Time for a Makeover!
Me: Hey, Acts! How are you feeling.
Act III: Tired.
Act II: Bloated.
Act I: Incomplete.
Me: Okay. Those are all reasonable.
Me: III, you'll have some time to rest before we get around to even plotting your revisions.
Me: II, I already have a list of things to trim from you.
Me: And Act I, I have SO many notes about you. A lot of things to flesh out, but also some stuff to cut. I think you'll feel better after the makeover.
Act I: Should I be nervous?
Me: No, you should be excited!
Act I: And my chapters?
Me: Uh... Welllllll... They're in for a lot of change. There's going to be merging and cutting and new scenes. And you're getting two chapters from Act II that I realized should have been considered Act I from the get-go.
Act II: Um. What?
Me: Yeah, so remember you felt bloated? I actually agree with that assessment. There's a lot of trimming in store for you and very little expansion. Although I also mismarked your ending and you get the start of Act III.
Act III: And do I get anything?
Me: You do, actually! Although you also get massive cuts because I'm doing away with an entire arc that mostly fell in you.
Act III: Why all these cuts?
Me: Short answer? Because together, you're 125,000 words long.
Act II: I think we all want the long answer.
Me: The two biggest sources of cuts are the arc that I never really connected to, which is going away completely, and another arc that simply takes up too much time. Options are either trim it down some or cut a bunch of other stuff to make it the main focus. Then there are a few things that expand on elements I've changed or repeat things established elsewhere or set up things that wound up not happening.
Act I: And when does all this start?
Me: We're outlining your revisions today, Act I. Queue the makeover montage and let's get going!
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