Revision tips

It’s been about a month now since NaNoWriMo. Perhaps it is time to drag out that November endeavor and see what can become of it.

A recent article by Allen Eskens addressed revision. In 3 Tips For a Better First Revision he says the first revision is probably the most important factor in sculpting your novel. One of his favorite quotes on the idea is by Shannon Hale who wrote: “I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.” Eskens says the first revision is the building of those sand castles. Though there are numerous tips to a successful rewrite, his three to make a novel better are: conflict check, transitions, and the “was” edit.

Conflict Check:

As Terry Pratchett says, “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story,” so it is centered on getting the main storyline established. Eskens says that Kurt Vonnegut once wrote that every character in a scene should want something, even if it’s only a drink of water. In his second pass, Eskens asks what does every character in each scene want, and what obstacles are standing in his or her way, trying to add suspense. Rarely does a first draft take advantage of all the opportunities for tension and conflict. They can be added in the revision.

Transitions:

Quite often in the first draft we may tend to jump abruptly from one plot point to the next. Eskens says transitions should be eloquent and have wait on their own, not just move the reader from one scene to the next. He compares reading a novel to kayaking a river, sometimes shooting through rapids, bound up in the excitement of the action. At other times, one floats peacefully, admiring the landscape. “The pace of a novel is the balance between those two competing forces (between plot and scene),” says Eskens. If your transition floats, maybe you can go off on tangents that deepens characters or enriches the scenes. If you’re shooting through the rapids, the transition will be shorter. 

The “Was” Edit:

I’m guilty of including passive language and probably nowhere as much as in my first drafts. Esken uses a word find function to look for instances when he’s used “was,” then tries to find a way to rewrite the sentence to make it stronger. “He was taller than me,” may be revised to say “he stood three inches taller than me.” Other times, “was” may work just fine, but at least the “was” edit forces one to examine their word choices.

If you’re ready to dust off an old first draft and start revising, incorporating these tips may be of use.

Telling yourself

I’m still working on a story I began in November. Most people called it quits on November 30, but for me I’m still on NaNoWriMo, about day 120.

Writing in NaNo style is kind of fun. The goal is to slap down a story rough draft in thirty days. You just write. You send the internal editor out of the room and just write. I’ve had a problem shutting that guy up so ignoring him was a joy of NaNo.

My normal style is to obsess over every little sentence. I can’t move on to chapter two until chapter one is perfect. It was so freeing in November to let the story just flow, with a note here or there on how to fix it during the next draft. My problem was I didn’t have it roughed out in my head so at times I wrote aimlessly, going around in circles. But when I had direction, it was liberating to lay the story down in a quick fashion.

Now I am trying to finish that first draft, the first 50,00 words for NaNo and again, I fall back into old habits of obsession over perfection. My critique group pointed out the problem and said to return to NaNo style. I’ve done that, but internal editor man still manages to pop up, even though I’ve told him to leave me alone.

A couple inspirational posts have appeared on this blog. Julie Daines commented that the first chapter can never be perfected until the entire story is complete. That makes a lot of sense. You need a beginning and it can have direction. But there’s no need to fixate on it when it’s going to change anyway to accommodate the path it takes.

Scott Rhoades had a great post last week with his truth about first drafts. “Books don't escape the mind fully fledged and ready to fly,” he said. That brilliant idea in your head can look so flawed in the first draft. No matter how ugly that first attempt is, the writer must persevere and tell the story, then come back and make the repairs.

Scott offered a quote from Terry Pratchett that echoed what my critique group said. "The first draft is just you telling yourself the story." I like that little line and it has carried me all week long. You may have a general idea of the plot and the characters who live it, but you really don’t know the story for sure until you tell it to yourself.

So I’m telling myself a story. Maybe one of these days I’ll finish my NaNo project.