Chris Eboch on Editing Your Novel during #NaNoEdMo (or any time)

Did you do National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) last year? Even if you didn't, do you have a manuscript ready to edit? March is National Novel Editing Month (NaNoEdMo)! Planning your editing can make it less of a chore.

Some time ago I published a post on Editing Your Novel after #NaNoWriMo. I focused on "big picture" editing, so start there if that's what you need. Today's post focuses on fine tuning. They are both excerpted from You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers.

Fine Tuning

Once you are confident that your characters, plot, structure, and pacing are working, you can dig into the smaller details. At this stage, make sure that your timeline works and your setting hangs together. Create calendars and maps to keep track of when things happen and where people go. Then polish, polish, polish.

How Much Is Enough?

How much editing you need to do depends on your goals for the story. If you simply want to write down the bedtime stories you tell your children as a family record, a spelling error or two doesn’t matter too much. If you are going to submit work to a publisher, you need to be more careful. Some editors and agents say they will stop reading if they find errors in the first few pages, or more than one typo every few pages. If you plan to self-publish, most experts advise hiring a professional editor to help you shape the story and a professional proofreader to make sure the book doesn’t go out with typos. Weak writing and other errors could cause readers to get annoyed and leave bad reviews.

With a Critical Eye

Bill Peschel, author of Sherlock Holmes parodies and other books for adults, and a former newspaper copy editor, says, “Reading with a critical eye reveals weak spots in grammar, consistently misspelled words, and a reliance on ‘crutch words’ [unnecessary and overused words] such as simply, basically, or just. While it can be disheartening to make the same mistakes over and over again, self-editing can boost your ego when you become aware that you’re capable of eliminating them from your work. It takes self-awareness, some education, and a willingness to admit to making mistakes.”

This stage of editing can be time-consuming, especially if you are prone to spelling or grammatical errors. “Be systematic,” Peschel says. “Despite all the advice on how to multi-task, the brain operates most efficiently when it’s focusing on one problem at a time. This applies to proofing. You can look for spelling mistakes, incorrect grammar, and your particular weaknesses, just not at the same time. So for effective proofing, make several passes, each time focusing on a different aspects.”

One pass might focus only on dialogue. “Read just the dialogue out loud,” editor Jodie Renner suggests, “maybe role-playing with a buddy or two. Do the conversations sound natural or stilted? Does each character sound different, or do they all sound like the author?”

Do You Use A Lot Of Words When You Only Need A Few?

Wordiness (using more words than necessary) is a big problem for many writers, so make at least one pass focused exclusively on tightening. “Make every word count,” Renner advises. “Take out whole sentences and paragraphs that don’t add anything new or drive the story forward. Take out unnecessary little words, most adverbs and many adjectives, and eliminate clichés.” Words you can almost always cut include very, really, just, sort of, kind of, a little, rather, started to, began to, then. To pick up the pace in your manuscript, try to cut 20% of the text on every page, simply by looking for unnecessary words or longer phrases that can be changed to shorter ones.

Make additional passes looking for grammar errors, missing words, and your personal weak areas. For example, if you know you tend to overuse “just,” use the “Find” option in a program like Microsoft Word to locate that word and eliminate it when possible.

Even if you’re not an expert editor, you may be able to sense when something is wrong. “Trust your inner voice,” when you get an uneasy feeling, Peschel says. “It can be something missing, something wrong, something clunky, and if you stick to it – read it out loud, read it backwards, look at it from a distance – the mistake should declare itself.”

Fool Your Brain

By this point, you’ve read your manuscript dozens of times. This can make it hard to spot errors, since you know what is supposed to be there. Several tricks can help you see your work with fresh eyes.

Peschel says, “Reading the same prose in the same font can cause the eye to skate over mistakes, so change it up. Boost the size or change the color of the text or try a different font. Use free programs such as Calibre or Scrivener to create an EPUB or MOBI file that can be read on an ebook reader.”

Renner also recommends changing your font. Print your manuscript on paper if you are used to working on the computer screen. Finally, move away from your normal working place to review your manuscript. “These little tricks will help you see the manuscript as a reader instead of as a writer,” she says.

“An effective way to check the flow of your story is to read it aloud or have someone read it to you,” freelance editor Linda Lane notes. “Better yet, record your story so you can play it back multiple times if necessary. Recruiting another person to do this will give you a better idea of what a reader will see.”

Some software, such as MS Word 2010, has a text-to-voice feature to provide a read aloud. Lane adds, “If recording your story yourself, run your finger just below each line as you read to catch omitted or misspelled words and missing commas, quote marks, and periods. Also, enunciate clearly and ‘punctuate’ as you read, pausing slightly at each comma and a bit longer at end punctuation. While this won’t catch every error, it will give you a good sense of flow, highlight many shortcomings, and test whether your dialogue is smooth and realistic.”

Some people even recommend reading your manuscript backwards, sentence by sentence. While this won’t help you track the flow of the story, it focuses attention on the sentence level.

Finally, certain computer programs and web platforms are designed to identify spelling and grammar errors, and in some cases even identify clichés. While these programs are not recommended for developmental editing (when you’re shaping the story), they can be an option for later polishing. (They can also make mistakes, though, so don’t trust Microsoft Word’s spelling & grammar check to be right about everything.)

Break It down

Looking at all the steps to successful self-editing may be daunting, but break them down into pieces, take a step at a time, and don’t rush your revisions. “This whole process could easily take several months,” Renner says. “Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by putting your manuscript out too soon.”

Each time you go through this process you’ll be developing your skills, making the next time easier. “Like anything else, self-editing becomes easier the more you do it,” Peschel says. “When it becomes second-nature, you’ll have made a big leap toward becoming a professional writer.”

Editing Description

For each detail, ask:

• Does it make the story more believable?
• Does it help readers picture or understand a character or place better?
• Does it answer questions that readers might want answered?
• Does it distract from the action?
• Could it be removed without confusing readers or weakening the story?
• For illustrated work, could the description be replaced by illustrations?

Use more details for unusual/unfamiliar settings. Try using multiple senses: sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and the feeling of touch. Especially in picture books, use senses other than sight, which can be shown through the illustrations.

Editing Resources:

Online

I haven’t tried this, but the “Hemingway App” is designed to identify overly long or complicated sentences, so it might be helpful in learning to simplify your work for younger audiences.

Grammarly is an app that claims to find more errors than Microsoft Word’s spelling and grammar check option, including words that are spelled correctly but used incorrectly.

Resources for Writers, by editor Jodie Renner, list several of her editing books as well as blog posts on various writing topics.

The Plot Outline Exercise from Advanced Plotting helps you analyze your plot for trouble spots. Get the exercise as a free download from my webpage.

Fiction University, by middle grade author Janice Hardy, has great posts on many writing craft topics.

Author and writing teacher Jordan McCollum offers downloadable free writing guides on topics such as character arcs and deep point of view.

In “A Bad Case of Revisionitis,” Literary agent Natalie M. Lakosil discusses when to stop revising.

Chris Eboch writes fiction and nonfiction for all ages, with 50+ traditionally published books for children. Her novels for ages nine and up include The Genie’s Gift, a middle eastern fantasy; The Eyes of Pharaoh, a mystery in ancient Egypt; The Well of Sacrifice, a Mayan adventure; Bandits Peak, a survival story, and the Haunted series, which starts with The Ghost on the Stairs.

Chris’s writing craft books include You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers and Advanced Plotting. Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page. Chris is an Regional Advisor Emerita for SCBWI and has given popular writing workshops around the world. Chris also writes novels of suspense and romance for adults under the name Kris Bock; read excerpts at www.krisbock.com.

Grab Readers with Page-Turning Pacing, by Chris Eboch

Fast-paced. Gripping. A page turner. “I couldn’t put it down.” Why do some books get these comments, while others are called slow or flat?

Characters, plot, setting, and theme are all part of pace. But once you have a fast-paced draft, you can pump up the pace even more by focusing on the line-by-line level. In fact, relatively minor changes in sentence structure and paragraphing can make a scene much more dramatic. A page that is one solid block of text looks dull and intimidating. On the other hand, with short paragraphs the reader’s eyes move more quickly down the page, giving a sense of breathless speed. The book literally becomes a page turner because the reader finishes each page so quickly. This means you can make action scenes more dramatic by using short paragraphs.

Here’s an example from my middle grade mystery, The Eyes of Pharaoh. Seshta is on the roof, spying down a stairwell. When someone comes up the stairs, she must escape.

     She glanced back at the stairwell. She didn’t have much time.

     Seshta turned and lowered herself over the edge of the roof until she hung from her elbows, her legs scraping against the wall.

     From the stairwell, a head rose into view.

     Seshta let go and fell.

Imagine all that in one paragraph. It wouldn’t have the same pace.

Sentence length affects pace as well. Short sentences have a different rhythm from long ones. Long sentences can feel leisurely, while short ones have blunt impact – the difference between a hug and a slap. You want a variety of sentence and paragraph lengths, because if everything is the same the story will feel clunky or sluggish. But save the longer sentences and paragraphs for description and introspection, and use short sentences and short paragraphs for maximum impact in action scenes.

Here’s another example from The Eyes of Pharaoh. This is the end of a chapter where Seshta is waiting for a friend who is supposed to bring important news.

     Ra, the sun god, carried his fiery burden toward the western horizon. Horus caught three catfish. A flock of ducks flew away quacking. Dusk settled over the river, dimming shapes and colors until they blurred to gray. The last fishing boats pulled in to the docks, and the fishermen headed home.

     But Reya never came.

The long paragraph of description conveys time passing slowly. Putting the last short sentence into its own paragraph gives it added emphasis, causing it to seem more important and ominous.

Print your story or a chapter of your novel and look at your paragraphing. Don’t read it, just see how it looks on the page. Do you have variety, or is everything about the same length? Do you favor short paragraphs or long ones?

Now look closer. Do you have long paragraphs of action, where several things are happening within one paragraph? Consider breaking that into shorter paragraphs, starting a new one for each small piece of action, as in the first example above.

Look at your chapter endings, especially when you have cliffhangers. Can you break your paragraphs into smaller pieces for more drama? Can you shorten your sentences? How does the feel of the section change as you play with sentence and paragraph length? Note the difference between even small changes in wording and punctuation. For example, compare these unpublished examples:

     I heard a noise and looked up with a gasp in time to see a huge rock tumbling toward me.

     I heard a noise above my head. I looked up and gasped.

     A boulder tumbled toward me.

It’s almost hard to follow the action in the first example, because too much happens in one sentence. Shorter sentences clarify the action and give each piece more impact.

You can do this exercise with published books as well. Note sections that are poorly paced and try rewriting them to see how things change as you vary the structure.

Master pacing, and keep those pages turning.

Chris Eboch’s novels for ages nine and up include The Eyes of Pharaoh, a mystery in ancient Egypt; The Well of Sacrifice, a Mayan adventure; The Genie’s Gift, a middle eastern fantasy; and the Haunted series, about kids who travel with a ghost hunter TV show, which starts with The Ghost on the Stairs. Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page

Her writing craft books include You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers, and Advanced Plotting. Check out her writing tips at her Write Like a Pro! blog.

Photo: The Horse in Motion by Eadweard Muybridge.

This media file is in the public domain in the United States.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Horse_in_Motion.jpg

Self-Editing Is For Suckers by Jim Hill

Why is it so easy to edit someone else’s writing and so hard to edit your own? I asked this question on Facebook and received a lot of excellent answers. And a few hilarious ones (looking at you, Julia). The consensus is that we're too close to our writing to be objective. We all get that, right?

That objectivity is why writing workshops and crit groups are a necessity for improving your work. When I read someone else's pages, I see all of my flaws in their writing. (Thanks, terrible writing partners!)

Putting aside bigger revision issues for today, let's look at copy edit concerns. Typos. Basic grammar. These are my fatal flaws. My kryptonite. My third example and unnecessary metaphor. I am one of the worst offenders when it comes to shitty-first-second-and-third-drafts. I am blind to the copy editing problems I create while crafting that perfect gem of a story (Hahahahahaha. *cries*). It's kind of embarrassing at this point. Its v. it's. There and their. I mean, c'mon, Jim. Really? Then there are all the throat-clearing words, and overuse of others like "like" for example.

I'm a job creator, and that job is copy editor.

I've gotten better. Practice, intention, and attention all make a big difference. I've also discovered a handful of online tools that help with seeing the forest. Come with me and we'll check them out, but leave a trail of breadcrumbs, because forest joke. *groan*

Come for the writing tips, stay for the jokes. *tap tap* Is this thing on?

Wordle

Wordle creates word clouds from text. Not only is this a fun distraction, but it's also a useful tool to get that thirty-thousand-foot-macro-look at your writing. I pasted my entire manuscript in and shuddered at the giant LIKE that claimed so much attention. I went back into the book and counted ninety-one similes that began with like. After revising, I got it down to like only eighty-eight. Win!

The Hemingway App

Paste your text into the Hemingway App one and it kicks out an immediate review of your writing. Color coded highlights help you spot problem areas onscreen. It checks for readability by grade level and gives a word count. The highlighted areas tell you if a sentence is hard to read, very hard to read, if there are simpler alternatives, written in passive voice, and counts adverbs. It really hates adverbs.

The online version is free. They have a paid desktop app too.

Grammarly

Grammarly has become my go-to writing partner. Like the Hemingway App, there's an online version and a desktop app. It also offers a browser plug-in that reviews any text you enter on the fly. Very helpful for social media updates.

I liked the free version so much I ponied up the annual subscription fee for the premium service. It's much less than my monthly Starbucks bill and boosts my productivity even more than my favorite venti iced caramel macchiato.

I draft short pieces (like this one) directly in the desktop app. For my novel, I pasted full scenes in for review. The unobtrusive interface is clean and offers pop-up details so you can see why it flagged something, and make the choice to correct it or not. A cool incentive to better writing is the score shown in the corner. It kicks my competitive mojo up a notch and makes me strive for that perfect 100.

As the attention grabbing headline says, self-editing is for suckers. These tools don't help with the big picture stuff of story, character arcs, themes, etc., but they do smooth the road. Copy edit and grammar issues are speed bumps that distract you and your crit partners from the quality of your writing. Not to diminish the value of these vital aspects by any means, but in revision at any stage, why get tangled up in the nuts and bolts when what you want to work on is the machine?

Now, get out there and write like you mean it.

Chris Eboch on Editing Your Novel after #NaNoWriMo

Did you do National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)? If so, congratulations! Whether or not you actually made it to 50,000 words, hopefully you have a start on a new novel. Even if you did complete a draft, you have work ahead. I’m sure you know you shouldn’t submit or self publish an early draft. The next step is editing, which some people love and some people dread. Planning your editing can make it less of a chore. Here’s an excerpt on editing from You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers.

The Big Picture

Wading through hundreds of novel pages trying to identify every problem at once is intimidating and hardly effective. The best self-editors break the editorial process into steps. They also develop practices that allow them to step back from the manuscript and see it as a whole.

Editor Jodie Renner recommends putting your story away for a few weeks after your first complete draft. During that time, share it with a critique group or beta readers. (Beta readers give feedback on an unpublished draft. They are not necessarily writers, so they give a reader’s opinion.) Ask your advisors to look only at the big picture: “where they felt excited, confused, curious, delighted, scared, worried, bored, etc.,” Renner says. During your writing break, you can also read books, articles, or blog posts to brush up on your craft techniques.

Then collect the feedback and make notes, asking for clarification as needed. Consider moving everyone’s comments onto a single manuscript for simplicity. This also allows you to see where several people have made similar comments, and to choose which suggestions you will follow. At this point, you are only making notes, not trying to implement changes.

In my book Advanced Plotting, I suggest making a chapter by chapter outline of your manuscript so you can see what you have without the distraction of details. For each scene or chapter, note the primary action, important subplots, and the mood or emotions. By getting this overview of your novel down to a few pages, you can go through it quickly looking for trouble spots. You can compare your outline to The Hero’s Journey or scriptwriting three-act structure to see if those guidelines inspire any changes. (You Can Write for Children and Advanced Plotting both have more information on three act structure.)

As you review your scenes, pay attention to anything that slows the story. Where do you introduce the main conflict? Can you eliminate your opening chapter(s) and start later? Do you have long passages of back story or explanation that aren’t necessary? Does each scene have conflict? Are there scenes out of order or repetitive scenes that could be cut? Make notes on where you need to add new scenes, delete or condense boring scenes, or move scenes.

 

Colored highlighter pens (or the highlight function on a computer) can help you track everything from point of view changes to clues in a mystery to thematic elements. Highlight subplots and important secondary characters to make sure they are used throughout the manuscript in an appropriate way. Cut or combine minor characters who aren’t necessary.

Using Your Notes

Once you have an overview of the changes you want, revise the manuscript for these big picture items: issues such as plot, structure, characterization, point of view, and pacing. Renner recommends you then reread the entire manuscript, still focusing on the big picture. Depending on the extent of your changes, you may want to repeat this process several times.

During this stage of editing, consider market requirements if you plan to submit the work to publishers. Is your word count within an appropriate range for the genre? Are you targeting a publisher that has specific requirements? If you’re writing a romance, will the characters’ arcs and happy ending satisfy those fans? If you have an epic fantasy, is the world building strong and fresh? If your thriller runs too long, can it be broken into multiple books, or can you eliminate minor characters and subplots?

Once you’ve done all you can, you may want to hire an editor. You could also send the manuscript to new beta readers or critique partners. People who have not read the manuscript before might be better at identifying how things are working now. (See my posts on Critiques at my “Write like a Pro!” blog for topics such as making the most of a critique group, using family and friends, and hiring a professional editor.)

Editing Tips:

• Don’t try to edit everything at once. Make several passes, looking for different problems. Start big, then focus in on details.
• Try writing a one- or two-sentence synopsis. Define your goal. Do you want to produce an action-packed thriller? A laugh-out-loud book that will appeal to preteen boys? A richly detailed historical novel about a character’s internal journey? Identifying your goal can help you make decisions about what to cut and what to keep.
• Next make a scene list, describing what each scene does.
• Do you need to make major changes to the plot, characters, setting, or theme (fiction) or the focus of the topic (nonfiction)?
• Does each scene fulfill the synopsis goal? How does it advance plot, reveal character, or both?
• Does each scene build and lead to the next? Are any redundant? If you cut the scene, would you lose anything? Can any secondary characters be combined or eliminated?
• Does anything need to be added or moved? Do you have a length limit or target?
• Can you increase the complications, so that at each step, more is at stake, there’s greater risk or a better reward? If each scene has the same level of risk and consequence, the pacing is flat and the middle sags.
• Check for accuracy. Are your facts correct? Are your characters and setting consistent?
• Does each scene follow a logical order?
• Is your point of view consistent?
• Do you have dynamic language: Strong, active verbs? A variety of sentence lengths (but mostly short and to the point)? No clichés? Do you use multiple senses (sight, sound, taste, smell, touch)?
• Finally, edit for spelling and punctuation.

(For detailed editing questions, see my Plot Outline Exercise. It’s in my book Advanced Plotting or available for download on my website.)

What are your favorite resources for editing advice? Here are some I like or that other writers have recommended.

Editing Resources:

Advanced Plotting, by Chris Eboch

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne and Dave King

Style That Sizzles & Pacing for Power – An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction, by Jodie Renner

Manuscript Makeover, by Elizabeth Lyon

Novel Metamorphosis, by Darcy Pattison

Revision & Self-Editing, by James Scott Bell

Thanks, But This Isn’t For Us, by Jessica Page Morrell

Need a holiday present for a writer in your life – or for yourself? Improve your craft next year with Advanced Plotting or You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers. Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or Chris’s Amazon page.

Chris Eboch writes fiction and nonfiction for all ages, with 30+ traditionally published books for children. Her novels for ages nine and up include The Genie’s Gift, a middle eastern fantasy; The Eyes of Pharaoh, a mystery in ancient Egypt; The Well of Sacrifice, a Mayan adventure; Bandits Peak, a survival story, and the Haunted series, which starts with The Ghost on the Stairs. Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page.

Chris also writes novels of suspense and romance for adults under the name Kris Bock; read excerpts at www.krisbock.com.

The Importance of Beginnings by: Joanna Roddy

Story beginnings have been tricky for me. When I started editing with my agent, that was one of the first and hardest things I had to work on. At one point she said, "Your main character wakes up thinking about chess. So we think he's a chess geek. Is that what you were going for?" My adventurous hero with a burning desire to travel the world with his archeologist grandpa? No. Chess geek was not what I was going for. I was just trying to get him to an important scene as quickly as possible. Back to the blank page for me.  

Something I've learned since then is that the beginning of a story has more weight than the rest of it. Your reader is trying to orient themselves to the world, to the characters, and to your voice. The first few things your character does and says DEFINE that character for your reader. 

The beginning of your story is like a resume, trying to get your reader to hire you for the job of temporary entertainer--and if that reader is an agent or editor you want to work with, then you want those pages to shine. 

As I entered a season of ruthless and wholescale editing, I noticed how the Pixar movies that my kids watch are so tightly written. Everything has a purpose: humor, plot, character, or setting, and usually several at once. In a 100 page screenplay for an audience with a notoriously short attention-span, there is no dross. And within the first few minutes, you clearly understand the main character, the world they live in, and what they want.  

Pixar screenplay writer, Michael Arndt, made a YouTube video about Pixar's approach to story beginnings. This is just packed with great ideas. Have a look if you have a few minutes.

His basic formula for the very beginning of a story:

1. Right away, introduce your character, the world they live in, and show them doing the thing they love most.

2. Show that they have a flaw, which flows out of their grand passion--some way in which they take it too far.

3. Show clouds on the horizon--some hint of the conflict or emotional challenge the character will face for the rest of the story.

He goes on to explain the rest of Act 1, by the end of which your character has a goal and has set off on the journey of the rest of the story. He summarizes: "So your story is coming out of your character's deepest desires and their darkest fears. The thing they love gets taken away from them and the world is revealed to be unfair. To put things right, they have to make the journey that is the rest of the film. And by the end of the journey, hopefully they'll not only get back what they lost but they'll be forced to fix that little flaw they had when we first met them."

Formulas can be prisons or wings, depending on how you work, but as a jumping off place, I found this advice super helpful. 

How do you start a new story? Do you use a formula or have any advice to offer? I'd love to hear!

The Joy is the Writing by Joanna Roddy

Hermione Granger is my alter ego.

I was the girl always raising my hand in class. I was the one who always had the right answer. I may not have been a mini-McGonagall stickler for rules, but I did have the annoying habit of correcting people all the time. I even had frizzy hair. If only I could do magic too.

Thank goodness we all grow up, even Hermione, and I’ve learned to temper those tendencies with some self-control and found an outlet in teaching. Oh, and I bought a flat iron to tame the frizzle.

I would never advise anyone to dumb it down to make other people feel more comfortable (I'm talking to you, girls). But while cleverness and scholarship have their upsides, acting like a bossy know-it-all (It's wing-ARD-ium levi-O-sa) never helped anyone. And needing to always have the right answer has become the single biggest block to my creative life that I've had to overcome.

Just this month, I finished a major rewrite of my novel and I can say something about it that I've never been able to say before: I love my story. It needs editing and polishing, but it feels right in a way it's never felt before.

It’s taken me awhile to get here.

After college I had a shiny new writing degree, but when the time came to write for myself (and not for assignments), I was completely paralyzed. At first I applied to MFA programs, thinking an academic community would develop a writing life for me. And then I started to read everything about writing that I could get my hands on, especially other writers' chronicles of their own insecurities and the writing practices they developed to face them.

It seemed that I was not alone. Everyone feels this monolithic fear about their work. Everyone has to get their butt in the chair and work anyway. And if I could summarize my own fear in one sentence, it was this: I was afraid of not knowing what to write.

I was so comfortable always knowing the right answer that when it came time to create my own right answers, to speak from that solitary authority of the author, I was terrified that I would have nothing to say.

After some attempts at previous projects, which were all non-fiction or historical (safety in facts: research and given plots), I took a leap of faith and started writing a children's fantasy novel, which was what I had always wanted to do. And then I spent a year researching the heck out of relevant mythology and creating an elaborate back history. I was looking for safety in facts again. But little by little I began to let the facts prod my imagination into fictional possibilities.

It took me another three years to finish the novel. Every time I came to a point in the story I couldn't see past, I shut down. I stopped writing. I plotted like crazy. I didn't trust the work itself to show me the way forward.

I've read enough about writing to know that "inspiration likes to find you hard at work." So I would carve out the time, which became a concerted effort after becoming a mom. I showed up at the page. I wrote. But I kept blocking myself with fear. Whenever I didn't know what to write, even if it was just the next word, I escaped to wander the internet, or compare my plotline to the Hero's Journey, or read author blogs. The going was slow.

I have been editing my novel with my agent for the last couple of years and at the beginning I thought, Finally! I have an expert showing me what to do. Right answers in the form of editorial notes. But by the end of my first revision, I was sick of my story and sick of working on it. Right answers were a checklist and the work became a chore.

But something really great happened this time around the editing loop. It was a confluence of things, really, that somehow culminated in my own shift from head knowledge to heart.

First I finally read Stephen King's On Writing this fall. One of the things that really stayed with me is his emphasis on situation-driven writing over plotting. He says to set up an interesting situation and the rest will follow. He also says, "And if you do your job, your characters will come to life and start doing stuff on their own. I know that sounds creepy if you haven't actually experienced it, but it's terrific fun when it happens." I thought, Darn it, I want that to happen to me!

And then I took a 3-day solo writing retreat and I forced myself to write all day, every day. No internet, no people, no activities, just word count goals and lots of chocolate. And something started to happen. I let myself discover the scenes as they unfolded. They took me unexpected places, introduced unexpected characters. It was thrilling!

An author I really love published the final book in her trilogy last month and as I read some interviews she gave about it, I was struck by the realization that her complex, multi-layered series came together as she was writing it. And when you read her work, it's obvious: the writing itself is the pleasure. It's a feast of words. And yet, she was able to create a cohesive, successful whole by trusting and listening to the work as it unfolded.

And that was when the light bulb went off. This thing I've always known cognitively--writing is about writing--sunk into my gut.

Trust the work.

Let it show you the way forward.

Just get your butt in the chair and write.

I'm writing with less fear and a lot more joy, coming to the page excited to see what may unfold instead of terrified that I don't have the right answer.

Imagination by N.C. Wyeth

Writing is a lot more like reading a good book than engineering.

It's the difference between taking a test and going on an adventure. And not only am I thrilled to now know the difference between the two, I feel like I hit the jackpot because the adventure, which is a lot more fun, is the path to a writer's best work. Aren't we lucky?

So, what is your biggest fear when you write? Do you struggle with blocking yourself or needing to have a detailed plan? How have you overcome that? And what are some unexpected discoveries you've made about your project while you were writing it? 

A Book By the Numbers

Writing is such a piecemeal process. It's always kind of fun for me to think about a book in the big picture sense of things.

Here's the (numerical) story of my newest verse novel, BLUE BIRDS, so far:

first idea: 2008
research began: 2010
writing began: 2011
book sold: 2013
publication: 2015

number of research books read completely: 9 (reading some several times)
number of research books read partially: 4
number of websites visited: 1 zillion
number of months researching: approximately 9
number of printed / partially printed copies: 9
number of early readers: 13
number of drafts before selling: 1 zillion + 2
number of editor rejections: 7
number of poems in sold manuscript: 224
number of words in sold manuscript (excluding the author's note): 18,125

number of weeks to work on first-round edits: 10*
number of hours worked on first-round edits: 141.5
number of poems after first-round edits: 207
number of words after first-round edits (excluding author's note): 19,632
number of words added the first 8 weeks of first-round edits (excluding author's note): 3,551
number of words cut the last two weeks of first-round edits (excluding author's note): 2,044

number of weeks to work on second-round edits: 8
number of hours words on second-round edits: 107.75
number of holidays during second-round edits: 2
number of library visits during second-round edits: 1
number of school visits during second-round edits: 1
number of Skype visits during second-round edits: 2
number of days I wore a strand of pearls during second-round edits (to connect with my characters): 21

number of weeks to work on third-round edits: 4
number of hours on third-round edits so far: 44.75
number of times I've been sure I've "broken" the book: 2,305,491
number of times I've talked with my editor since receiving my third-round edits: 2
number of emails I've sent my editor since receiving my third-round edits: 6
number of days from now third-round edits are due: 10

number of days I'm grateful I don't have to get it right the first time: EVERY SINGLE DAY



*during those ten weeks, I also worked on the following:

• fiction and non-fiction pieces to accompany an anthology proposal: 5 hours
• "back matter" for my 2015 picture book, OVER IN THE WETLANDS : 10 hours

Revising a Manuscript, also known as When Editing 200 Words Takes Approximately Five Hours, by: Marissa Burt

© iStockphoto.com/MiquelMuni

Well, Mayhemers, I’m deep in the writing cave, working madly to make a mid-September deadline on the first draft of my next middle-grade fantasy THERE WAS A CROOKED MAN.  I thought to share some of my writing and revising process and hear your strategies and suggestions as well.

I once heard someone say that the process for writing each book is different for each book that you write.  Wow, have I found that to be true! 

I wrote STORYBOUND on the odd free afternoon, over a period of about six months.  I didn’t have much of an outline, more of a general direction for the story, and then spent a lot of time piecing scenes together to make a complete draft.  My deadline for STORY’S END fell near the end of a year in which I had my third son (three boys three-and-under makes for a wild ride), we moved cross-country to Seattle, my husband started a non-profit, so why not squeeze a book in there, too?  ha.  It was crazy-making, and I wrote the first draft in a little over a month and vowed I would never do that again.

This time, I’ve been working away all year long.  I tried to start with an outline, but I didn’t stick with it.  Sometimes, I’d have a solid Saturday where I’d get 3K done, but most weeks I would aim for 500 words a day.  This often made for disjointed scenes, but it was very doable, and I was able to squeeze writing time into my ordinary activities. 

But then summer came and my steady trot turned to a stumbling gait, and I found myself at the end of the August with only two-thirds of a manuscript.  I spent the last week of August writing full-time, which had several odd effects.  First, it was very helpful to live and breathe the story-world.  Second, I found myself finishing writing for the day craving another story – a novel or movie or something – and I think this had to do with refueling creativity.  Finally, it intensified the typical writing emotional rollercoaster, to wit:

Me, Writing Day 1: I’m only 40K in.  I don’t like where this story is going.  I think I”ll set it in Alaska instead of Iceland.  How about a campout instead of a study abroad program?

Later that night: What am I thinking?  I can’t rewrite a book in a week.  I have to make what I have work.

Me, Writing Day 2: This book is horrible.  No one is going to want to read it.  I don’t even want to read it.

Me, Writing Day 3: Maybe this isn’t horrible.  *discovery of brilliant plot point* This story is amazing!  I love it!

Me, Later that night: Near tears.  I can’t believe I’m going to send this to my editor.  No one will read this.

Me, Writing Day 4: Cautiously optimistic.  Finding equilibrium

Me, Writing Day 5: I just want to be finished.

Me, Writing Day 6: Problems worked out, plan set in place, now I simply need to execute it.

It’s hard to say where I’m at now, except that I’m so ready to be done!  The past two weeks of revision have been a long haul of reading, re-reading, making notes, and reading the manuscript again.  Once I’ve got the rough elements of a draft in place, I usually work through the following steps:

1.  Re-order the outline.  Once I’m near the end of a draft, I’m able to revise my original post-it-note outline and figure out what missing scenes I need to write or what needs to be cut.  This is also when I confirm that the days and nights match up.  Working from this new outline, I then fill in any blank spots in my draft. 

2.  Read through the manuscript in one sitting.  This is when I find things that worked in old versions but don’t anymore, darling scenes that really just need to go, and the humbling discovery of those oh-so-favorite words.  For example, my characters’ eyebrows were arching all over the place, Wren’s stomach was constantly having trouble, people were forever crouching low and/or bending down, cheeks were flaring, gazes were being fixed on too many things, and birds cocked one beady eye at everything in sight.  It was awful.  And funny. 

3.  Read the manuscript out loud if possible.  This is a great way to catch word repetition.  I read on my laptop and am ruthless with the delete key.  This is also when I make little notes of facts I need to confirm. 

4.  Do any last-minute research.  Wren, the main character in THERE WAS A CROOKED MAN, is into science, so this book has a lot of astronomy references, which means I have sentences like: “Jack picks ups some really cool piece of ancient astronomy equipment here.”  Now is when I go find out what those things actually are.  Instead of getting bogged down in research during the writing process, I get bogged down in the revision process.  Clever, huh?

5.  Final notes for each chapter.  I make little notes at the beginning of each chapter for final tweaks.  This is what I’ve been working on today:

When all those little notes have been addressed and deleted, I can officially say that this first draft is complete, and, if there’s time, it gets sent off to my early readers for their feedback.  Fortunately, I have an editorial agent, so she is another welcome reader before I’m ready to send it to my editor. 

What about you, fellow writers?  Do you have any favorite tricks for tackling revisions?  And, because I’m so tired of seeing my own repeated tells (cheeks flaring hot, shrugs, and exchanged glances) do you have any overused words or adjectives that pop up in every manuscript?