Category: Revision & Editing

It Was the Middle One

What do you do when you realize that your work in progress contains a continuity glitch? Well, that depends on the situation. If you’re Rune Skelley, and the glitch is that a locale gets described differently in different scenes, then it goes something like this, or at least this is how it went in this specific case.

We saw two paths before us. On one hand, we could decide how the place looks and make the fixes before moving on, because that way we’d have a clear, shared image to call up the next time that locale gets used. On the other hand, we could just leave it marked and worry about it later, because future scenes might raise plot points that dictate new or different details of the locale anyway.

In the end, we chose yet another path. (A writing partner is someone who brings two more “other hands” to these situations.) This path goes right up the middle. What we’ll actually do is decide — provisionally — what the correct description is, and make careful notes about it. Perhaps even draw a map, which is something we probably should have done before. But we will leave the existing scenes alone for now and save the corrections for later. Going forward, we will each have a clear image as a touchstone, and we shouldn’t stray from it without a good reason. But if we find a good reason, we can stray away without feeling like we wasted time on edits that are now out-of-date.

A writing partner is someone who helps you figure out how to split the difference.

Another Road Trip

Kent and Jen spent another few hours on the highway recently, and as we often do we made use of the time to converse about a writing project. In this case, it was As-Yet Untitled Ghost Novel #1, and the feedback we’ve been getting about it.

We tossed around various proposals for addressing the comments. For each idea, we rated it as “radical” or “reasonable.” For example, some of the suggestions would entail not only rewrites for Book 1 but replotting the whole series. Too radical. On the other hand, just changing whose POV certain scenes come from? That’s eminently reasonable, perhaps too much so. It might not go far enough. After all, we do want to successfully remedy the issues. At this point, we’ve narrowed it down to three options, and will probably implement two of them in combination. The third one’s more of a departure from our usual style, but it has us fascinated. We’ll experiment with it before we decide whether to use it for real.

Having a partner makes these brainstorming situations so much more productive. You get twice as many ideas to work with, and you have someone who understands your process to help you analyze them. Someone whose investment in your voice and in the quality of the final product is in tune with your own.

A writing partner is someone to keep you company on the road of life.

The Art of Critique

Just like anything else, getting good at providing feedback to a fellow writer takes practice. To save you a little trial and error, here we offer some tips on how to go into the meeting prepared. (Note that our advice is specifically calibrated for fiction. Some parts of it may generalize well for other forms of writing, but use your own judgement about what to apply.)

1. Start by reading the submission straight through without marking anything. Don’t try to reverse-engineer it yet. Don’t look at it through your author goggles, just read it. Approach it as if you selected it as a pleasure read.

2. Then read it again, with a pen this time. Mark typos if you wish, but remember that critique is not proofreading. It’s more valuable to share what questions come into your mind as you read. Was there something that seemed confusing at first, but now that you’re on the second time through you get it? Tell the author that’s what happened. Your annotations should amount to you “thinking out loud” about what you’re reading.

3. Critique also isn’t all about finding problems. Positive feedback is important too! Mark turns of phrase that you particularly like. Call out good structural choices. The key to giving good notes well is to say not only “I like this” but also why you like it.

4. Write a summary of your impressions. This could be on the back of the last page if you’re working from hard copy, or it can be the body of an email if your group uses electronic formats. This is the place to answer any specific questions that the submitter posed. Offer suggestions, but don’t do a rewrite.

Now, about item #1. It’s not so easy sometimes! Becoming a writer can sort of ruin you as a reader, because your mind is on technique the whole time you’re consuming the text. Analyzing rather than appreciating. Learning how to turn down the volume on that voice is a useful skill. Another challenge is when the submission’s genre or subject matter is simply outside of your tastes. Except in the most extreme cases, you should be able to put yourself in the target reader’s shoes and provide valid feedback. But it’s a good idea to let the author know that their manuscript was something you wouldn’t ordinarily have chosen on your own.

Getting The Band Back Together

We’ve been in a critique group for years. If you don’t have one, you really should look into it. Feedback from fellow writers can be amazingly helpful, and in fact just hanging out with fellow writers feeds the soul on so many levels. And, the need to bring pages in for group can be a great motivator for those who work best under a deadline.

Obviously, meeting has been a challenge for the past year and a half. We set up a Zoom routine that’s helped us keep things rolling, and now that our members are all vaccinated we’re finally starting to talk about gathering in person again. It seems like that might take us a while to figure out, because we’re a klatch of writers and not a team of logistics experts. Meanwhile we can still do video meetings.

Writing with a partner is sort of like having a built-in critique group. Being able to sound out ideas and just converse with another person who gets it becomes baked-in as part of the process. Still, you need to try your work out on people who didn’t write it.

A writing partner is someone who makes sure you’re not on mute (and sometimes makes sure that you are).

Science Series Editing Complete!

The astute Skelleyverse blog reader will have read last week’s post about constructing a preliminary plot rainbow for the Ghost Novels and surmised that we are done editing the Science Series. Good surmising! We did finish, right at the end of January.

Grandson of Science Novel came in 5,200 words lighter than where it started, which is about a chapter’s worth of words. Maybe a chapter and a half. We didn’t remove any large chunks of prose, and (unlike the middle book in this series) we didn’t even need to rearrange anything. We tell the same amazing tale, just more efficiently.

Our year of editing is over. It’s time to put away our flensing knives and sandpaper and turn our attention to a new project. And honestly? We’re relieved. Editing is hard work.

A coauthor isn’t just a writing partner, but an editing partner, too.

The (Too) Many-Worlds Hypothesis

Lately, we’re dividing our time between three fictional worlds (four if you count consensus reality). We’re brainstorming about the Ghost Novels, editing one of the Science Novels, and getting critique feedback about one of the Music Novels.

Back when we started this writing partnership, one of our policies was to avoid splitting our focus like this. We would dwell in one fictional universe at a time. Of course, that was a lot easier to stick to when we only had the one. Our concern, theoretical as it might have been, was that we’d waste too much mental energy switching between worlds. But you know what? It’s not been that hard, really.

A couple of years ago, we felt we had to bend our rules in order to accomplish our goals. It made us nervous, and there was a little bit of a learning curve. But like playing an instrument, or speaking a language, or anything else, it’s a trainable skill. We can do, now, exactly what we assumed wouldn’t work: hold three story worlds in our heads at the same time, and keep them straight.

As we flit about our various universes, we stay together. The critique notes about the Music Novel, we look at together and discuss. When it’s time to do Science Novel edits, we both knuckle down for that. Brainstorming about ghosties is a team sport. We find we can do just about anything as long as we’re doing it together. Probably the only time we’ve sent Kent off to one universe while Jen visited another is when there was cover artwork involved. (And, that worked just fine too. But we prefer to stay in sync.)

A writing partner is someone who’ll straddle three icebergs with you and help you not fall in.

It’s All Over But the Map-Drawing

Son of Science Novel is fully edited! Huzzah! When we started in on it, we did some serious thinking about how to reorganize the beginning. That work made the novel much better, but no shorter. Once things were in their proper order, we reread the first half to make sure we were pleased (we were). Next up: line-editing. As we nipped and tucked our way through the novel, we found a handful of small points we wanted to clarify and expand. Nothing big. We also didn’t find anything big to remove. All told, Son of Science Novel ended up about 5500 words shorter than when we started. That’s about one chapter, the way we do things.

Looking at the big project board on the wall, the only things left undone are the finalizing of a couple of floor plans and maps. Everyone loves maps in a novel. They’re like catnip for readers. Science Novel Sr has three, one of which can be reused here (and in Grandson when we get there). That leaves us with two or three locations it would be fun to represent cartographically. And if maps are catnip for readers, they’re crack for Kent. His inner-dungeon master gets all twitterpated at the very prospect.

A writing partner is someone who helps you create settings worthy of being mapped.

Sweat Equity

When we extended the Science Novel into a trilogy, we wrote books two and three all in one big push. These are not small books, and by the time we wrapped up the last one we were completely drained. Recalling those last couple of weeks is unpleasant, because we felt so burned out.

It’s possible that we’re slow learners, because we are now doing the edits on those same books all in one big push. (Maybe. We might break it up.)

Considering that we know we were not at our best when this writing was done, we had some worries about what we’d find when we returned to it. Jack Torrance staring out at us? But, it’s really good. There are no telltales in the prose to indicate that the author was on mile 26 of a marathon.

There is, of course, editing to be done. We aren’t suggesting that total burnout is the secret to flawless prose composition. But there were no obvious placeholders or even scenes that felt sketched-in. It’s all fully fleshed out, the events are in the correct order, the pacing is good, the tension rises to the finale, and there are plenty of sparkly sentences. We’re really quite pleased.

And in a year like 2020, it’s really nice to have something work out better than expected. A writing partner is someone who will celebrate the little victories with you.

Belly of the Beast

The finale of Son of Science Novel has a lot going on. There’s physical peril, and emotional stakes, and a lot of difficult moments for all of the characters. The reader gets to witness the action through the eyes of both the good guys and the bad guys. It’s quite spectacular, if we do say so ourselves.

As part of our quest to streamline things where we can, and make the novel the best it can be, we started to wonder if maybe a certain side-thread through the ending was maybe superfluous (well, Kent did anyway). We spread the scene out on the exam table and took a close look, and we found many items in favor of keeping it.

Its setting — we’ll call it the Elephant Graveyard — is threaded throughout the novel, and comes up again in Book 3, so giving it a job in the climax feels right. The characters that go off to the elephant graveyard need to have jobs to do, and this fits well with their skillset. If we remove their side quest we need to find a different way for them to contribute to the action, and that would mean replotting the whole ending. And we’re really, really happy with the other parts of the ending. Like, seriously thrilled. But must important is that the elephant graveyard gives the characters a really nice moment, and puts a nice bow on the arc that one of them has traveled through the novel. Plus it sets them both up nicely for the third book. So the thread is definitely staying.

But the fact that we, as the authors, had doubts, means it’s not as strong as it should be. We need to do a better job of sketching that character’s arc so that when the reader gets to this part they can’t look away.

The Big, Giant Science-Trilogy Reread

Book one of our Science trilogy is in a fairly polished state. It’s been through our critique group and some beta readers and has had a couple of editing passes.

Books two and three, on the other hand, are still basically first drafts. Our next project will be to edit them into shape. So, first things first: we need to cram that entire three-book saga into our heads. This epic read-through is a little more than halfway done, and Kent’s voice is still holding up pretty well.

What’s neat is that we’ve been away from this story world long enough that there are lots of little rediscoveries for us in the text. They’re mostly fun little reminders of how good it is, but there are also some opportunities for improvement. It really is proving to us the value of letting something rest before you try to edit it. The awesome and the not-quite-awesome both just leap out in a way that they can’t when it’s too fresh.

A writing partner is someone who will read 1500 pages out loud to you.