Where would a reader of my first chapter shelve the book, and does my last chapter belong on the same shelf?
What is the core promise of the genre my opening declares, and where do I keep it?
Does my jacket copy, or my pitch, promise anything the book declines?
Conventions kept, varied and declined
Have I listed every convention the book invokes, with the place it is first invoked?
For each declined convention, is there a sign inside the book within the first quarter, and a replacement promise that I keep?
Is every declined question kept in view to the end, so that the decline reads as design rather than forgetting?
Which convention do I vary, and is that where the book’s meaning lies?
Will a reader of my mode read any detail as a clue that I never meant to answer?
The volume
Can I write this volume’s question in a line, and is it closed inside the volume?
Is my last page spent on this volume’s ending, with any step on the series question after the close?
The series
What form have my first volumes declared, and does this one keep it?
What step does each volume take on the series question, and could a reader name it?
How long has each carried thread been dormant, counted in volumes and in the reader’s months?
Does my first chapter serve both a returning reader and a new one, with recap delivered as present consequence?
Is my hero’s criterion where the last volume left it, or does this volume show it moving?
Exercises
The promise inventory. List every convention your draft invokes, with its genre, the percentage of the text at which it is first invoked, whether you keep, vary or decline it, and where the reader is shown which. Mark every decline with no entry in the last column.
The shelf test. Write two sentences of jacket copy from your first chapter alone and two from your last chapter alone. If they would sit on different shelves, decide which book you are writing and revise the other end.
The early sign. Take one declined convention and write the sign of its decline into a scene in the first quarter of your draft, using a character’s decision rather than the narrator’s statement. Then write, in one line, the promise the book makes in its place.
The volume table. For a series written or planned, fill in a row per volume: volume question and where it closes, the step on the series question, threads carried and their dormancy, the hero’s criterion, the re-entry, the last page. Find any two successive rows with no step, and any last page that hooks on an open volume question.
The re-entry. Rewrite the first two pages of a later volume so that nothing in them is summary, and every fact a new reader needs from earlier volumes arrives as a present action, a habit, a scar or a quarrel.