Hello, writers. I’ve talked before about throughlines, but as I’m working on one now it seemed like a good time to trace the process of throughlining, in case it might be helpful to anyone working on a novel-length revision.
A throughline is any element that develops over the course of a story. A throughline can be:
- a subplot
- a mystery which is gradually unraveled
- a change in the world of the story (eg, in the Potterverse, the Wizarding World’s growing realization that Voldy has returned)
- a character’s growth (including secondary characters)
- a changing relationship between characters
and many other things.
To work a throughline, you need to identify all of the points within the novel where elements of the throughline occur.
The throughline I’m revising now is the protagonist’s motivation. Like a lot of your mythic hero types, she’s on a quest to recover someone who has died— in this case, her foster mother.
The first thing I did was to take a printed copy of the manuscript and locate each mention of the foster mother. I flagged each mention with a pink post-it.
I wound up with about 15 marked passages— a lot for a minor throughline but not many for a major one.
The manuscript was already divided into 53 numbered scenes. (I’ll remove the scene numbers before I submit it, but for now, they make revision easier.) Once the pink post-its were in, I went through and typed up a list. For each pink flagged mention of the foster mother I wrote down:
-the scene number
- what happened vis a vis the foster mother in that scene
Once I had my list, I noticed some interesting things. One was that the protagonist’s grief didn’t really seem to run her life as much as real grief does. Another was that between scenes 9 and 21, there’s no mention of the foster mother at all. Of the 15 mentions, six occurred within the first 9 scenes, which showed me my throughline was weaker toward the end.
My throughline had bald spots. Most throughlines do; it’s one of the main reasons we revise.
So I took my list and I added to it: What ought to be happening as the throughline develops.
Now I have a guide for revising the throughline. I can go back and look at each pink-flagged passage and tweak it just a little bit. Sometimes adding a sentence, or even three words, is enough. For that blank spot where 12 scenes go by, I can find some places to remind the reader of the protagonist’s motivation.
Once I’m done, I hope to have a manuscript where the reader cares and feels along with my protagonist as she goes on her quest.
Since the above doesn’t lend itself to a tonight’s challenge, let’s take another one from the good ol’ Amazing Story Generator:
While suffering a crisis of faith/
A disgruntled nanny/
Inadvertently starts World War III
Write any scene from the story. Absolutely limit yourself to 100 words.
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