Yet another misplaced modifier, this one affecting a cast of MILLIONS.

I have an endless supply of these revision-needed sentences, so I'm going to continue to harangue you. :) 

In longer sentences, you will often have several nouns and several verbs, and some of those will have modifying words, phrases, and clauses. Here's one:

Let's not elect high-level government officials who make decisions for millions who have clear ethical issues. 

Question: WHO HAS THE ETHICAL ISSUES?

The officials, presumably. Or maybe it's "the millions"? 

The verbs don't help. Sometimes the "number" (singular or plural) form of a noun can help us figure it out--

If this were:

Let's not elect A high-level government OFFICIAL who MAKES decisions for millions who HAS clear ethical issues. 

Because "a" and "official" and  "makes" and "has" all mean "one person", we can assume that "has clear ethical issues" refers to the "official". 

We can assume... but the writer shouldn't rely on OUR superior understanding of subject-verb agreement to make sense of the sentence. Better would be:

Let's not elect A high-level government OFFICIAL who HAS clear ethical issues who MAKES decisions for millions.

Now if you read that aloud, you would probably mentally edit that to get rid of the second "who" and maybe the first too--

Let's not elect A high-level government OFFICIAL with clear ethical issues to MAKE decisions for millions.

Here we reduce a clause {"who has clear ethical issues" and "who makes decisions" are both relative clauses with a subject --who-- and a verb) to a phrase ("with" starts a prespositional phrase here, and "to make" starts an infinitive phrase). Reducing the, shall we call it "syntactical complexity", of a modifier usually makes the sentence clearer, as it's more obvious what the main subject/verb unit is (Let's not elect). 

So... back to the original sentence. 

Let's not elect high-level government officials who make decisions for millions who have clear ethical issues. 

The quickest fix is moving the "who have" clause to be adjacent to the word it modifies:

Let's not elect high-level government officials who have clear ethical issues 

Then again we are going to have to go with an infinitive (to make) because now those stacked "whos" don't work--

Let's not elect high-level government officials with clear ethical issues to make decisions for millions.

I'm not pretending this is a great sentence. But it's a grammatical sentence that clearly conveys exactly what the author meant.

Another episode of  read and revise like an editor. :) 

Correctly Placing Misplaced Modifiers

 Alas, I constantly edit, even when I'm not being paid for it, the author didn't ask for it, and I can't actually share it. It's just a compulsion that happens as I read, especially news stories that have presumably already been edited. 

And heck, why not share the compulsion here? Maybe someone will learn from it. I do 'revision sessions' sometimes with students, just editing on-screen and explaining as I go, and this misplaced modifier problem is one of the most common and also one of the most easily fixed mistakes.

In a sentence, a "modifier" is a word or phrase or clause which "modifies" or deepens or narrows the meaning of another part of the sentence. The most common modifiers are the one-word adjectives and adverbs which add to the meaning of a noun or verb, like: The girl's outfit proudly proclaimed her Ukrainian heritage.

But often the modifier can be an entire phrase: 

• The play took place in the old Gem Theater. 
• He was waiting for the bus to come. 
• The morning before the party, the dog got sick.

Or the modifier can be an entire clause (with a noun and verb):

• He didn't notice the shocked silence that fell across the room when he wrote his name on the board.
• The more you remember, the more you have to forget.
• --

Some modifiers are "bound"-- that is, they have to be in a particular position, like just before the noun they modify. You know-- The pink dress. (Not --  The dress pink.) These "bound" modifiers are usually single words or short phrases that modify a noun (that is, they are "adjectival," which means "modifies the noun" :). 

Usually, however, modifiers are unbound, especially the phrase and clause ones, and therein lies the problem. An unbound modifier can "legally" be moved around to different parts of the sentence, but what's possible isn't always what you mean. Sometimes being too free-range with modifiers creates the horrific crime of a dangler, where impossible and sometimes painful things happen:

One day she hunted for a moose wearing diamond earrings.

Decisively blocking the knife, her eyes narrowed with purpose.

Ouch.

I have a lot of examples of this kind of mistake, but just for now, let's fix an easy one, adapted from a sentence in a major mag article:

She admitted her enjoyment of the bullying on Facebook last year. 

Many misplaced phrases have to do with time or place-- the "where and when" of the sentence. I see this most often when there are more than one actions in the sentence, as here:

She /admitted /her enjoyment /of the bullying. (Ignore the "on Facebook" and "last year" for a moment so we can focus on the kernel sentence.)

Subject/Verb/direct object/prepositional adjectival phrase.

We usually think of action as being represented by the sentence verb (here, admitted), but actions can also be shown in nouns (participation, bullying). So here there are three actions, all of which took place but perhaps not all at once. 

Actions take place somewhere sometime, and "somewhere sometime" are often important "condition markers" to add to a sentence. (I mean, these words and phrases mark an important condition that changes or specifies something about HOW the action happens.)

But while the position of where/when modifiers might be moveable, the reality isn't: SOMETHING happened last year. SOMETHING happened on Facebook. 

Options:

1. The admission.

She admitted last year...

And/or-

She admitted on Facebook...

2. Her enjoyment.

...  her enjoyment on Facebook...

and/or-

...  her enjoyment last year...

3. The bullying.

...of the bullying on Facebook.

and/or-

...of the bullying last year.

(I know it's not a great sentence because I modified it to protect the guilty. :)

Because the author placed the where/when modifiers at the end of the sentence, right after "bullying", readers will be forced to assume that the bullying took place last year on Facebook. And that might be exactly what happened (although it's not in this case).

But... what if that's not right? What if the bullying took place last year at school, and she enjoyed viewing a video about it last week, and is only admitting it on Facebook?

What happened on Facebook?

What happened last year?

(Some of this info might have been revealed in previous sentences, though not in this case. And still, that's no excuse for imprecision in this sentence. When all it takes is a moment to get it right, make it right. :)

What's a revision which makes those very clear so that the readers won't be confused about what happened when and where?

On Facebook, she admitted her enjoyment of the bullying last year.

or

She admitted on Facebook her enjoyment of the bullying last year.

Sometimes it helps to "bind" a modifier to the modified word so that there's absolutely no question--

She admitted on Facebook her enjoyment of last year's bullying.

==

This is just one sentence and one set of facts, and one point of misplacement. Though I will try, there's no way to identify every possible opportunity for imprecision. 

There are as many options as there are possible permutations of actions and actors and conditions in any sentence. But ONLY ONE IS CORRECT. This isn't about delicate subtext or deliberate ambiguity or debated issues. This is just about placing factual information in the correct place in the sentence. You can get it right as easily as you can get it wrong. But you have to recognize when it's wrong, and then make it right.

Anyhoo, point is: Be sensitive to the meaning you create when you put a modifier somewhere in the sentence. Stop and think about the various interpretations the readers might make of this placement, and whether moving the modifier might make more sense. Time and/or place modifiers are especially tricky.

So if I mean the ADMISSION, not the enjoyment or the bullying, took place on Facebook, I have two easy options (the first being optimal). While we're at it, let's make clear it was the bullying and not the admission that took place last year.

On Facebook, she admitted her enjoyment in the bullying last year.

She admitted on Facebook her enjoyment in last year's bullying.

I have a bunch more examples that I'll post and fix in the future. Usually in order not to shame the writers and editors (who, grumble grumble, should know better), I'll change the words and keep the construction.

This is what passes for giggly gossip in my life. :)

A blast from the past-

The columnist James Kilpatrick used to devote his first column of the year to the many ways you can place and misplace the word "only" as a modifier in a sentence, and used this example to show the difference in meaning:

1. Only John hit Peter in the nose.
2. John hit only Peter in the nose.
3. John hit Peter only in the nose.
4. John only hit Peter in the nose.

(Wouldn't you say "ON the nose"? I would. I'm not sure how deep I would want to hit IN the nose.)

"Almost" and "already" and "just" are other common modifiers that can be moved almost anywhere, but each placement means something different.

Here is a nice British professor who does a great job of showing how to determine what a modifier modifies and how it works in a sentence. 

You can find some good examples of misplaced modifiers at this Guelph University site. 

When You Have Too Many Words....

I was just asked for a few tips on cutting big bunches of words. You know, you were aiming for a nice 75K novel, only this ended up at 95K words.  And from your perspective, it works! But it's too long for the line or the editor or the type of story, right? So how can you trim words without deleting meaning? 

It's hard. It can be done. I had to cut 35K from one of my books once, and it was hard, but I don't think afterwards the reader could tell what was missing. (Okay, okay. Theresa did most of the cutting. I did most of the whining and whimpering.)

While the plan here is not to go back, it can really help to think that nothing you're doing is permanent, that if you realize you cut something important, you can restore it. So be sure to 

 save the original version first, then save the version-to-be-cut under another filename. Just in case you want to UNcut later!

But here are some tips if you want to cut 20K words:

1) The first option is to cut a whole scene. That's a broadsword rather than a scalpel approach, but let's say you wrote this book in a white heat during Nanowrimo. There are probably scenes you wrote or started to write which ended up as unimportant or irrelevant, or you later did a better version and both versions are still in there. 

A whole scene might well be 5,000 words. That's a pretty good cut! And cutting it might make for a stronger, tighter plot. Then again, you might accidentally cut out something essential like a clue, or an important step on your character's journey, or the satisfying "reunion" scene the reader has been waiting for. 

To do this, however, you have to look at scenes not as groups of words but as part of the action of the plot. So try this: Outline the book as you have it. Yep, a scene outline. List -- in order they occur, every chapter, and every scene or scenelet or passage (complete or not) within each chapter. 

Then you can evaluate if there are scenes that can be deleted without causing plot/emotion problems.  

2. Look also for adjacent scenes that can be combined.  That will let you delete some of the set up and transition between scenes. Be watching for "single-purpose" scenes, especially several in a row-- a scene where he argues with his brother, and then a scene were he discovers a clue to the mystery, and then a scene where he travels to where the robbery took place. You could combine those into one scene where he argues with his brother, leaves and discovers the clue, and ends with him deciding to go to the robbery site. Really, once you start looking at what happens from scene to scene, you might find several which can be combined.

3.  If you can't cut a whole scene, look for passages (especially at the beginning) which are mostly set-up. That's where I found the most opportunities to trim, at the start of scenes, where I might have spent a couple pages describing the setting and establishing what the characters are doing there. 

Here are some other "cutting" options:

4) Look for mini-scenes (I call them "scenelets"-- 1-2 page bridges usually from one important event to the next) that don't much matter. Often these involve a main character interacting with a minor character or a "walk-ons" like a waiter who will never be seen again in the book. An example might be a cab ride to the convention hotel. There might be good character interplay with the cabdriver and give a good sense of the main character's mood, but if you want to cut, that's an example of a good 'non-essential' scenelet. Usually these aren't full scenes but intros to more important scene passages. You can always argue how this bit is important or clever or enlightening, but you know, you have to trim something, and a scene without an event to change the plot is usually trimmable.

5) Try the Jane Austen tactic-- in dialogue, if there's no conflict, do narrative summary. (They reminisced for a few minutes, then she remembered, and said insultingly, " ". :) There are going to be parts of scenes the reader needs that might have no conflict (like a moment of grace where two characters share a cigarette), but those are best kept fairly short and fairly rare. 

6) Look for those passages where there's nothing-dialogue-- often when there's some movement from one setting to another. ("Let's go into the den and watch TV/What do you want to watch?/ I thought this season of The Voice was starting. Did you record that?/No, the last one was so annoying, I didn't bother. But we can probably get it on-demand." :) No, I never actually wrote that passage, but that's the sort of "transition conversation" that's usually easy to cut away.

7) Also look for long passages of introspection where a character is thinking. Sometimes these are important, and the way they think is important to show, but the deeper we get into the story, the less long introspection is needed. (The reader knows more about the character by the middle of the book, and probably just needs a hint of what they're thinking, or only introspection when something unexpected is felt and needs explanation.)

8) Try my ruthless technique: Decide on a page goal, like "cut 50 words out of this page". This takes awhile, but it's usually easy to find at least 20 words to cut. Or "cut one sentence or sentence part out of each paragraph". Or "trim two sentences and combine them into one shorter sentence". This is actually my favorite thing. :)

9) Even more ruthless: If you know there are words you over-use (for me, it's "then" and "just"), do a "find" for them and for each one, decide whether it's needed. Delete if not. A friend of mine cut two pages out just by getting rid of justs. :)

Because all this is so "voice-centric," it's probably best to do it yourself first and see how much you can cut. That way you'll still have control of the scenes and the interactions between characters and how that's presented. 

Then again, an outsider might be able to be more objective, as Theresa was with my over-long book.

I can tell you from experience, trimming is hard to get started, and painful, but after awhile, it's easier to see where something can be discarded, or  how scenes or sentences can be combined.

Broadsword/scalpel experiences you can share? 

Alicia

Sequencing action in a sentence with verbing

(I think I made the word "verbing" up.)

One task of revision is to make sure that sentences make sense. There's the semantic sense-- the reader understand easily what you mean. (Harder than it sounds, ain't it?) Then there's the sequence of action. I try to revise sentences to be coherent, that is, if there would be a pause between actions, then I try to put them in different clauses or different sentences.

This isn't a rule or anything, but there's some sense here. If you have a group of actions that take a couple minutes to perform-- getting the groceries out of the car, carrying them up the stairs and into the kitchen, unloading them and putting them away-- well, the reader isn't going to get much sense of the experience if you jam all that into one long sentence that takes two seconds to read. If you group the actions together (carrying upstairs and into kitchen could be a one-sentence group), then you'd have two or three sentences which would take a longer time to read, echoing the longer time it would take to do that sequence of actions. If this long sequence of action isn't important enough for three sentences (and the grocery sequence probably isn't), then consider skipping the earlier actions and use the latter one as a quick narrative bridge, relegated to a dependent element connected to a more meaningful main clause, like:
(The reader will assume she somehow got the groceries into the kitchen.)
Halfway through putting the groceries away, she found the wine underneath the 12-grain bread and sat down to get moodily drunk.

There's an interrupted action there, then a new action coming out of the initial action/interruption. I notice that I've got verbals (a verbal is a form of the verb which won't be a predicate, like "putting" and "to get") which refer to the things that don't happen right then-- the "putting" is interrupted, and she "sits down to get drunk"-- that is, we know she's going to get drunk, but within this 10 seconds or so, she just sits down TO GET drunk.

Is this important? Well, maybe not, but using verbals rather than actual verbs is a subtle way to indicate un-actions-- things that don't quite happen or don't fully happen. Would there be a difference if we stressed the actions that weren't completed in the original? I don't know. Let's see:

She put half the groceries away, then found the wine underneath the 12-grain bread and sat down and got moodily drunk.

In this case, the main clause action is putting half the groceries away (She put) rather than "she found" the wine as it had been in the previous version. Which is more important? For my purposes, what was more important was this almost accidental "finding" of the wine which leads to her quitting what she'd been doing (putting away the groceries) and embarking on a, shall we say, less productive plan.

What happens when the drunk part stops being a intended/prospective thing (to get drunk) and becomes a certain thing (got drunk)? My main problem with that is that getting drunk takes some time, while the earlier part of the sentence could be measured in a minute or so. So we'd have a sequence of actions that might take a minute (stopping the grocery putting away, finding the wine, (presumably opening it-- probably it's a screwtop :), sitting down), and then at the end of the sentence, an action (getting drunk) that would on its own take, well, even if she's very determined, ten minutes.

In contrast, "sat down to get drunk" -- that is, sitting down with the intention to get drunk-- would take only the amount of time it takes to sit down. (Intending, alas, takes no time at all.)

So... no rules here! But as you revise, look at a sentence or sequence of sentences where there is a group of actions. How can you give the reader the experience of this span of time and motion? What actually happens, what almost happens, what might still happen, what was meant to happen but never did? Is there some way to indicate which action falls into what category?
And what is the most important action? Should that be in the main clause?
Do you have too much for one sentence?

I am puzzling right now over a sentence where the man takes several actions in sequence. They're important in aggregate (he's coming forward to confess to a murder), but one isn't that much more important than another. 


Before she could answer, Winstead rose suddenly, pushing back his chair with a clatter, and stepped in front of his wife.   
Right away I see the problem that "she" (who couldn't answer in time) and "his wife" are the same person, so .... ugly....! And heck, why not dialogue it, huh?
"Don't answer that!" Winstead rose suddenly....
Hmm. Suddenly-- to convey that, I think I'll make it the harder-sounding word "abruptly" and put it first so that it's an interruption--
"Don't answer that!" Abruptly Winstead rose....


I have "rose" and "stepped in front" as equal in importance (both are verbs/predicates, which is fine), and pushing the chair back relegated to a participial phrase, so that's okay too, I think. The sequence wouldn't take long physically, so one sentence would be about right. I do notice that the rising and the pushing back are probably actually one motion-- or? Let me act it out. (One moment please. :) Well, you can push the chair back a bit by the act of rising, but you can't really push it very far, and I do mean this to be emphatic. 
Question for me: Look at the "and". Does the pushing back motion go better with the "rose" or better when the stepping in front?


"Don't answer!" Abruptly Winstead rose, pushing back his chair with a clatter, and stepped in front of his wife.

or


"Don't answer!" Abruptly Winstead rose, and pushing back his chair with a clatter, stepped in front of his wife.

I like the feel of the second, but I don't think it's entirely logical as the participle means that he's more or less simultaneously pushing and stepping.

I think I'll get rid of the pushing. :)

"Don't answer!" Abruptly Winstead rose and stepped in front of his wife.

Not much of a sequence of motion, but at least it's physically logical. 

You can see why it takes me so long to edit my books. I fret about this sort of stuff.

What are some motion-sequence sentences of yours? Can you make them more logical and coherent?

Alicia

Reinventing Your Book: Part 3-- Type of Story

3: Changing the Emphasis of the Plot

Reinventing your book.

First, think about what isn't working.
I found that if you can define what needs to be changed, you're halfway to changing it.

Let's go over the major categories, and share with us if you have other thoughts.

Say the book is fine, but it's a romance with a mystery subplot, and the publisher loves your voice and your characters, but wants it to be a mystery with a romantic subplot, for example. Or you decide that you want to make it a mystery because it will be easier to sell that way. At any rate, you've decided you need to flip the plots.

Most books don't just have one plot. They'll have what they call in the films an "A" plot and a "B" plot.

The A plot is usually the one that reflects what genre or subgenre this book is in, so if you wrote the book as a romantic comedy, say, the A plot is probably the journey of the romantic couple to fulfilled love.

The B plot is usually an important plot, and might actually take up as much space as the A plot. If you, for example, have your romantic comedy couple solving a crime, the mystery plot would be the B plot. If they are trying to rid the town of zombies, the B plot would be a horror plot. Because the B plot is usually so important to the structure of the story, it's fairly easy to beef it up and – if you need to—make it the A plot.

So let's start just with plot structure, and then scene structure.

Plot Structure:

Sometimes it's just a matter of emphasis and sequence that determines which of two major plots is the A plot, and if you fix the sequence, you can go a long way to flipping the plots.

You have probably absorbed a whole lot of "story grammar" and have done this instinctively or by learning: Usually we start with the A plot. That is, in the first scene or first chapter, usually we'll have the couple meeting if it's a romance, or a body being discovered if it's a mystery. We might have a slower opening, but we're still hinting in the opening what the main conflict/plot will be (like heroine has decided she'll quit dating –romance—or she's talking to her mom about how much everyone hates the mayor- mystery).

So if you want to flip the A and B plots, start there at the beginning. Revise the opening slightly so that the first hint of what's to come is the plot you now want to emphasize.

For example, in my women's-fiction-turned-mystery, I originally had the first scene between the heroine and her ex-husband involve her complicated feelings about him and his hints that he wants to move back home. When I flipped the plots, I kept all that "divorce heartbreak" stuff, but punched up Don's confession that he was getting sued by an angry client, and moved that up first. It took a bit of rewriting, but now the opening has changed subtly to make it a mystery opening.

Similarly, the A plot is usually the one fully resolved in the climactic scene (which is usually the second-to-last scene in the book). Again, it might take some rewriting to get the murder plot, say, resolved in that scene. But if you can do that, you'll be sending the structural message to the reader that this is at base a mystery novel.

Scene Endings:

The great script doctor and workshop leader Robert McKee offered this invaluable tip for establishing the genre (or sub-genre, or just major plot): End the turning point scenes, particularly the "inciting incident" (first turning point), on a moment that reflects the chosen genre. Sometimes this just means extending the end of the scene and closing on a comic note or a horror note or a mystery note. That is, you don't have to rewrite all the turning point scenes… just the ending.

This is quite helpful if you have been getting rejections that say, "You're a great writer, but this doesn't fit our romantic comedy line," and you just know that it's a romantic comedy. Look to the end of the inciting incident scene (which is probably in the first or second chapter). Does that end with a moment that reflects the chosen genre?

Let's try an example:

Tom is fairly young. Under 30. Start the scene
however we want, couple paragraphs maybe of Ordinary World or whatever
works here.

Out of the blue he gets a call from a funeral parlor, saying that his
Uncle Walt has died and is there and Tom was listed as next-of-kin. (Keep
in mind that we're going to be making choices all along, and every choice
leads to another choice-- you make a million choices in every scene, and
only some are conscious. And some can be deferred, so we don't have to
decide yet whether uncle Walt is his blood uncle or an un-related
godfather.)

(We also presumably will have to decide at some point whether Tom knows
Uncle Walt and is grieved by his death, or barely knows him, or has never
before heard of him and can't figure out how Tom's name appears as
next-of-kin. In a cozy mystery, for example, usually the murder victim
isn't personally important to the sleuth. So if you're, say, switching from a suspense novel—which has intense emotions—to a cozy mystery—which does NOT have intense emotions, you might want to make Uncle Walt more of a distant relation so Tom doesn't have to grieve.)

So he goes to the funeral parlor. Here maybe some internal conflict--
maybe when he was 19, both his parents were killed in a car accident and
he had to handle all the details, and ever since ge's avoided funeral
parlors. Now notice-- if we go with that backstory, that heavy tragedy in
the past, we are immediately darkening the tone of the book.
If we go with the death, and if it's going to end up a comedy, it's going
to be a dark or black comedy. One of the issues that comes up a lot with
openings is what I call "inappropriate emotion", and I don't mean
actually the character's emotion, but the emotion that the events inspire
in the reader. The opening and backstory do have to be tailored to the
scope of the book-- and, as we're seeing, it's really important that you
know as you draft, or as you revise, what your story IS.

If you mean this to be a suspense thriller, sure, go with the tragic backstory, and also maybe
make Uncle Walt a real uncle and close to Tom. But if you want to make it a cozy
mystery, the "coziness" comes from detachment from the bad
circumstances-- the victim is usually someone not well-known by the
sleuth or is actively disliked. And the internal conflicts are minor,
more quirks or annoyances than traumas.

If it's a deep dark wrenching romance, go with the tragedy. If it's a
sweet romance, or a romantic comedy, see if you can come up with another
reason Tom hates funeral parlors.

Think about connecting the conflict-causing backstory to the type of
story. For example, in a romantic comedy or a cozy mystery, that might be
something kind of jolly but embarrassing, like when he pledged his
fraternity in college, one of the challenges was to steal a shoe off a
cadaver, so ever since, he's been squicked out by funeral parlors.

Just keep the backstory appropriate to this scope. I can't tell you how
many contest entries I've seen where the story is supposed to be light
and there's some huge tragedy in the past, or when this is a "serious"
story, maybe a romantic suspense, and it opens with a "cute meet" or
clever comic scene. It's just jarring, and it makes me wonder if the
author is actually INTO her story. If she were into it really, she would
feel the right feeling as she wrote and conceived that first scene.
She would be sensitive to the effect this whatever choice had on the
reader. Again, begin as you mean to go on! Don't bait-and-switch the
reader. So if you're switching MOODS here—like from a serious romance to a cozy mystery—make sure that the backstory is changed to reflect the new choice.

Okay, so there's some stuff that goes on that is consistent with his
backstory and the tone of the story and the scope of the story that
influences HOW he meets the funeral director and what they talk about.
But at some point, the funeral director takes him to "the chapel" and
there's the coffin, and the director discreetly leaves Tom alone to pay
his respects to Uncle Walt.

If this is the initiating event scene, something's going to happen,
right? And the END of a major scene is when the disaster (or "surprise"
if we want to be politically correct happens.
Disastrous things can happen all the way through the major scene, of
course-- after all, getting a phone call that your uncle died is pretty
disastrous- but THE disaster should come at the end of the scene, to
impel the reader to the next scene. Yes, it's the cliffhanger, but it
doesn't have to be all dire and scary. The point is to disrupt the
trajectory of the story, derail the scene protagonist, and start
something new going. So the end of the scene can be some kind of question
or mystery or puzzle or problem—and you can shift that to reflect the new choice of a plot.

Okay, back to Tom and Uncle Walt. Tom is alone in the "chapel". Soft
lugubrious music is playing on the speakers. The room smells like (choose
one that fits your tone/scope-- lilacs, disinfectant, death, Tom's own
sweat, expensive wood....). The light is dim. He approaches the coffin.
It is (choose what fits) an expensive mahogany and satin casket, or a
plain wooden box, or a ridiculously elaborate shiny white boat with
gleaming gold handles.
The lid is (choose what works for the new choice) closed. Open. Half-closed.

He goes up to the coffin. (Does he have to open the lid?) He sees....

Now here is where you delineate the scene ending – the
disaster/surprise-- which makes this a major scene, but also a major
scene for THIS TYPE OF STORY.

Let's say this is a mystery. What would he see if this is a mystery?

Let's say this is a horror story. What would he see, or what would
happen?

Let's say this is a comedy. What's going to happen? (And what if it's a
black comedy? What would happen that's different?)

Let's say that this is an adventure story. (Tom, I suddenly realized,
could be a Navy Seal!

Let's say this is a thriller.

Let's say this is a family drama.

Let's say this is a suspense novel.

Let's say this is a romance. (You can have a woman come in if so... but
why? Who?)

What if it's a romantic comedy?

What if it's a sweet romance?

What if it's a dark romance?

Let's say this is a paranormal/occult story.

Let's say this is an urban fantasy.

Let's say this is a literary fiction novel.

Let's say this is a near-future s/f post-apocalyptic dystopia.

Now very probably in the original, you're ending that scene on the moment that reflects that original type of story. So say you end with Tom seeing his father's signet ring on the corpse's hand and grabbing at it and knocking the coffin over and spilling the body on the floor—a comic ending.

If you're changing the A plot to a romance, you might just move the romantic meeting to right here—he dumps the body out, and in walks the funeral director's daughter… who will become the romantic heroine.

Go through the major scenes, the turning points, and look at the ending moments. Can you change most of those to reflect the shift in A plot?

Questions? Suggestions?