I just found Randy Ingermanson and laughed several times while reading his article about Dwight Swain's advice. Perhaps I'm just sympathetic because I use and have written about the large-scale scene struture as well. But Randy has more than just an appreciation for Dwight Swain; as a theoretical physicist, he has a method of using fractal theory to design a novel.
I will try this method as I'm developing an idea for my next novel. I had hoped to bust it out for NaNoWriMo but discussions with my critique group when they finished my current novel in August inspired me to make a major change... which has of course led to more changes and I'm basically re-writing the thing again. Plus NaNoWriMo was clearly made for people who don't have kids out of school for one-fourth of the month nor a feast to prepare! My current hope is to be done with the new draft "soon" (end of the year? I'm about two-thirds through...) and get it to beta readers while I do a sort of MidJanuFebNoWriMo all of my own.
I will try this method as I'm developing an idea for my next novel. I had hoped to bust it out for NaNoWriMo but discussions with my critique group when they finished my current novel in August inspired me to make a major change... which has of course led to more changes and I'm basically re-writing the thing again. Plus NaNoWriMo was clearly made for people who don't have kids out of school for one-fourth of the month nor a feast to prepare! My current hope is to be done with the new draft "soon" (end of the year? I'm about two-thirds through...) and get it to beta readers while I do a sort of MidJanuFebNoWriMo all of my own.