Gearing Up to Tackle Revisions

I'm plugging away on my draft (whenever I can!), and now I'm starting to think about the major revisions looming in my future. I have "to fix" and "to add" documents that I've been keeping up as I draft, but the sheer number of items on each is daunting.

What I need is a revision plan. Luckily for me, there are lots of great resources to help me get organized. One of the absolute best I've ever seen is Susan Dennard's Tackling Revisions post on the Pub(lishing) Crawl blog. She suggests isolating the big-picture issues first, then breaking each one into a series of manageable chunks. One of my favorite pieces of advice from this post is to do an outline of your story after you finish the first draft, and before you revise. This will show you pretty quickly which scenes add to the story and which need to be cut.

(Side note: that Susan Dennard's pretty smart. She's also the author of the How to Write a 1-Page Synopsis worksheet, the only one I've found that actually makes short synopsis writing bearable.)

Marissa Meyer (author of the Lunar Chronicles series) explains her revision process here. She's also a fan of writing out all of your scenes to see which ones are working and which ones aren't. She adds the advice to color-code all of the main plots and subplots. I love this advice! It seems like an excellent way to see at a glance which plots need more airtime and which are taking up too much space.

And finally, former agent-turned-author Nathan Bransford has some encouraging words for the inevitable revision fatigue--you know, that moment when you're so sick of the book that you never want to see it again. Having gotten to this point with all four manuscripts I've finished, I'm keeping that one in my back pocket. The comments are definitely worth a read, too.

How do you tackle revisions?

Writer's Resource: Revision and Editing Tips and Tricks From The Publishing World

When revising, it's easy to become desensitized to the words on the screen and miss typos.  Especially if you're writing from the same device, day after day, using the same font style and size.  While typos might not seem like a big deal, they can be the difference between coming across as a professional writer and coming across as an aspiring writer.  So before you hit send on that next partial or full request, here are a few tips and tricks to help you spot errors.

1. Review your manuscript on a different device.  

This will shake you out of your comfort zone and help you spot errors that you otherwise might have missed.  If you write on a desk top, consider reviewing on your ereader or tablet.  If you write on a tablet, shake it up and review from your phone.

2. Change the font.

Your eyes may be numb to your standard Times New Roman 12pt, so when proofing consider increasing to 14pt, change the color, or switch to Courier or another font you're less accustomed to.

3.  Read aloud. 

This is a great way to spot missing words that your mind auto-fills when reading.  It will also help you spot awkward sentences and unnatural dialogue.  Consider doing this with a critique partner for additional input.

4.  Increase the margin size.

You'll reduce the words on the page, which will make it easier for your brain to focus.

5. Highlight the text or add a background color.

Similar to changing the font color, changing the color around the font will shake up the way your brain processes the words.

6. Leverage text-to-speak software and apps. (Hint: the iPhone comes with one!)

Like reading aloud, this will help you find missing words and awkward sentences.  It's also a great option for people with long work commutes, as you can listen during your writing downtime and see how your story pacing is progressing.  Even better is that anyone with an iOS 5 already has text-to-speak capabilities.  Here is a handy video that shows you how to activate it.

7. Take a looong break.

You've heard me preach about the benefits of taking a Ross-and-Rachel-style break from manuscripts before, so I won't harp too much on this. But taking time away from a story will help you shake off your comfort with the words so you can spot the errors you previously read right through.

8.  Use beta readers and critique partners.

Another set of eyes is always a must before you send anything off to an agent or editor.

9. Only edit one chapter a day.

Avoid power-revising, and instead give yourself longer stretches of time to process fewer words.  Scour vs. skim. Your brain will thank you.

Happy writing!

Are You Over-Revising?

As I wade through the murky revision waters on my WIP, I've mostly been focused on whether I'm revising enough. Am I cutting all the unnecessary words and scenes? Have I added enough detail to flesh out the characters so they have more than one dimension? Do I have the right balance of external action and interiorization?

I'm still on my second draft, so there's not much danger of over-revising yet. But I know from experience that it's easy to fall into that trap. Out of a desire to make their manuscripts perfect, writers (who, let's face it, can be a pretty obsessive bunch) sometimes aren't able to ever call them done.

Wondering if you might be over-revising? This post over at Adventures in Agentland (the blog of literary agent Natalie Lakosil) has a list of red flags, like sending a manuscript to friends and critique partners over and over again and always having a new list of things to fix.

Whether you plan to submit your manuscript to agents, plan to self-publish, or already have a book contract, it's important to keep the end goal in mind. Getting too hung up on revisions might mean you miss opportunities--and it's a good way to drive yourself crazy in the bargain.

The Folly of Revising While Writing First Drafts - Revision Paralysis

It took me less than three months to finish the first draft of WHERE THE STAIRCASE ENDS.  Writing it was almost an obsession.  The words flowed like water, and I didn't stop to think about what I was writing or how it sounded or what I might need to go back and fix later.  I just needed to get the story out of me.

Fast forward to present day.

I started writing my latest WIP in October, yet I'm only 1/4 of the way through my first draft. The old me would have written two first drafts and sent out a handful of premature queries by now. So what changed? The story is still inside of me.  The words are still itching to come out.   But every time I sit down to work I end up reworking what I previously wrote because I can see all the flaws, and I feel compelled to fix them.  Immediately.

Revising STAIRS taught me so much, and there's no doubt that the process of getting it query-ready has made me a better writer.  But I'm starting to think that all my newly acquired knowledge is stunting my creative process.

I now know what my bad habits are, why showing is good and telling is bad, how passive voice slows down my pacing, why voice is key to writing compelling characters, how too much voice can grate, what words I overuse (was, had, that, just, actually), why first chapters are critical and first lines just as important, how pop-culture references can date your story, how chapter endings can be leveraged to created tension, what story cliches I need to watch out for, why back story can be distracting (but sometimes useful if leveraged in the right, non-telling, way), why every character needs clear motivation, why I need to make the reader care about the character before jumping into the action but not delaying the action too much, and OMFG will someone get me off this f*cking hamster wheel because it's starting to make me sick!!!

You get the picture.  It's a lot to have running through your head when you're trying to get your story down on paper (or virtual paper in this case.)

I've gone back and forth on whether this is a bad thing or a good thing.  On the one hand, if my revisions are actually good then I could end up with something closer to the final draft than a first draft when I'm done, and maybe shorten the time spent revising in the long run.  But on the other hand, how will I ever get to that final draft if I'm constantly turning around to revise what's already been written?

So here's my question - Does anyone else out there suffer from this?  And have you found it to be a good thing, or a bad thing?

Any advice for revision paralysis?

Writing Lessons from Knitting

The QueryTracker blog had this neat post a few weeks ago comparing writing to knitting. As you may or may not know, I design and sell knitting patterns when I'm not writing, so this was right up my alley!

Sarah Pinneo, the author, makes the point that knitted sweaters begin by looking terrible, just like first drafts. I totally agree. Most of my knitted projects look like this when they're first started:

But I would even take it a step further. Yes, the sweater starts to look like an actual sweater once you're up to the sleeves. Yes, people stop asking you if you're making mittens for giants. If you're lucky, people even stop telling you sweaters can be bought at Wal-Mart for fifteen dollars, in a tone of voice that clearly says they are wondering why you do not know this already.

But the truth is, until you finish the whole thing, sew in the ends, soak it in water, and pat it into shape to dry, it looks pretty much like crap.

See where I'm going with this?

Yep, I'm harping on about revision again. The importance of revising your work can't be overstated (especially in the aftermath of NaNoWriMo!). I have been going through old manuscripts recently, and realizing each one should have been put aside and revised several more times before I sent it out. The draft needs to be patted into shape just like the sweater does.

When I design sweaters, there's a lot of revision involved. Sometimes my basic concept doesn't work at all. Sometimes I have to take out parts of the design and completely redo them--and it's just as painful as  highlighting that chapter or scene and hitting delete.

BUT... the product is always better, just like it is with knitting. The end goal is what's important. I always want to send my manuscript out right NOW, but I'm going to take a cue from my knitting design and remind myself that no one wants to see my lumpy, misshapen, fresh-off-the-needles draft. It's worth the time to make it as good as I know it can be.

Why First Drafts Suck and Why That's Okay

"The first draft of anything is sh*t." 

-Ernest Hemingway

I'm working on a new first draft. For the first time in over a year, I'm sitting down in front of my computer and staring at a blank page. Sometimes the words appear in my mind and flow seamlessly through my fingers to the screen. Sometimes I feel like I'm wrestling them into place. But either way, I'm pretty happy with my progress at the moment.

A few years ago, I wouldn't have called myself a writer by any stretch of the imagination. I had written a few short stories, but I was a perfectionist. This meant every sentence got dissected right after it was written—and more often than not, it got deleted because it sounded stupid, or I freaked out about it not having the right lyrical flow, or I thought of a better idea for the beginning ten pages in and deleted the whole thing to start over.

The idea of writing a novel crossed my mind and was immediately dismissed. I made up stories in my head all the time, but I knew writing them down would mean years of arduous deleting and rewriting.

Then came the turning point. My husband suggested something that had never occurred to me: why not just write the draft, without any changes? When I protested that I couldn't let the words sit there like that, he said I could use a separate document to note changes to go back and do later--but in the meantime, I could carry on with the draft.

I tried out this process, and it really, really works for me. I outline the novel, and then I just write. Notes for what isn't working or what needs to be changed later or great new ideas go in a separate "Things to Change" document.

Now, here's the thing. My first drafts are hideous. Some people like to refer to first drafts as "vomit drafts," and this is most definitely accurate for mine. Locations change mid-stream. People who died in the last chapter magically jump back in because I thought of something else for them to do. Someone who starts out as mousy and shy in the first few chapters becomes a confident hussy in the last few.

But that's okay.

The magic happens in the revisions. I go straight down my Things to Change list and mold characterizations, plot, and setting into something that makes sense. Then I go over it again, and again (and about seven more times, but you don't really need to hear about all of those). 

The point is, writing this way lets me actually finish drafts. I've met an awful lot of people who tell me, "Oh, I'm writing a novel too. I started a few years ago and I have fifty pages done." They never got past the first draft. Now I tell them about my method. 

I've become a vomit draft evangelist! And I must be doing something right, because I've completed three novels and am working on my fourth.

What's your first draft process? Do you agonize over every word, or vomit it out?