*Headdesk*

At this point in the process, I feel pretty good about my novel. The main plot is cemented. Beta readers are getting excited, and all the gaping holes are fixed.  As the creator, I feel like I’m finally getting to the meat of the story, and I expect it will be easier now. It expect it all to mesh.

Yet, this is when the real work seems to begin.

I chalk this up to a new level of accountability. When looking at the big picture, as in previous drafts, we often suspect small issues but shrug them off anyway. News flash: shrugging it off is not an option anymore. You have to actively seek out and solve all the issues you can find, no matter how much it smarts.

For example. There’s always the scene you love, that goes against all conventional wisdom. A dramatic moment, turned “just a dream”. The info-dump scene. The cheesy flashback that was so much fun to write, but yeah, it’s cheesy. The prologue your novel could do without.

They all have to go. A good rule of thumb is, if it doesn’t support the main story goal, and you can’t change it to fit those goals, it doesn’t make the cut. 

During rewrites, you do a lot of identifying: main themes, plots, characters, goals, etc. Then you spent a lot of time focusing and improving toward these goals. It was about fleshing out, rearranging, discovering.

But in the middle drafts you are doing the exact opposite – finding the things that do not support your story, then either tailoring them until they fit, merging it with something stronger, or cutting altogether.

See what I mean? Revision means operating on a whole new level.

The third facet of middle drafts is that you have to pay close attention to things that were never a problem before – pacing, flow, continuity. Research! Timelines need hammering out. Backstories need clarification. Fact-checkers should check all your facts. 

Also, this is when you want to really consider your audience. There are going to be parts of the novel that just “click” with a core group of people. This is resonance. You want to have such person-to-person connections, but at the same time, you want to appeal to a wider audience. Another way to say it is, without shutting anyone out, you want to enhance the things some people will strongly relate to.

Let me use Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why as an example. His premise was original and intriguing. The themes of suicide, loss, and grief are things that appeal to a large audience. But his clipped prose is what stands out to a lot of people. Some dislike it; a few love it. (Hint: me.) For someone who enjoys sparse, gritty writing, this appeal is obvious and immediate. But at the same time, it wasn’t a slap in the face to those who didn’t like herky-jerky writing.

 

The middle drafts really are a complex part of the revision process. We all develop our own methods for different stages, but I thought I would share a few things that have saved me more than once.

 

Storyboarding. Even if you’ve never done it before, and you’ve promised never to try it, I’m begging you, give it a single chance. It’s incredibly simple:

1 -Buy some large stick-it notes in different colors.

2 - Go through your novel and scribble down the highlights of each chapter – or scene – onto a note.

3 -Stick them on a wall or board in chronological order. If you have multiple point of view characters, you can use a different color for each character.

And there you go. Insta-timeline.

This is the most influential tool of writing and rewriting I have ever found. It helps me organize my thoughts, no matter what part of the process I’m in, and it even allows me to follow subplot “threads” throughout the story (by using different color notes for each subplot.)

 

Betas. I know, duh. If you’re serious about publication, this one is assumed. But how many betas do you have? Three? Four? Have you limited them to other writers, or even other writers in your genre? This is a mistake. You want all kinds of betas.

Let me say that again: all kinds. You want to critics. You want the proud family members. You want people who write in your genre, and you want those who write out. If you’re writing a murder mystery, get a private detective to read it. Same goes for any special topic of interest in your novel. Think “accountability.”

 

Preparing your submissions packet. Have you ever tried explaining your novel to a friend, and found yourself skipping parts? We automatically gloss over things we know are weak. The same thing happens when preparing your query, synopsis, or even your pitch. It forces you to look at your novel in specific terms, through the eyes of others, with the mindset of an objective reader.

It’s a huge insight you won’t find anywhere else. Try it.

Here’s a link about query and synopsis formatting.

Here’s an example synopsis.

Here’s an example query.

 

 

- Creative A

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Revision process series, Part 2.

 

Rewriting is about focusing, improving, and trimming your story into an actual novel. That’s a pretty natural, hands-on part of the process. But rewriting is also about finding the story itself.

As I’ve said before, when you start writing a novel, it’s with some kind of vision in mind. Maybe it’s an idea of the kind of story, a sense of where it’s going, or a certain feel to aim for. It could be vague or concrete. And as you write, it changes. It develops and evolves until you finish the first draft.

By this point, you usually have a whole new idea for the story, different avenue to explore. If you’re lucky, you will have found what kind of story you want this to be ( or in other words, the novel’s focus.)

This is where rewrites come in.

Step One: Focus & Improve

At first, you’ll be working off your new vision. You’ll be improving your old story: paring it down, bulking it up, shaping it around your newly discovered focus. It’s a very natural and intuitive part of the process, but to be safe, here’s a breakdown.

First –Print it out a hard-copy and read it in one or two sittings. Note what you love most about the story, which themes, plots, and issues seem to pop up the most or have the most prominence.

Second – Find all your “main’s.” There’s the main story goal, the main theme, the main plot, the fundamental genre, and the main audience. If you had to name a core story goal, what would it be? If you had to pick an audience, who would actually read your book? And so on.

This could take a couple drafts depending on how complicated your story is and how much you figured out beforehand.

 

After one or two drafts of focusing, you’ll have a great little novel that is somehow…lacking. This happens to me, anyway. Maybe you notice it? The point when everything should be working, but still seems flat? You’ve improved, clearly. So why does it feel wrong?

When I begin rewrites, I focus my story based on my newest vision of it; not on my original vision. The spark. The sense. Whatever it was that really got me writing – an enchanting scene, a first line, a single question – I’ve lost sight of it.

Our weakness is that we loose the core of the story through bouts of rewriting. We tried to focus our story based on our second vision, because we had forgotten there was a first.

Author Ian Friazer said, “If the part you love is not there, it doesn’t matter how much else you did. I’ve witnessed battle between writers and editors that you can’t believe the intensity of. But the writer knows that if the point came out, the book wouldn’t be his.”

 

Step Two: Revive the Spark

After a couple drafts of improving and focusing your novel, you want to take a step back and remember why you began in the first place. Try to pinpoint the exact elements that brought your ideas together as a single story.

You are going to remember (and cringe!) at how unrealistic, childish, and bizarre some of it was. That’s okay. Some of it wasn’t worth salvaging then, and still isn’t now. So when you create your final vision, you want to realize which bits simply aren’t worth saving – and then you want to make the rest of it as believable, realistic, and captivating as you can. Your new vision needs to remain your old vision, just better

This has a lot to do with dreams: we give up on our dreams slowly, piece by piece, as we try to face reality. We give up on our core story, piece by piece, as we try to make a novel of it. You have to get back some of that core story. Make it fundamental to your story once again. Until you do, the novel will always feel unfulfilled.

Also, at this point, I like to get the opinion of a few beta-readers. They can act as a sounding board while I do my soul-searching. The best ones are betas I know, like old friends and close family – people who can tell when the novel is or isn’t “me.”

 

Writing this post, I’m aware that many writers won’t be able to relate. David Isaak said that methods change from writer to writer, even story to story. But there is a certain part of the process where each person’s methods overlap. That’s the point I tried to touch on. And from now on the process gets more concrete: revision, editing, and polishing. In following weeks, I hope to talk about those topics as well.

 

- Creative A

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Drafts and Revision (revision process series, part 1)