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.

Revision Strategies by Dianne K. Salerni

So, you’ve written a huge, ugly monster of a first draft—something so distorted, scarred and ridden with plot holes that you're tempted to grab a shovel, bash the thing over the head, and bury it.

Don’t. You can save Franken-draft.

The first thing I suggest is outlining your book. Yes, outline it after you wrote it – even if you had an outline before you started writing the thing. You may have had a planned outline, but what did you actually put into the manuscript? A simple two column table in a Word document works for me. I use the left hand column to summarize the events in each chapter. The right hand column is for recording changes I need to make.

To help guide my revision choices, I also use a separate color-coded outline to analyze the way sub-plots are woven into the story. Again, I work chapter-by-chapter, boiling the events down to one or two sentences. In this example, I assigned purple to the central mystery, blue to a secondary mystery, and yellow to the romantic sub-plot. The color-highlighting helps me see where the various plot elements appear and make sure that they balance each other and that no sub-plot disappears for too long.

As for the actual revising, I prefer to make several successive passes through a manuscript rather than try to perfect the story in one revision. My second draft usually focuses on plot holes and character development. In my third draft, I refine the world-building (no matter if it’s historical, fantasy, science-fiction, or realistic). My fourth draft tackles voice, as well as the succinctness of the prose. This is where I get out my Grim Reaper robe, grab a virtual scythe, and get ruthless about word slashing.

Most of the time, you can remove just, even, and very without changing the meaning of your sentence. People can stand and sit instead of stand up and sit down. They nod and wave. (No need to say which body part is getting nodded or waved. We know.) Avoid phrases with multiple prepositions. In the back of becomes behind, and on the top of can often be reduced to on. I have a bad habit of identifying characters by their first and last names when one or the other will do. I also use multiple adjectives when a single precise one would be more effective.

By the time you've done all this, hopefully, Franken-draft has been civilized a little bit and is ready to bring out in society, or at least shared with beta readers.

Adding Depth to the Nooks & Crannies of Your Novel by Jessica Lawson

It's my pleasure to turn my Project Mayhem slot over for a guest post from Jessica Lawson. In addition to being an amazing critique partner and friend, she is the author of The Actual & Truthful Adventures of Becky Thatcher, which my nine-year-old has already read twice since it came out last year. Jessica's second novel, Nooks & Crannies just came out on June 2nd, and it has gotten starred reviews from School Library Journal, Booklist, and Publisher's Weekly, and rights have recently been sold to France and Germany! 

One lucky commenter on this post will receive a copy of Nooks & Crannies, a Dahl-esque murder mystery with an unforgettable cast of characters spending a life changing holiday in a haunted mansion. I hope Project Mayhem readers love it as much as I did. Read on for Jessica's tips on adding depth to your middle grade novel. 

Joy McCullough-Carranza

Adding Depth to the Nooks & Crannies of Your Novel

by Jessica Lawson

My second novel Nooks & Crannies is, in ways, a farcical mystery. It was pitched to my publisher as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory meets Clue. A bit of slapstick humor. Exaggerated characters. A caricature feel to the setting. A butler. You get the idea—a book for entertainment, not necessarily meant to address more serious themes and ideas. At least that’s how it started.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned by reading middle grade books, it’s that humor can be the very best medium to explore deeper emotions and themes within a novel. With that in mind, I set out to infuse my farcical mystery with layers. Socioeconomic disparity. Parent-child relationships. The nature of expectations, both the ones parents have for children, and the ones children have for themselves. All that, and a pet mouse, too.

I’ve come to think of layering books in terms of cooking a soup. Too little depth, and the novel won’t be as filling. Get a little butter-flour-wine roux going as a base, and your broth will taste richer. Careful, though; too many spices (aka, details and themes) that fight each other rather than complement each other won’t leave you with as tasty a read. Here are a few ways you can add depth to your manuscript:

*Character Arc: Check your protagonist’s arc and make sure that they’re making a change somehow—in self-confidence, in realization, in strength, whatever. In Nooks & Crannies, Tabitha comes to realizations about her self-worth and her place in the world. Get to the heart of the arc, really give it depth, by embracing your inner 5-year-old-- ask questions and keep asking. Here’s a made-up example:

What does your character want? A new watch. Oh. Why? Because it’s a prize for a contest. It’s a funny book about her trying to win. There’s a prank war and stuff. Funny book, right? Well, why does she need a watch? She doesn’t need it, she really just wants to win. Why? Because she thinks it might make her popular. Why’s that matter? She wants friends. Why? Because while she’s outgoing and competitive, secretly she’s very lonely. You could certainly keep asking “why” here, but that’s the important nugget of information. The fact that your character is secretly lonely is the basis of his/her arc: developing true self-confidence and finding friendship.

*Three-Dimensional Side characters—Flesh out those side characters, even if it’s only with a sentence or two. The baddies in Nooks & Crannies are meant to be over-the-top meanies, but I tried to add, if only very briefly, a bit a character background that might justify their behavior.

*Scene-Level Depth-Check your scenes and see if there’s a way of adding something like weather (wind blowing, fierce amount of sun/heat, fog) or a background noise that could match up with the scene (something ominous, something annoying, something nostalgic) to add an extra layer. Nooks & Crannies features a snowstorm that disturbs the manor’s electricity at key moments. You can also increase tension through resource management—take something away your character needs or add something that complicates the scene.

*Five Senses- Search the manuscript for places you can insert a sense that isn’t being used—a visual, a smell, a taste, a sound, or a texture. At one point in my writing process, I ended a chapter of Nooks & Crannies with a character (no spoilers!) walking down a hallway. Simply adding the sound of knives scraping together in his or her bag/pocket/purse added tension to the scene.

That’s all from me. Happy manuscript cooking. Just leave a comment to be entered in the book giveaway!

BIO: Jessica Lawson does not live in a fancy manor house, but she does deal with mysteries on a daily basis. Most of those mysteries involve missing socks and shadowy dessert disappearances. She lives in Colorado with her husband and children. Visit her online at jessicalawsonbooks.com. You can also find her on Twitter.

Revising? Well, now, let's see. Revising is like..... by Anne Nesbet

So as I mentioned here a while ago, 'tis the season of revisions, here in Nesbetland; I have been whipping my middle-grade spy-vs-spy novel set in East Berlin, Cloud & Wallfish, into better and better shape. Remember the 17-page editorial letter I got from the very insightful Kaylan Adair at Candlewick? That revision!

With the aid of my trusty revision notebook (pictured here),

in which I outlined the existing version on the left-hand pages and added revision-letter questions, fixes, ideas and descriptions of new stuff on the right-hand pages, I worked through the list, and then added to the list and did it all again, and and and . . .

. . . and what you have to understand is that the past couple of weeks have been extraordinarily busy ones, even without taking revisions into account. Three other very different tasks have also been demanding my time and attention, and it occurs to me that each of these activities reminds me of revision, in one way or another. So let's explore some revision similes today!

1. Revising is like . . . correcting papers.

It's the end of the semester, so I have been grading papers and exams. Lots and lots and lots of papers and exams. Here are some of the 55 final papers I have to correct (over on the other table: a great big pile of final exams). 

When I read student papers, I can't help but think like an editor. What that means, essentially, is that I read students' work as if they were going to write another draft sometime soon. Most of the time, of course, that isn't the case. It's the end of the semester, not the beginning! But I can't help it: I want that mythical future draft to be wonderful, and I feel as though if I could only figure out exactly what questions to ask, I could help that mythical future draft come to life. So that's how correcting papers and revision are alike, apart from the obvious red-pen similarities: they both tear apart an existing work in order to create something new in the (possible) future.

2. Revising is like . . . cooking.

This time of year we have guests over reasonably often, guests who really want to be fed. Just the other day, I tried a recipe I'd never tried before: braised chicken thighs with green olives and preserved lemon. Oh, my! It was delicious! But while I was cooking, I kept thinking about how oddly like revisions cooking can be.

When you cook something for the first time, you have to do quite a bit of planning. Just to start with, you have to make lists of ingredients. (Similarly, I had to turn the editor's long letter into a list, in order to be able to begin to work with those comments.) You thought you already had ground ginger in the spice cupboard, but it turns out you have three bottles of ground cardamom, and no ginger, so off you go to the supermarket at the last minute. (In the revision notebook, the lists of comments and questions demand answers; sometimes an explanation you THOUGHT you had all worked out turns out still to be lacking something--so off you go to hunt that missing ingredient down.) But once you have all the ingredients, even the ground ginger and that pesky expensive saffron, you can follow the recipe, and miraculously something delicious appears. (That's the point in revisions when you start shifting the "fixes" on the right-hand pages in the revision notebook into the actual manuscript file.) Yes, revising can be like cooking; with luck, the end result will make a very tasty story.

3. Revising is like . . . conducting.

Didn't see that one coming, did you? But I did something yesterday that I've never done before: I conducted a symphony orchestra. Just for one piece--Manuel de Falla's "Ritual Fire Dance"--but it was a thrill, and a lot of work, and . . . it reminded me of revisions!

Before you perform, you have to rehearse. You rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and rehearse. Lots of that rehearsing is done by you alone, in front of a mirror.

The Lonely Practice Mirror

But every time you rehearse with the actual orchestra, something new goes wrong or doesn't quite work. And then you have to figure out how to fix it! I spent a lot of time over the last few weeks worrying about how to cue the clarinet and the violas at the same time when I only have two hands and they sit in very different parts of the orchestra. Or how to get the tempo moving when everyone comes in together. Or how to explain what the ticking pizzicato should sound like, beneath the flute solo. Or how to get the quiet places really, really quiet, so that when the brass comes in, it's like an explosion!

The part of my brain that spent all these weeks thinking obsessively about what I would do differently at the next rehearsal--is pretty much exactly the same part of my brain that picks apart plotting and pacing. Problem solving, problem solving, problem solving. I'll be at the supermarket, shopping for ground ginger, and suddenly I've got it! I know what has to happen in Chapter 17!

The end result of all this thinking and planning and rehearsing is a good performance. A book is not that unlike a concert, really. It's just slightly smaller in size and easier to tote around.

So those are some of my recent favorite revision similes! What do you think revising is like?

REVISIONS! And Other Big Projects by Anne Nesbet

This is a picture of the letter I just got from my amazingly perceptive Candlewick editor, Kaylan Adair, about things I might want to fix in Cloud & Wallfish, a historical spy-vs-spy novel for kids that's set in East Berlin in 1989. Notice something? THIS LETTER IS SEVENTEEN PAGES LONG!! And single-spaced, by the way! That's a lot of letter.

I spread it out artistically on the floor and took this picture, because a letter like this is a challenge and a treasure, both at once, and I wanted to document that somehow. Think how much effort and patience and perceptiveness and love go into an umpteen-page editorial letter! No book could be luckier. At the same time, think how much effort and patience and love are going to be required from the writer (aka "me") as she works through the points brought up in this letter and gets those revisions done by May first. Nope, no book could be more about to be torn to pieces and reassembled.

But as I begin this month of hard work, I thought I'd talk a little bit about how I tackle formidable tasks, like revisions--and ask you how you do the same.

STEP ONE (historically). Read It and Weep. The nice folks on Twitter almost always prescribe an immediate dose of wine and chocolate when an editorial letter arrives. I have to say that these days I don't even bother to weep. I'm just plain too much in awe of the work the editor has put into finding the weak spots in my manuscript to want to weep. The book is going to end up being so much better than it is now! That's amazing! So my current STEP ONE is simply Read It and Move On to Step Two.

STEP TWO. Let It Rest. In the past STEP TWO involved more flailing about, of the "What? What? But I thought that bit was good!" variety. Now I know to let it rest. For a few days, I leave the letter itself alone. That doesn't mean I'm not beginning to work, though. The first reading (STEP ONE) is enough to give me a feeling for what I'm going to be facing, so I start immersing myself back into the research (or the world-building). Often I've been waiting a while for the editor's letter, which means that often I've has been working hard on other projects. STEP TWO's rest phase lets me sink back into the world of this story.

STEP THREE. Turn the Letter into a List. This is the real reading of the letter. My resistance (thanks to STEP TWO) has been side-stepped, overcome, or outsmarted. I print out the letter and read it bravely and carefully, and as I go, I turn each of the editor's comments, questions, or suggestions into an item on a massive revision checklist. This particular 17-page letter is now a 5-page checklist. I'm not yet officially finding solutions to the problems--hey, I'm just making a list. And yet, miraculously, some solutions are beginning to elbow their way into the world. I note the ideas as they pop up.

STEP FOUR. Tackle One Chunk of the List at a Time. Fortunately, I love brainstorming. I take one plot problem, and I wrestle it to the ground, using pen and paper and strong tea and occasional conversations with friends, because explaining something to another person can really help ideas come together, even when that other (patient) person is just saying, "unh hunh, unh hunh, yeah!" The main thing during STEP FOUR is not to freak out about other parts of the list when you're chipping away at one particular item. STEP FOUR has to be repeated over and over and over for days and weeks. This is April, fourth month of the year: STEP FOUR month! By the end of STEP FOUR, I have a new version of the long checklist--now it's a list of solutions and fixes and reasons why so-and-so does such-and-such.

And that brings us to STEP FIVE. Quick, Transfer Those Fixes Into the Book. Finally I get to start checking things off my list, item by item, as I fold the fixes into the story. I like to have everything completely worked out in my head and in checklist form before I start messing with the text. Do unforeseen problems arise as my utopian solutions meet the actually existing prose? Oh, yes, they do. But if I've done my STEP FOUR work well, STEP FIVE isn't really that terrible.

STEP SIX. Make It Lovely. There should, ideally, be another pause between STEP FIVE and STEP SIX, but by this point in the process, time is almost always short. Still let me suggest that it is wise to try to get a good night's sleep before beginning to polish all that prose.

STEP SEVEN. NO, NO, NO! BACK AWAY FROM THAT SEND BUTTON. Have Someone Read the New Version First. Because by now, frankly, you are probably pretty groggy. Get somebody less groggy than thou to take a look. When that somebody says, "Looks great!"--then yay! You can move on to . . . .

STEP EIGHT. Off It Goes! Ah, but don't get too emotional. It'll be back, and probably with another long  letter, too.  And then it will come back again. And again.

Done????

In fact, just today I sent what I THINK was the last, last, last, last set of corrections along to HarperCollins for THE WRINKLED CROWN, coming out this November.

So that's my process. I'm curious, though: what is yours? How do you tackle enormous tasks and overwhelming projects? Any tips for making progress while remaining sanguine and sane?

Mouth-to-Mouth Resuscitation (aka Revision) by Joanna Roddy

Photo courtesy: Moving Picture World
Wikimedia Commons

It was just before Christmas two years ago and I was on the phone with my agent...having the conversation everyone dreads.

Back when I first signed with my agency, I knew they wanted a big revision and I was more than willing to do it. I *wanted* someone to tell me what to do next. I was good at being a student--doing my assignments, acing tests, and regurgitating my teacher's ideas--but all this author-ity was kind of unnerving to me. The creative process was so lonely and hard and I had no one to tell me if I was doing it right. So I took my agent's revision notes and treated them like my study guide. When I was done checking off all the boxes, I sent off my manuscript, sick of the thing and glad to be done working on it.

But then my agent let me know that although I had made some good changes, I still wasn't done. The manuscript needed more work. I was honestly a bit lost about what to do. The new revision notes reiterated problems I had tried to fix the first time. I wrote up a sample chapter and asked my agent for some feedback, desperately hoping I was now moving in the right direction. 

And here we were on the phone just a few weeks before Christmas when my to-do list was miles long (and the last thing I wanted to do was take on a major writing project) and she was telling me what I absolutely did NOT want to hear:

This revision wasn't working. Maybe I should take some time off and reassess. Maybe I needed to get a book doctor to work with me. Maybe I should go back and revisit craft. 

Ouch. 

So I took some time off, tried not to think about it, and enjoyed the holidays with my family.  

Then I thought hard about what to do next. I was embarrassed and confused and a big part of me wanted to give up--the part of me that didn't know if I had whatever skill it would take to revive my book. 

But after a few months, I swallowed my bruised pride and I started to reach out. I contacted two published authors I know and asked if they'd meet with me to talk about my situation. I shared with them the painful truth and each in their own way offered perspective, advice, and got me thinking about craft in new ways. ON WRITING by Stephen King and Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling were game-changers for me.

After these conversations, something shifted inside me. I realized that I had to stop waiting for someone else to tell me how to write my book. I *already knew* what I needed to do to make it what I wanted it to be. I just needed to do it and stop waiting for someone to give me permission. I also needed to roll up my sleeves for some more(!) hard work and stop clinging to my earlier efforts.

I dropped the first five chapters and rewrote the beginning from scratch. I cut characters and scenes. I combined repetitive elements, reordered the plot, and even mashed two major characters together into one. I tied up loose plot ends. I took two-dimensional aspects of the book and examined them from new perspectives until I understood them more deeply. I clarified my point of view. I thought of new plot twists. I simplified unnecessary complications. 

By the time I was done, not a single scene was left untouched, much of the previous draft was discarded, and I'd estimate at least 60% of the manuscript was entirely new. It wasn't so much a revision as a rewrite.

And for the first time, I truly loved my book. It felt right in a way it never had before. 

I sent it off. When my agent and I had that next call, she said words that I almost never thought I'd hear: "Joanna, this is such a huge leap forward! How did you do it?"

Are you stuck? It's pretty likely you already know what you need to do. Keep learning your craft, trust yourself, trust your work, and don't give up.

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!

Character 101: Quotes and Links to Help You On Your Way - Caroline Starr Rose

When revising, it's essential you study your characters carefully to determine what's working and what's not. Here are some quotes and links I used in my revision class last spring. I hope they point you in the right direction with your own work:

Quotes from Novel Metamorphosis:

Villains and emotional complexity: “Look for a place where you dislike the villain the most. At that point, how can you work in a tender scene with the villain’s friend?”

“Most dialogue is too long winded, too formal, and includes too much information.”

Quotes from Second Sight:

“At the end of your book, your main character should be better equipped to live that life…”

Characters often don’t know what they truly NEED. Don’t spell it out for the reader! Let them figure it out.

“...a character is a plot.You just have to find the other characters and the moral dilemmas that will force the character to change and grow.”

“Put those characters in situations that fascinate or trouble you personally -- problems you want to write about, conflicts that move you in some way.”

Samuel Johnson: “Inconsistencies cannot both be right; but imputed to man [and characters!], they make both be true.”

“Use backstory to show the reader how the character became who she is, what her relationships with other people are like, and why the frontstory matters to her.”

“Action: what a character does to get what they want. Action is a result of Desire plus Attitude.”

“ To the minor characters in your book, the hero of your books isn’t your main character -- it’s them...Everyone has reasons for doing the things they do and you need to know the reasons.”

“[As we read] we are right there in [the characters’] heads, having these experiences with them, sharing their pain; as as a result we share their growth as well.”

Quotes from Writing Irresistible KidLit:

“No description should ever be content to play only on the surface. Whether a reader is aware of it or not, he should always be learning about character on multiple levels, especially at the beginning of your story.”

“We must always know what your characters want (each and every one of them) when we see them in a scene together.”

Unconscious objective (Cheryl would classify this as an unknown need / desire): “Characters struggling with Unconscious Objective shouldn’t be able to articulate them. But those deep desires are something that you, the writer, must absolutely think about.”

“Think of how you can lend your stories a more complex undertone by always reminding us of your character’s worries and anxieties.”

Links:

Where Do Character Strengths Come From? :: Cynsations
Determine Your Character’s Destiny :: The Write Practice
The Sensitive, Passionate Character :: Live, Write, Thrive
Character Development :: Janice Hardy's Fiction University (a collection of articles covering protagonists, antagonists, developing strong characters, secondary characters, and character arcs)

Stickman Character Development (this is the super high-tech image from above!) :: Caroline Starr Rose

What tips, techniques, or quotes do you find helpful when thinking about character?

Plot 101: Quotes and Links to Help You On Your Way - Caroline Starr Rose

When revising, it's essential you study your plot carefully to determine what's working and what's not. Here are some quotes and links I used in my revision class last spring. I hope they point you in the right direction with your own work:

Quotes from Novel Metamorphosis:

“The connection between the inner and outer arc, the emotional arc and the plot arc, isn’t always easy to see! When you set up an initial plot conflict, you need to immediately ask yourself what obligatory action scene is set up. When the inner conflict is set up, you need to ask what epiphany is set up.”

Quotes from Second Sight:

Good fiction creates “deliberate emotion...through immersing us in the character’s lived experience [via] well-crafted prose: prose where every word has been considered carefully by the author and belongs in the work; prose that communicates clearly.”

WANTS = action plot / NEEDS = emotional plot

“The difference between starting with premise and starting with character is usually that in a premise plot, the character has something done to him or her from the outside; and in a character plot, the character is the one who causes the action, thanks to the Desire.”

Quotes from Writing Irresistible KidLit:

Avoiding the infodump: “Information must emerge organically, usually within the context of action.”

“A kid reader, whether he knows it or not, is picking up a book with the following request in mind: Make me care.”

“Fiction runs on friction and trouble.”

“Decide whether we need to see the full action of every instant in your book. ...Focus on your most powerful scenes.”

“You are a writer, not a security camera...Shape events and cherry-pick the ones that are going to be the most exciting and most significant for your story.”

Links:

Plot Structure :: Ingrid's Notes (This is an incredible series on classic plot and arch plot, alternative plots and alternative structures)
Plotting :: Janice Hardy's Fiction University (Another comprehensive list of posts on plot)

What tips, quotes, or techniques have helped you when working on plot?

Revision 101: Quotes and Links to Help You On Your Way

Revision requires an author to see her work with new eyes. Here are some quotes and links I used in my revision class last spring. I hope they point you in the right direction with your own work:

Quotes from Novel Metamorphosis:

Revision: What is the most dramatic way to tell this story?

“Revisions are the messy route toward powerful stories. ...I never tell someone how to revise their story. Instead, I ask you to look at your story in different ways, apply various strategies of revisions, and tell your story, your way. You are in control and will make all the decisions yourself.”

“Competence is a hard-won prize that only comes with lots of study and practice.”

Quotes from Second Sight:

“When you’re writing that first draft, don’t worry about following the rules. Instead, tell yourself the story you’ve always wanted to hear, the story you’ve never read anywhere else, the one that scares you with the pleasure of writing it. Treasure the joy of the work, because it is hard work, but when you can find that just-right word, that perfect plot twist -- there are fewer greater pleasures.”

“Editors work forward from the manuscript to make its truth all it can be...paying attention to details that add up to an overall result.”

“Good prose repeats words in close proximity to each other only by strategy or design, not by accident or sloppiness.”

“I test every sentence against the question ‘What purpose doest this serve?’”

“An editor’s greatest joy is a writer who can recognize his own weaknesses and respond with an intelligent revision.”

“For a writer, an artist, making a choice gives you something to work with. You make a choice, get the words on the page, see if it feels right. If it doesn’t, you edit it or go back and make a different decision. The hardest thing is getting past the fear of making a choice at all.”

Saul Bellow: “The main reason for rewriting is not to achieve a smooth surface, but to discover the inner truth of your characters.”

Quotes from Writing Irresistible KidLit:

“As you’re sitting down to write, you need to ask yourself: Am I writing a specific story that could only happen to this character in this world, in this time? What am I trying to say with this story? What do I want my readers to think when they put my book down?”

“What questions or mysteries does your first line raise?”

“Just because you put it first doesn’t mean that your current opening section is the real beginning.”

“Be a curator, not a camera...Believe it or not, most beginning writers will transcribe, as if they were a video camera...Another big mistake is focusing on transition scenes because you think you need to show how a character gets from one place to another.”

Links:

Novelists: You Are Gifted and Talented :: Darcy Pattison
WFMAD The Bones of the Writing Process, Parts 1 and 2 :: Laurie Halse Anderson
23 Essential Quotes from Ernest Hemingway About Writing :: The Write Practice
WFMAD (Write Fifteen Minutes a Day) Revision Roadmap #18 :: Laurie Halse Anderson
WFMAD Temper Tantrums and Do Overs :: Laurie Halse Anderson
I don’t want an honest critique :: Darcy Pattison
WFMAD Getting Feedback on Your Story :: Laurie Halse Anderson
WFMAD Belonging to a Critique Group Without Murdering Anyone :: Laurie Halse Anderson
Balancing Thoughts, Description, Dialogue, and Action :: Between the Lines: Edits and Everything Else
Novel Revision Charts: 2 Tools for Smart Re-Thinking of Your Story :: Darcy Pattison

What quotes, techniques, or tips have you found helpful when it comes to revision?