"Your Research is Showing"

The work yesterday was a satisfying swath across the novel.  I'd researched, during the formative stages, various festa, and used those to punctuate certain events and transitions.

Research is wonderful.  It can be an adventure; it can imbue a novel with the richness of setting.

It must be deployed, of course, with extreme care.

So yesterday, I moved across a field of festivals, and removed certain (especially Roman) specificity and particulars.  This has given me the idea, too, that I need to take a pass (run a search function) at G-d as well.  I need to smooth out theological detail which doesn't propel the plot either.  In one case, I can guess at one entire scene which probably needs to be cut, and perhaps turned into something radically different.  This will serve both the directive to deepen Clovis' personal perspective and character, and to eliminate "encyclopedia entries" (just thinking about it; the bit where they're reading the various texts of the (now we recognize it as the Nicene) creed is giving me the embarrassed willies).

The trick with performing surgery on a dragon with a pocket knife isn't finding a bigger knife.

It's knowing where to cut.