Another revision technique that's working for me

I'm just dashing through in between xmas shopping and more work on revisions. I hate how this season compresses my time. I start to feel claustrophobic. I haven't been able to keep up with many blogs lately, because I've been having to make careful choices about how I spend my time and, so far, revisions has been winning out when it should. (Go me!) But I miss knowing what's going on with everyone! I'll be back to a normal schedule after the holidays, I hope.

Anyway. Revisions.

I had to do some pretty serious re-plotting as a result of my wonderful revelation and I was having a hard time (per usual!) untangling sub plots so I could get a clear picture of what to cut and move to the second book, and then what to layer into this book to complete it.

This is the hardest thing about revisions for me: I can think and talk all day long about what I want to do and what needs to be done, but when it comes time to actually parse out the words, I have a TERRIBLE time unstitching the scenes and then stitching them back together again. It's like my brain can't process them as anything more than a quilt now (to carry on the sewing metaphor), rather than a bunch of individual squares pieced together.

Drives me bonkers.

So, anyway, I tried this new thing. (Well, new to me.) I took one plot line at a time and just wrote it through on a piece of paper. (Well, on a virtual sticky note. God, I love Stickies.) For example, let's say this is part of my story*:

John sees his friend Sally having coffee with the stunningly attractive Jane.
Walking home from the coffee shop, John notices he's being followed by a man in a purple turban.
The next day, John asks Sally for Jane's phone number.
John and Jane talk on the phone that night and set a date for dinner.
John wakes up to find his car has been broken into. A scrap of purple cloth is on the ground near the car.
John and Jane have their date. They kiss.

With my new technique thingy, I would separate out the dude-in-the-purple-turban plot line from the romance plot line. So the purple turban plot line Stickie would look like this:

Walking home from the coffee shop, John notices he's being followed by a man in a purple turban.
John wakes up to find his car has been broken into. A scrap of purple cloth is on the ground near the car.

While the romance Stickie would look like this:

John sees his friend Sally having coffee with the stunningly attractive Jane.
The next day, John asks Sally for Jane's phone number.
John and Jane talk on the phone that night and set a date for dinner.
John and Jane have their date. They kiss.

Make sense? I'm sure everyone in the universe already does this and I'm just late to the game, but I'm finding this IMMENSELY helpful. So I thought, I'd share it. Just in case. :) It's really helping me to see where I have holes or multiple scenes that are really serving the same purpose or where each particular plot line may be sagging, etc. I'm just not able to get that kind of perspective with them all sewn together.

*Note: TLOS has no purple turbans in it. There's quite a bit of kissing, though.