A few days ago, I read Stan Williams book, The Moral Premise. One of the more useful things I found was his breakdown of the three act structure, with each of the three acts being further divided into three parts.
Because I’m in the preliminary stages of revisions on Saving Grace and because I’ve been underwhelmed by the first act, I’ve been exploring options according to the Williams diagram. It’s not only been enlightening, it’s been fun. Maybe too much fun. In two or three days, I’ve written almost twenty different ways to handle the first act.
Today, I added a couple more, but I also began the process of elimination. I read each act, made notes as appropriate and eliminated those that were not up to snuff in any way.
I also made a note to read a few thrillers (political, techno, and other) to get a better idea for how a thriller is put together. And, I admit, to see if I want to tackle a thriller with this story. I even thought about buying a few so I could mark them up and make regular ‘study books’ out of them.
