Review, Plan and Keep Going

I’m back from holidays and have spent the last week or so editing chapters six-ten. I had several things in mind when doing it: is my protagonist driving every chapter?; is it clear in every chapter what she wants and what is stopping her?; use of secondary characters purely to bring out my protagonist’s character; and then language, historical accuracy, balance between dialogue and description etc. Finally, I wanted to ensure that it was working on a macro level. The latter is the part that was most interesting. Each chapter is a scene but it was the joining of the scenes and running threads between them and leaving them set up for future chapters that is my latest challenge. This has meant the adding of another character which not only provided more confrontation for my protagonist but who will also turn up later and cause trouble. I have now sent it off to my tutor ready for a tutorial at the end of next month.
This morning I sat down to start chapter eleven and reviewed my novel plan (in spreadsheet form which I have discussed before). Immediately it was clear that the macro issue needs resolving here before I can start writing. When I did the initial plan I didn’t know my characters as well or much of the detail of their world. I have now commenced going through all my research and linking it with the general plan that I currently have. This is already sparking ideas as to how my protagonist can move through the events that I want her to. I will then review the plan in terms of the other characters and create as many situations for my protagonist that bring out the different sides of her and make a good page turner. I have also decided that I will probably have to give in and have a ‘romantic’ element but there is no way it will turn into a romance. In actual fact, I will probably end up breaking the poor woman’s heart...
I am feeling excited about the next ten chapters. The first ten set the scene and now the action really begins.