or agent will spend days or hours a day polishing a manuscript with you before the takers further is long gone. They don't have the time and resources anymore. They expect that authors to be totally professional and that means that the authors understand story craft. They want to see a clean manuscript with a compelling plot, great characters, and without glaring mistakes in spelling or grammar, that's fundamental. It's box you out to professional author. And it all starts with a fundamental part of the self editing process. There are structural attitudes. You would do that regardless of what you do with your manuscript, you must have a clean, solid working draft or your novel to work on for future. Here's advice on a professional author, Stephen King. And I totally agree with him. On a story is ready to re-write, cut it to the bot, get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt. Revising the story down at the bare essentials is always little like murdering your children, but it must be done. He's right. Structural editing is not for the faint hearted. You maybe cutting scenes which you love, dialogue which is super wonderful, enrich and invoking. But it's wrong. It doesn't need it. It's in the wrong place. The good news is that many authors loved this stage. This is the part where the dig deep and uncovered the real story that is hidden behind there huge woolly written scrappy manuscript. Some Am I think it was now Rob is described the first draft as the discovery draft. It's where you discover your characters and let them talk to you in your book. Inside that draft is the heart of a fantastic novel. You're going to work now to make it even better and reveal a deep story. 3. Character Arcs and how they are used: I've just talked about character arcs. Let's take a moment to go back and look at what I mean by character. Ok. This is my definition. The transformational character arc is the deep, emotional and psychological change your protagonist goes through on their journey. In the first sentence of the book to the end of the story. The person they were in their ordinary world and the beliefs they held when the story begins where fundamentally changed. But their time on the last page. And that's because of the Romans relationship. They will grow and change and evolve into a better person. Because the Romans relationship, for example, a character who was afraid to trust, will learn to trust. A character who has low self-esteem will gain confidence and self-worth. I think we know the story of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre as a child starts out unwanted and very unloved child in a great house where her aunt despises her. She ends up as an independently wealthy woman, modes to the man she loves. And on her terms, where she's in control. How she moves from one state to another forms the backbone of the story. How did you get the strength to stand up for herself and the truth? What were the crucial events along the way which made her the woman she turned out to be what distinguishes you take, what actions that you take. This is the character arc or character change that readers want to see in a romance. What do you bring the heroine and the hair hero onto the stage? And the ordinary life will bring them together with all the limiting beliefs and behaviors which they've developed to protect themselves. So what do I mean by the term limiting belief? To me, each of us lives within and operates out of a complex set of beliefs and behavior that define us and our interaction with the world in which we live. Our beliefs are linked to our feelings of self-worth and self-esteem. And how you believe other people in the world see us. A limiting belief is a powerful and deep-seated belief that we're not capable of doing something or not capable of being someone. We're not capable of feeling something. A limiting belief held us back from achieving what we are capable of. In most cases, these limiting beliefs are based on our personal past experiences and the lessons we have learned dealing with people and situations before the story begins. For example, let's imagine that our heroine is a wedding planner and she's a tilted bride. Have Yonsei runoff for the younger sister the night before the wedding, leaving or declare up the MAY ham and disaster of the wedding she planned and paid for. In her backstory, her father walked out on her when she was 15, leaving her to look after her mother and sister. She truly believes she's not worthy of love and is not going to put herself in a position where should be rejected and we abandoned again. That's a limiting belief. Let's agree about one thing. Romance fiction is character-driven. Without compelling characters, you don't have a romance story. I read a piece by Roman story to share the emotional journey our counters will take as they fall in love and overcome at these deep inner conflicts through challenging transformational character arcs before they are ready to commit to a real, long-lasting, loving relationship. The objective we have is to combine character arcs. These characters with all the limiting beliefs, with destroys structure to create a Romans which is well-motivated, real, and engrossing for the reader. So act one is very important. That act one is the start of the character. Ok? You establish, enact one, the starting position of who these people are before they fall in love, before the Romans. A relationship brings about their character growth. So we need to work quite closely on October and to make sure that is a compelling, an engrossing act. Now we've been to, Let's look at character auction action using a worked example. This is based on Tony and Scott story published as, who's afraid the big bad boss by Harlequin mills and boom. I'm Tony about Danny had accepted a commission to paint the portrait of the CEO of elles from industries. Tony needs the money to help pay for younger sisters gap here with something left. University fees. Tony has taken care of her sister since their parents early death. The theme of the story is about family loyalty and letting go of the past. So we start the story in the heroin in her ordinary world. Well, it opens, Tony is hawk sitting in London. It's a birthday party. What's a short-term goal when his story starts? This is the external goal with a very clear end point. Her goal is to get ready to paint the portrait of businessmen, laws, all strum. Tony needs the money for her sister. What's the stakes? Why is it important that she has this goal? It Tony does not get paid. You will need to take a second job or move to cheaper area to pay the bills and help Amy. Why now? Amy is just about to leave on her gap year before University. And Tony, it's fine to rent out their home to pay for the gap year and university and haplotype more aside for Amy when she gets back photocopier. It's all about finding the income to support her sister. What does Tony's long-term goal, how longing, that deeply held desire, which has not found the courage to go after yet. Tony would love to earn a living painting portraits like her father did for her. But does not have the Finance to make it happen. Her sister must come first. Watson need, what is Tony need? What's the thing that's missing in her life? Tony needs to discover that she is perfect the way she is. Just always be made to feel broken and unworthy. And second best. She never felt good enough to her parents. Jolts, tells you disappointed them. What is Tony's wound? The annealing source of continuing pain in screenwriting terms is known as the ghost. The ghost that still haunts her. Her wound is a sudden death of our artists parents when she was 18 and assist it was 12-years-old. Tony suddenly had to become the breadwinner. So she sacrificed her dreams and went to work to pay the bills. This wound has invented identity mask that they show to the world. We should be slowly chipped away by your interaction with the hero. As they reveal their true nature. On the surface, Tony seems confident, clever, amusing, bursting with energy and enthusiasm. On the surface, Tony can do anything. But who's the character without the mask? Her soul under essence, the person she must become. Because a true love, the hero in this case embodies assessment. Bless her mask. Tony is scared. This is a new start. He's going to need to find a new home. What he rents out her old home, her family home. The income. She has a new portrayed to paint. She has not felt like paintings at the breakup with a cheating boyfriend who used her. Again, reinforcing or feelings that she's not worthy in second best. What does Tony's core belief that the way the world works, the universal coach healers by Tony has learned from experience that people will reject you and let you down. If you open their heart, your heart to them. So don't let them, don't let them in. They will reject you, they will abandon you. What is the deep fear that is linked to this belief? What would destroy them? Wound again, cause them pain again. Tony fields are worthy of love and a super lots of rejection of all kinds in her life. She fears giving out odorant rejected again, leaving her abandoned by the people she loves best. How does this internal conflict creates a relationship barrier? Tony will fighter attraction to Scott because you'd be never for and it's too painful when he leaves and he will leave. That is obvious. Character story maps. This is how I use character arc to build on the classic story structure. A four stage story development process. I recommend this is the simplest way and fastest way to dive into a story. You start with one character. Your main character is usually the character is going to be transformed the most by the Romans relationship. In most cases, it is the Ke, heroin. There doesn't have to be, by the way, I'm using the terms hero and heroine in his presentation. But everything I say can be applied equally to same sex relationships. Then you sketch out an emotional story map for the journey that your character is going to take. What choices were your character make under pressure? And that's why each romance is unique. The unique people that make different choices. There are no formula here. 4. Introduction to Structural Editing : Hello and welcome to my home office. Editing the first draft or your romance novel really is the fun part of the entire editing process. Why? Because you know that you have created a wonderful Romans. Now you have the chance to step back and look at your book from a high level. You're looking at the entire manuscript. Now you can see the wonderful journey, but your characters have taken and then shape that journey into the kind of emotional experience. But your readers will love Romans, readers just like us, loved the genre and are both smart and intuitive. Readers have come to expect that there'll be a pattern of events and any Romans, the standard route markers on emotional journey that the characters and the reader will take before they reach the happy ending. Your promise to the reader is that you will take them on a roller coaster journey or falling in love with all the emotional ups and downs, swings and roundabouts at the hero and the heroine of the same gender couple will have to go through a result of all the challenges that you are thrown at them. On the first meeting, right through to the last page. That's emotional journey will never be a straight road. But it is a road. And on that road where root markers, which act as a guide where the Romans is heading. These turning points are where the road bends and a dangerous stakes increase. Structural editing helps you to guide your characters and your readers on this journey. There was one very important thing to note, the call of your story and your characters do not change. By the end of the first draft, your characters have already shown you how they react to the challenges that are thrown at them. That's why it's called a discovery draft after all. But when you start writing that first draft, the characters may be very different people from the ones that you thought they were. The common lived, they've evolved. But now three-dimensional real people by the end of the manuscript. That means, you know what happened at the end of the book. And I can go back to the first scene, chapter one and chapter all a character traits, beliefs, and external conflicts are right there on the page. Now you can track how those characters change and evolve in every scene until I reached the final self-revelation and find love. You now know lot more about your characters and you did when you first started writing them. And as you wrote to the structure of the text, you'll be amazed at how many new ideas for scenes and new ideas for dialogue emerge. Perhaps you don't need a lot of the texts that you've written. That is, ok. Remove it, save it, and replace it with texts which moves a story forward and moves this character's forward in their character. Ok. The good news is that all you need to get started with structural editing is the first draft of your text. Your favorite pen. A pack of sticky notes or blank piece of paper or card, and a flat surface to lay them on. So with that, let's dive into my eight-step structural editing process. Please note as a full PDF handout with the complete process, which you'll find in the resource section of this module. Thank you for watching. 5. Romance Fiction Story Structure: In some commercial fiction, such as crime fiction, the external plot is crucial to the story. These are known as plot driven books. Romans fiction, on the other hand, is fundamentally character-driven. But that does not mean that you can neglect the plot. The plot is the sequence of events that create the strong backbone. But your wonderful romance is built on. Now that you've worked on the character arcs for your hero and heroine, you can start editing your draft for the turning points of your novel that will create the page turning read that your readers will adore. Character is plot. They are completely intertwined in commercial romance fiction, which is character-driven. And this has to be reflected in the draft of your novel, your manuscript. They work together so that character is revealed by the actions and reactions are decisions that character takes in response to the challenges. You gotta throw at them to the external plots situation. In turn, the plot is driven by those reactions and decisions in a series of scenes and sequence to those scenes. So that in one scene, the character makes a decision at the end of the scene, which leads automatically to the start of the next scene. In that way, the scene and SQL links to the character and the plot to create a unified whole. The plot is built up by the actions of the characters take under pressure. You've already started working on the character arc for your, for your hero and you're heroin, you know, and have a strong sense of who your main characters are. The external plot is the dilemma, challenge or conflict situation, which you put them in. Their responses, actions and decisions will generate your plot. Then you can start shaping those reactions into the best form possible for your story. This is story structure, and that's what we're going to talk about next. Story, magic. Strongly structure magic. How a story's really structured. And how can you work out the right structure for your story? Or the good news is, that's already been done. Frameworks have been created for you to use. I spent years studying the best drawing telling teachers like Joseph Campbell, robot a key, John Tooby, Blake Snyder and Christopher Vogler. Plus at the published full-time Romans off there with mills and boon and Harper Collins. I worked with several terrific authors. And terrific editors who I shared with me in-depth information about story structure, character development, and how to write compelling romance fiction, where I started out, this was gold. It allows me to combine story structure from screenwriting and novelists with the romance story development I needed. I learned how to combine story craft with Roman specific story structure to create award-winning romance fiction. And imagine that you are building a house. You start at the bottom with the foundations, the groundwork, the floor layout, and the underpinnings of the building. Then the brickwork starts. You can build an office block, residential home, or a retail store, whatever you architects blend dictates. But some nations are exactly the same. Story structure is the foundations which underpins all of your work. On top of those foundations, you can build any kind of fresh and new store you like of any length and an, any romance sub-genre. The foundations of the story are the same and that's crucial fact. The story or build on those foundations is your creative genius. But you need a story structure to support your work. Does that make sense? I hope so. Storage structure is a solid foundation underpinning for your aromas. The story, idea and the characters may sound great as an idea, but without structure, you'll end up sliding down the side of the mountain. As this Shalit and bond was just about to do in recent holiday in Switzerland precoded. So how can we use stories, craft techniques from screenwriting. The good news at the same storage stretch tech news use by screenwriters can be applied to fiction and especially commercial genre fiction such as romance. Why? Because the goal of the screenwriter, the objectivist screenwriter, is precisely the same as a novelist and asked to create a compelling emotional journey for the audience and our case readers. And there can be no better journey than the ups and downs roller coaster ride of romance fiction. That job is to choreograph and control the emotions of the audience watching the movie in every single scene. I think it was Joseph Campbell who said that. A movie is made up of 60 two-minute great scenes. It is a scene by scene analysis of the emotions. Don't have to do that with our work. But you can see the fundamental similarity. In a properly constructed movie or any story. The story consists of six basic stages, which are defined and broken up by five key turning points in this plot. Not only are these turning points always the same, do the same function, the occupy the same position in the story more or less. I'm not one of those writers who says it has to be exactly this percentage, but it's more or less the same position in the story. Wonderful screenwriter, Michael Hague, who was, has wonderful story classes, has a diagram below which describes classical story structure. What is describing is a structure made up of sequences, of scenes which combined into act. So you write your scene, you write number of scenes and let them together to make a sequence. Then those sequences combined to react during meiosis combine to Act Two and Three in many cases, but not always in most fiction would be four acts. If you're writing a long novel, it could be three or four sequences of scenes per Act. Was a short story or short novel may only have one sequence broken up into small chapters. But the fact is true in classical story structure, scenes are collected into sequences of scenes. Was a start, a middle, and an end to each collection of scenes. Each sequence ends up the turning point that hooks on to the next scene sequence. That worry that I'll explain that in much more detail in a moment about turning points here. I think that these drawing turning points as tent poles, if you've ever gone camping and have a tent, or been to a circus where there's a big tent. You need to hold up the tent with poles. These poles hold up the rest of the story as the conflict increases in the tent, poles are all in one side of the tent. And the whole thing is completely unbalanced and it will collapse. We've all read Romans drawers where the setup, an ordinary world seems to take forever. Then Sony, the love story and the dark moment and the resolution is crammed into the end. No, don't do that. Use these techniques, use these turning points techniques to set milestones on the journey that the counters are taking. And it's balanced out. Across your eight sequences. Your story will meet the expectations of your readers who want to see the characters battle against the odds and make the wrong choices before they can come together. The greater the battle, the sweeter, the end result. Let's think about that. If you're here on harrowing get-together, on, at one, fall in love, get married Anna Hazare after. Thank you very much to the end. There's no emotional conflict there, there's no story. That's not what we want to see. They want to see these characters and their love and their Romans. Here's a great demonstration of those ten pegs. Ten goals from story fix. The major turning points are there. And the plot shifts. The greater the battle, the sweeter. The end result. Here is the process I use. And I would recommend it to you. Let's say to 60 thousand word romance novel. We are four acts. And in those acts, there are eight sequences of scenes. This is a very simple story plan, but it works, but I would recommend it to you. While I to say that I've just hit you with a lot of information about four Act Structure and 18 structure. But basically it's about conflict, emotional conflict drives any Romans enact one. The hero and heroine are leaving their ordinary lives than they meet. Something happens in inciting incident which completely frozen mouth guard turns on outer that ordinary life as the point of the plot that begins a storyline that lock together in some way enact to fall in love. The conflict increases as the stakes increase. The turning point is where they have to decide and make a commitment to love or revert back to that old way of living and the old belief systems. And in that for the falling action phase, it's the events that lead to the ending. It's all about conflict. And the four act Aid sequence structure bills that conflict and gives you the strength you need. I've talked about the journey begins in the opening few chapters ago. Romans stage one. The first act. We introduce and establish our hero and our heroine in their ordinary world, that ordinary life. We hook the reader with interesting characters. Usually we start with one character and makes sure the reader understands this is the character that going to be most engage with. Usually it's the heroine, uh, but it may not be. In many books I used the hero. We then builds sympathy and empathy for that character by showing they're lacking something that came onto the stage with their own needs, their own wants and expectations for the future. By the end of this first collection of scenes, the reader should know the external conflict about characters and their internal conflict. What is missing in the life and the psychology of the protagonists with the other person will fulfill. This is the starter, that character arc. This first sequence ends with a plot point or turning point called the inciting incident. From screenwriting. Something unusual happens in this ordinary world which completely turned their life around, has to be something completely out of the blue. This usually happens about ten to 15% of the way through the book. That's sequence, one. Sequence to our hero and heroine are usually together at this point, we've introduced them both. They have to react to this new situation, this startling new event, this inciting incident. But they don't want to change. They're going to resist moving out of their established lives. So something has to push them to commit, to train, to change, and try something new. This links their motivation and needs at this point where the story begins. But one thing is very clear from now on, their lives are going to be different. They're going on a journey for at this point, they have a very specific objective to achieve and decide to go for it. This is the external plot that brings a hero and heroine together. That strongly situation what it does is forces them to stay locked together. The Romans then truly begins from this point. This is a turning point too, about 25 cells the way through the book, CTL, the book, the rest of your story builds out from your turning point at quarter way through the book to actually was a falling in love stage the book, this is the fun part of the book. This is why readers come to us. The first sequence, sequence x3, is I call connection and communication. In end of Act One, we've locked together in some sort of project or initiative, or some way where they are forced to communicate and interact with one another. At this point, they're still relying on their old self protection mechanisms. But in this sequence three, they start to see another side of the person as they are forced to work together and communicate. The sorts of get attracted to one another. They start to notice more things about the other person. How they talk, the tone they use, the words they use, and how they act. Sequence three ends in a small turning point called a pinch point, where something changes in their relationship, which locks them even closer together, is usually around 40% part in the book. Again, not being prescriptive. The seconds parts back to sequence for is recognition and communication. They recognize the value in the other person. And it started to communicate like human beings, that connection and their dialog and their actions build acceptance and trust with one another as the joy beam with the other person. The key thing about sequence for is that it ends with a major shift in the external plot and the relationship which locks the hero and heroine together in a very powerful way. This could be a sexual moment, a close Bowman, intimate, or personal moment. But it has to be a fundamental shift that changes the entire direction of the story. This is slum bank, in the middle of your book, is known as the mid point of no return Turning Point Reyes, halfway through the book. They cannot go back from this point. Everything else that follows pivots on this midpoint seen right in the middle of your book. That's how important it is. And also make sure there's no sagging middle. Something seriously happens in the middle of your book. Which moves us onto three enact tree. The characters have to react to what's happened at that scene. And the midpoint, the stakes increase at several levels. The relationship starts to grow and is threatened, but they go against that threat. That limiting beliefs and fears are overcome by deep connection. They step outside their comfort zone and start to disclose and share their life for the other person. Usually there's intimacy and passion for another, leading to a strong trusting a bond between them, lincoln them even closer together. One or the other of the characters is trusting enough and vulnerable enough to share their background story and the causes and the complex. In screenwriting terms is called the ghost because it's something which happened in the past. Which still holds that character. Let's say it's the heroine telling the hero about her tilted wedding and the fact that her sister betrayed her with her boyfriend and her fiance bitrates or with a sister. He has to respond tens elites the revelation with warmth and understanding, showing that she was right, It's okay to trust this person. It's okay to be vulnerable. Birth this person. This leads us and see a bonding, intimacy and sensitive, deep, possibly even protection. And this sequence five, ends in a pinch point, a small turning point. Something changes in a relationship. About the 65% in the book. It could be a great disclosure, explosion of emotion. It could be a revelation, a copy, the fact that they share the story, this backstory, but isn't a major event in the relationship. Will then move on to the second part of Act Three, sequence six, square. The relationship starts to have problems. The stakes run pop. The problems ramp up. As external and internal conflict increases, as their passion for another develops, they grow mutually dependent on another natural bond between them. They've really have fallen in love at this point. They both moved away from that limiting beliefs and grown as people into a trusting relationship and a trusting state. The other person will share their source of pain and internal conflict in a major revelation scene. But then something happens. Something major threatens their relationship as usually to the external conflict. But it directly challenges the internal conflict and fingers of one of them. It could willing to revelation about the character's backstory or betrayal of trust. Or they think it's betrayal of trust, or a real attack on the person's self-worth. For example, the find out the other person who has been keeping a great secret from them or not telling them the whole truth. But it's a major setback. It threatens the relationship. It destroys some elements of the truss there. One of them steps back from the relationship and retreats back into the old self protective mode because of this event, sequences ends with turning point for the major setback at about 75% through the book. This is known as the dark night of the soul or the black moment and as the compulsory plot point and any Romans, It's a big threats of relationship. It deserves to habits moment. We then move into act for in-app, for everything they gained in the story and relationships so far seems risk. They're under attack. All left fields, fears and deep concerns about being vulnerable are back in place. They tried to go forward and grow and it's all come back and bit him. If you're miserable again now, the old belief systems threatened to destroy the relationship. Now the chance there have to regroup and work out whether they want to do something to save that relationship. That what they do now is in the final push, the US, the new strengths and lessons they have learned in their character growth, but not the same person you were where the story began. There have changed. Which means they have to take everything they have learned and take a remarkable leap of faith. And the other person sequence ends in the turning 0.5. The climax decision. This is do or die. At this point. They commit the compromise or the walkaway. It's as simple as that. Usually as happens at 90% in the book as the action ramp step towards the end. Sequence eight is the final scene. Sequence is the aftermath and resolution. After the climax decision, the hero and heroine commits one another and finds a lighter work together in some way, they have resolved. What's happened at the end of the previous scene. Are the hero or heroine or both. And it's much better if it's both. Have a self-revelation, a new discovery, which drives them to become the person who represents their true self. They have to show how they have grown, overcome their obstacles, and conquered the old beliefs. They have earned their happy ever after. And this is h. This is the end of the book. Her are. Now you know how classical story structure works. You can get started on building out a powerful emotional experience for your reader in your story. And that's what we're going to do next. 6. The Eight-Step Structural Editing Process: Here's a reminder of a very simple story map, if it helps to make it clearer for you. We have four acts with two sequences of seeing PER act for, let's say, a short novel of say, 6 thousand words. The number of scenes in your book could be very different, but the basic structure still applies. Act One. We have our characters in their ordinary life with their limiting beliefs all in place. Actuals are falling in love stage, the counter, see how their lives could be different if the let go of the old beliefs in Act three, They really are falling in love now, building commitment to the other person and also that means increase vulnerability. But something happens with challenges them all over again and revert to their old protection mechanisms. In at four, they take a leap of faith and do what they've always wanted to do because of their growth, because of the Romans relationships under past events. So let's get started with structural editing. Please note this is my process. Every single writer is different and what works for me may not work for you. All I can tell you is that from what I've learned in over 20 years as a full-time writer in commercial romance fiction, that readers expect to read stories which follow from familiar story patterns to the ones they know and love, which contained compulsory milestones along the emotional journey the characters will take. If you don't have these milestones, the reader can feel cheated or think there's something missing in the story. Plus, if you are submitting your work to a literary agent or editor, the publishing house, they will expect you to have a sound understanding of story structure. This is how they know that you are going to deliver a satisfying read and can do it for this book and the next book and the book after that. They'll even forget the occasional typo if your story blows them away and the structure is rock solid. In my process, I start with the opening chapters and worked from front to back when I edit my first draft. And now what happens at the end of the draft to the story, because the caps of Tony, what's happens. So I can work it into the opening chapters. Yes. That does mean that the first chapter will change and evolve. But this gives me a solid second draft. And importantly, and know what to do with those later scenes when I come to them. Because I've set up the story in the first act and the character, OK, in the first act. It really does work. Let's start with the most important part of the book to many readers. Act one. Yes, I want to start my self editing process. If possible. Take some time away from your manuscript. I notice it's very tricky if you're on a deadline or your limited time. But it can really help if you stepped out of your creative writing head. And what's on your objective? Editors mindset. Imagine you don't love your characters. You don't want to protect them, and you're coming to the story completely cold. Just as an outside person would. Then what you do is collect a whole stack of index cards, part of sticky notes, or cutting half pieces of paper. Anything you can write a paragraph on a few lines on. And this is one time where pen on paper are much better tools that digital spreadsheets or charts that J Visa can choose one piece of paper or card or sticky note for HCI. Then you're going to scribble down your notes and ideas on extra pieces of cardboard paper. As you work to the text, you're going to give each SIM card a name, which makes sense to you for that scene. For example, if you have seen the film knotting Hill as the scene where you grant spills orange juice all over Julia Roberts. That is a scene. That's step 12. Are going to create a scene step outlined. The first act of your book is working from the beginning to the end. Starting at Chapter One, Scene one. Read your manuscript through to the end of Act One. If you don't know where that is or you're not sure about it. Go to about 25% of the way through the book and at the end of a chapter at that point. And you're not reading for pleasure your meetings to get the big picture of the story you've created. Some authors prefer to print out these opening chapters so they can sit down with their pen and read out the whole thing on paper and then use the SIM cards to mark out the scenes. They parked. There were no them where the scene shift and new scenes begin. Where you're now going to do is write down the key, what's called beats in story structure or action points about what happens in that scene on one card or one bit of paper. 1 of view, one character, what they are doing. What happens in the scene? How's it going to move this thing forward? Hieroglyphs, move the story forward. Then you collect together all the cards on your notes for act one. Or why you think at one Moby and put them together. Here is a worked out line might help explain what I mean. Pristine step. These are the opening chapters of my built-in Milton boom book, Hired sassy assistant. I was fortunate that the run Tech Times Magazine choses book as top pick for January 2010. And it's actually the reviewers Choice Award for the best Harlequin romance of 2010, which I was delighted to receive the award. We start off with chapter one, scene one, and we have medic column and row is in London. It's on London Underground. He sees a woman struggling with a large parcel and offers to help. Straight away, we're introduced to Kyle Monroe. He's a risk-taker from the first page is exciting adventure. He's skilled, athletic, strong. They chat and share with you banter and agree to share a taxi. Reveal counter just returned from the pole with a broken wrist. That's seen one, chapter one, seem to what the female character or heroin Lulu Hamilton. Lulu is in London on the way to launch. Reveal about her psychology, reveal her backstory and move the story forward. Reveal she gave up her university education. Take to kick off our father when her mother died, reveal her mother was a famous surgeon. Reveal she has partial hearing revealed on the way to meet mike Baxter and all central mother who could help raise money for the hospice where her father died. So in these two scenes, we have introduced our hero and heroine. Okay, let's go on to the next scene. Let's move on to seeing three. We're still in Chapter one. And we're in kyle point of view. And Kyle isn't office getting ready for the book launch with might Baxter, the same lightbox that legalist coming to meet reveal colors come from a TB Clinic in India and Nepal. Reveal cows because Dan social media was online diary and has written a book to be launched that day. Reveal Carl was in a war zone and Africa ten years earlier. The media company, you want to make a documentary about his work there. And there wasn't provides a new book about his experiences as a medic in Africa. And the advance for those products projects were paved, the vaccines, his clinic needs now reveal that Karl is very reluctant. He has painful memories about the past in Africa, but he's also dedicated medic and he will do what it takes to save lives. So he agreed to do this project. That's the end of chapter one. Chapter two starts. And liberal point of view. Liberals were def, might Baxter when the Munchie metronome to ground walks in through the outdoor, reveal, his photos on the back of the book. And reveal. She wonders if this mine Man, this engine mountaineering medic man, has a wife and children at home who are concerned about him. I want him to come home. Now in chapter two. Let's go. Let's go back to Lulu when seen five now, Lulu is at the press conference for the book launch. Reveal. Kyle is a total Indiana Jones star. The cameras absolutely love reveal. Mike Baxter comes to talk to her and she tells her that he wants Lulu to help Kyle write a book about the time Kyle spent with her late mother, the surgeon, on her mother's last mission in Africa just before he died. This is the inciting incident. It is totally unexpected, but it's also very painful. Lulu does not want to go back to the subject of her mother's death in Africa is too painful for her. This instant comes about page to 24. I wanted one in my draft and it's about 30% of the way through the book. So it's major events. Just to react to it. Let's go to six. Lula's reaction to the invitation is painful, but might Baxter persuaders to consider it? Reveal is as little as point of view. Again. Cow dedicated the book to her mother. He obviously admire enormously. Reveal my honest leaves to go to her mother's records and find a diaries and letters she sent back from Africa to a home and capture. These were helped culture writes his book, reveal Mike officer a large sum of money to work with Kyle, do the paperwork and any admin is broken. His wrist, money that she could spend on the hospice where her dad died, and also how to pay the bills and have family home. It's emotional blackmail. But you cannot say no. It is for other people. So she's, at the end of chapter two, she's considering it will now go to Scene seven. Lula's point-of-view. Lulu sitting alone at the buffet lunch party held for Kyle, who's acting out is passed to the adventurer and media star. Times anecdotes and entertain the crowd. Reveal her hearing is a problem. Doesn't do well in big crowds. And the all crushing round in this, in this buffet lunch party in this restaurant reveal she's dreading the thought of going back through her mother's letters and the pain of a death in Africa, reveal she goes out to the restaurant to look over the Thames on her own and thinks about maybe she just can't do this. Maybe she has to tell might know. Just as they look considers what to do with their offer. Calcium data, join her. Oldish heels of her high-heel shoes get stuck in the wooden decking. He rescued is for her and puts on her food like a glass slipper. Cinderella and the prince style. Then might Baxter introduces them and his glitter glue that Carl has no idea that Lulu is Ruth Hamilton's daughter. After shocking event. In the next scene, Collis stunned Cal point of view. He had no idea that Ruth Hamilton, the surgeon who worked with for so long, had a family. He never hurt dimension it. Karla explains clearly why he needs the money for this book and appeals to our sense of justice. Reveal, He needs to have someone to help him create a draft in three weeks and he's a terrible typist. Unease broken his wrist. Reveal Lily was still uncertain but lays down rules and conditions. Reveal they have a deal. She agreed to do it. At this point we have major turning 0.1. Tile and millieu are locked into working together on this project is the end of Act One. And in my draft, it's page 40, tube a 181, which is about 23% of the content. That's step two. We've outlet out lined the content. Step three is to layout the scene cards into sequences of scenes. In my worked example, there are eight scenes which make up act one of hired sassy assistant devised into seen two sequences. Page one, the inciting incident where she's asked by my Baxter to help Kyle is sequence one. And sequence two is from the invitation to the first major turning point where she agrees to do it that sequence to 18th, two sequences. You then lay out the cards or sticky notes on any flat surfaces you have. You can do it in one long column for all of act one or two short columns, or how many columns you need for each of the scenes sequences. Mixture as a turning point at the end of every scene sequence. It looks something like this in my case. Now we're in step four. You've laid out your cards on a flat surface. Now SIMD to stand back and take an objective view of your scenes in that one. Ask yourself some very critical questions, or start to take notes on paper cards as you go or scribbled on your printed out sheets. Have you introduce your hero and heroine in a way that tells the reader what their self-defeating beliefs, needs, wants, and challenges are at that moment in time when the story starts. They will have lots of emotional baggage and self sabotaging beliefs and behaviors. Have you shown that on the page and an effective way to dialogue and action, as well as introspection. What have they always been afraid of? Watched it always wants to do. Is that clear? At least hinted that in your opening scenes, the reader wants to see the character transformed over the course of the book because of her relationship and the difficult choices you have to make under pressure. So you had to show on the page how much of a journey that character is going to have to make, and how much they resist the pain of having to face those fears. The bigger the fear, the great satisfaction for the reader at the end as they move from a state of living in a fear to live in courageously. So you need to show that fear and the opening chapters so the reader can recognize the growth and change or the characters or the end of the book. What changes? What happens in this sequence of scenes which promotes a fundamental shift or change in the character or their situation. So have you got an inciting incident? Have you got an event where the life of the hero and heroine is completely changed. Something happens to throw them out of their balance and upset that ordinary worlds. And how does this twice this kickoff the story? Now at the end of Act One, Do you ever major turning point where the hero and heroine make a decision which will lock them together and force them to communicate. Doesn't have to be some joint project, but has to be some good reason why these two people are going to spend serious time together from this point on. I'm sure we've all read Roman says, where we don't understand why these people are even together. So the balance destroyed pattern is super important in Romans diction. And I would strongly advise you to aim to have this major turning point is locking event between 2020, 30% of your novel. The other story points would then spin off from this first commitment when they're locked together in some way. Then when you break into act two, the love story can really get started. We laid out our scenes. We've looked at them. Now is to get together some deep work. Our next step is to map out the scenes. You know, the endpoint is sequence one and sequence two about one. Now you can make sure you bill a story out to support the inciting incident at the end of sequence one. And the main turning points sequence to where the hero and heroine are locked together in some way. Reorganize the manuscript to create most effective, compelling story of your characters. Is there a great hook in the first few scenes leading up to the inciting incident, which will keep the Buddhist Turning the Pages. Ask yourself constant questions about the people and what they're doing, and why. How many scenes have the heroine point of view? How many scenes have the heroes point of view? Can you improve the bones between those scenes? Or if you're written in first-person point of view. How could we introduced enough dialogue to get into the head of that first-person and interact with the other person. Find out now if there are missing scenes or too many scenes. If you're cutting scenes of cutting texts, don't forget to save dissect and a separate document. I'm sure your user again, another way. That's step for, let's go to step five. In step five, I recommend that you save a copy of the text as act one. Many authors find it helpful to divide the text up to acts when a self editing, so they don't feel overwhelmed and a thought of tackling the entire manuscript all at once. Then at the end, they combine all four back together again. This can be very helpful. I would recommend that you save a fresh copy of your electronic manuscripts, were purchasing document until it everything behind the act one turning point at around 25%. So you're only working on the opening scenes at any one time. It does help and it does make editing a lot easier, are strongly recommended. You always have your backup. You always have your original document. But this is just working on act one. Step six. Start working on your text. If you'd be objective with your review, you should have a generated a ton of ideas and notes about this opening party, your document. Now it's time to get ideas from your SIM cards and move them around and come transfer the information from your SIM cards onto your welding process document, cracked one. Go back to your SIM cards and start moving them around at your notes to every card, right, your extra cars and pin them where they should go in the scene sequence. Take out your scene. Carter aren't delivering. Add notes about what you can change and write new ones to take their place. Built a scene sequence, outline of the new scenes. You're going to write the change scenes and check that the structure delivered the emotional impact you're going for. Then go to each scene in your manuscript, your electronic manuscript, back one. You can do some paper if you are printed out sheets by scribbling notes and moving them around. But it's often better to do that. But at the end of the day, you're going to have to go back to electronic document and start working on the checklist. At your notes and ideas. The start of each scene. Reordered them. If you need to insert new scenes, insert new texts, and add your notes for that scene. I find it helpful to change the color of the text I'm adding so it's clear what's new and what was there before. You can change it from black to red or any other color. Then you can start rewriting and editing the scenes. And I plead with you to give this stage the time it needs. It can take several drafts over several days. This is perfectly ok. This is normal. Don't forget, these are the opening scenes which are crucial for your reader. And it's also the top-level Structural Editor of your work. You'll be going back to this. I think there's a depth dialogue in detail and you can make notes as you go. But right now we want to give time to get the scene structure right, so we know where we're going and we know we have a solid opening. First, second raft. That step 67 is to read through the whole of Act One. If you can't read it out loud, look for pacing and conflict and emotion. When you're happy, safe the whole file as a new file, either call it something like act one edge and give it a date. You've now created a second draft of a quarter of your entire block. So it should be celebrated. So take time out to take a breather and celebrate before moving on. We're now going to move step users coming. Now you have to repeat the entire process for act 234. Early on in this presentation, I gave an eight sequence structure for what happens in that 234. Use those notes to outline the scene sequences in other three acts of your romance. And if it helps, again, create separate documents for act two, separate document factory, separate document for Act for. So you don't feel overwhelmed by working through the scenes in each act. Some authors like to go straight to act for her work on the end of the character arc, you have just created an act one for both of your hero and you're heroin, and that's absolutely fine. That's totally cool. You do whatever works for you. This is your book and your process. Yes, you will. Removing scenes. Yes, you will be adding conflicts in detail. So yes. You may have to come back to the opening chapters to add more detail to those opening scenes. You're doing so from a position of a strong second rapidly opening chapters. The good news. Once you understand for Act eight Sequence story structure, I can apply it to the or this book. You can apply it for any book. You write your next book and the book after that. And in doing so, you're building a powerful stories that readers will love. And same time, you're building a career as a fiction author.