I recently finished the second draft of my novel, and I was feeling satisfied.

The hard-won result of two years of research and writing, my story is set in the years leading up to the French Revolution and follows my lead character into the Reign of Terror.

The second draft, in my humble opinion, was a massive improvement over the first. I had fleshed out character motivations and dropped some plot swerves that I hope will one day surprise readers.

But I decided to compare the timeline of actual events to the events in my novel.