9. Checklist and Exercises

Revision checklist

Run each scene–sequel pair in a finished draft against this list. Each item corresponds to one of the diagnostic tests or failure patterns; an unticked item is a question to answer, not a verdict.

Goal and resistance

• I can state what the viewpoint character wants at the start of the unit, with a verb of pursuit and an object.
• I can point to the decision that produced the goal.
• Each obstacle tells the character, and the reader, something new.

Disaster

• The unit ends in a sentence I can write with but or worse.
• I can name what the character paid, and in what currency.
• The disaster arises from the action, not from outside it.

Sequel

• The reaction is carried by the body and the attention, or a retrospective narrator’s naming is doing work.
• I can state both costs of the dilemma in one sentence each, and a sympathetic reader could choose either.
• The decision names a place, an object or a person, and closes some door.
• Any decision withheld across a break is paid, visibly, later.

Chain

• Written as bare events, each of three links would not have happened without the one before.
• My three-connective outline has no run of three and thens, and contains at least one but.

Weight

• The space each sequel gets follows the weight of the disaster it answers.
• The book’s largest sequel follows its largest disaster.

Arc

• I can name the decision at which the protagonist chooses on grounds they did not hold before.
• Where a beat is missing, the absence is deliberate and the reader can cross it.

Exercises

1. The three-connective outline. Outline one chapter of your draft as a list of events joined only by and then, but and therefore. Mark every and then, and rewrite the disaster before the first one so that it forces the next goal.

2. Costs before options. Take the hardest choice your protagonist makes. Before rereading it, write what each option costs, one sentence each. Then rewrite the dilemma from the costs, giving the option your character refuses its best case.

3. The beat-weight audit. Run the audit in the diagnostic tests over ten consecutive pairs from the middle of your draft. Find the largest disaster and the longest sequel. If they are not the same pair, decide which one is wrong.

4. Compress and expand. Rewrite one of your full sequels as a single sentence that carries reaction, dilemma and decision. Then expand one of your compressed sequels to a page. Read both against their disasters and decide which setting each pair needs.

5. Find the hinge. List your protagonist’s five largest decisions and, beside each, the rule by which the character chose. If the rule never changes, either find the decision that should be made on new grounds or write a paragraph explaining why your book, like Manchester by the Sea, is about a criterion that cannot move.

See also: the Reference checklist and studio work, with further exercises, seminar questions and an assessment rubric.