Category: Revision & Editing

Yoink!

During our read-through of Novel #4 we diagnosed several problems, and have been working to fix them ever since. Unfortunately for one of our characters (we’ll call him Mr X), the prescribed remedy calls for him to longer be a Point of View character. He’s still in the story, and (sad to say) suffers through pretty much the same series of unfortunate events, it’s just that now we don’t get to hear his side of it. He’s a bit miffed at us for silencing him.

A potential upside, from Mr X’s perspective, is that his plot line is now slightly less complicated, which will make his time in the story a smidgen less unpleasant. For Rune Skelley characters, that’s really the best they can hope for: a smidgen less unpleasant.

One of the reasons X got the rug yanked out from under him is that he only had a couple of POV scenes to begin with. We determined that the reader needed more insight into another character (to highlight our creativity we’ll call him Mr Z), which meant making him a POV character. X and Z shared most of their scenes, so it made perfect sense to simply shine the spotlight in the other direction.

That doesn’t mean it was easy, though. Before we could make Z a star, we had to get to know him better. Firstly he got a new name. His original name was “borrowed” from an unpleasant person we dealt with long ago. In the years since, our anger at this person faded and it became less important to do horrible things to his effigy. We also thought better of name-checking an actual living person. So, Z got a new name, and then he and Kent spent some quality time together, discovering what it was like inside Z’s head. Kent emerged unscathed, and now the novel is all the richer.

Swapping Messrs X and Z on POV-duty will make the novel better, which is good because it’s making a lot of extra work. It was among the discoveries we made by retroactively laying out a rainbow for this book, because it showed us in living color that we hadn’t made proper use of Mr X and also highlighted how important Mr Z’s state of mind was to the climax. Even so, it took walking a few laps around the neighborhood to really make up our minds that it was the right move. A writing partner helps you through tough decisions, so you know that all the rework entailed by a major change is really taking you in the right direction.

Words Count – And We’re Using All of Them!

Edits on Novel #4 (the music novel) are coming along nicely. It’s a huge undertaking, and right now it’s only getting huger. The first draft that we presented to our critique group was 155,000 words (!), which we know full well is long. We gave ourselves a pass on the expansive word count, though, because 20,000 of those words were in the service of supplementary material. Sure, the fancy extras were meant to appear in the finished product, but they weren’t actually part of the narrative, exactly, so they didn’t really count. Right? That’s what we told ourselves in order to be able to sleep at night.

Well, now that we’re deep into the edits, our baby has bloated up to over 180,000 (!!!). Yes, that still includes the supplemental material, and, yes, we’re planning to keep that aspect. In fact, we’ll probably need even more of it, for reasons too complicated to go into right now.

We’ve added something like 35,000 words of new material, and we’ve already removed somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000. It’s hard to keep track of exactly what’s going on, because some scenes have been snipped in one place and expanded in another.

Word count is not the best way to track your progress, and it’s not at all an indication of quality. We know this, and we’re trying really hard not to worry about it. But come on! It’s 180,000 words! We know that’s ridiculous. We know!

The good news is that we still have half of the manuscript to edit, and (fingers crossed) most of those edits should involve removing material that’s now superfluous because it’s covered in all the new material that comes earlier.

I guess this is one potential downside to having a coauthor. One writer working alone would need twice as long to dig a hole this deep.

We got into this situation together, and we’ll help each other get out of it, too.

A writing partner is invaluable for talking through the problems in a manuscript, and making a plan to fix them. A writing partner is a wonderful resource to rely on when faced with a daunting project, like editing an entire novel. And a writing partner makes the best drinking companion when you look at that insane word count and just need a minute to, you know, lose your mind.

Papercuts

r-avatarWe definitely have our work cut out for us on this revision pass. Many scenes will be moved around, and although that doesn’t really impact their substance it does raise concerns about their tone. If something that used to fall in the third act is now going to be very near the start of the novel, we might want to make adjustments for the fact that readers don’t already know all the background. And, vice versa; moving early scenes to a later stage means we’ll need to be careful that we don’t introduce a lot of review and repetition, as those scenes no longer need to introduce all the ideas.

Probably the most significant change is due to reassigning POV. We realized that one of our characters needs to be fleshed out a lot more, because of the role he must play in the ending, and developed a bunch of great ideas for him. Too much stuff to get across without going inside his thoughts. At the same time, we identified a weakness with another character’s thread. He had point-of-view in several scenes, but nothing essential would be lost if we showed those events from someone else.

Meanwhile, we have our whole manuscript’s Scrivener file marked up with critique comments (our own and our group’s), on matters large and small. Project management consultants would be saying to leave the little stuff and concentrate on the big tasks first. After all, that missing comma will be irrelevant if the whole sentence — or the whole scene — gets cut. But Rune Skelley likes to do things Rune Skelley’s way, and here that means checking off as many of the dinky little things as possible first. The main benefit of that is decluttering the comments column when the text is on the screen, which is invaluable for both Jen’s and Kent’s ability to focus. We don’t like bleeding from a million papercuts, and even if the block of text where we fixed that comma does eventually get chopped, well, fixing the comma only took a few seconds. Totally worth it to us for the peace of mind.

Fortunately, we were able to agree on this order of business. There are many different ways to divvy up the work, and the optimal strategy might be different in every situation. But, in a collaboration, if the partners disagree on how to proceed they’ll likely trip over each other’s changes and generate friction. Get on the same page about your revision workflow before either of you starts editing.

Retro-Rainbow Rocketeers

r-avatarWe’re tackling the revisions on our music novel, which we completed last year. Coming back to it has been a bit eye-opening, leading us to wonder aloud how we got ourselves into certain messes.

Our process evolves with each book we work on, and at the time of this first draft we hadn’t yet implemented our rainbow plot diagramming technique. The read-through showed us that we have some significant structural concerns, and the plot’s complexity was making it hard to verbally analyze all the possible changes. So, we decided to do the rainbow trick after-the-fact.

It’s been eye-opening as well, helping us get all right-brainstormy about our plot structure. In the course of an hour or so the other evening, we re-envisioned the whole book as a set of parallel threads, seeing ways to sync up the revelations of backstory info to help inform the main story thread. The current draft is exposition-heavy, and a lot of that is in flashbacks (messes and wonderment, as previously mentioned), but we never felt that there was actually too much background info. The story world is complex, as are the characters, and we want to portray it all with richness and texture.

The upshot is, by writing the characters’ arcs on color-coded notepaper and spreading the whole thing out on the floor, we were able to see the “jobs” that the backstory exposition is supposed to do, and figure out a way to reposition the pieces so they can get their jobs done. If it sounds like we’re just rationalizing not cutting out the flashbacks, well, we hope that’s not true. Having a picture in our heads of how it’s supposed to interlock should give us the clarity to know which pieces are in fact pulling their weight.

Kill Your Partner’s Darlings

r-avatarEvery writer has heard the advice Kill Your Darlings. The theory is that the good of the story is paramount, and takes priority over all. No matter how deeply you love and adore a scene, a character, a turn of phrase, if it doesn’t better the story it gets the axe. It’s good advice, but often difficult to follow.

A writing partner can make the process easier, and also more difficult.

Killing your own darlings is a heartbreaking process; killing someone else’s is less so. When you have a scene that you know needs trimming, but you can’t bear to do the work yourself, your coauthor should step in with more objectivity and kill the darlings that need to be killed.

The problems arise when your collaborator is particularly bloodthirsty. When the red ink flows like blood it can be traumatic. Not only do you mourn your dead darlings, you can sometimes feel personally attacked. If someone in your critique group, or a professional editor, suggests striking something you particularly love, you can console yourself with the knowledge that they are idiots and obviously don’t understand your vision. When it’s your partner…

Right after Thanksgiving we finished the read through of the music novel. It had been resting for a long time, so we found we could see it with relatively clear eyes. We saw  a novel with love handles. It really is too long, just like our critiquers said. Right now there are certain love handles that we like and aren’t ready to lop off. We’re exploring ways to restructure the novel so that they’re less noticeable. We’re also making plans to whittle them down. If they do some crunches and wear Spanx, nobody will notice, right?

While we wrestle with the fate of those darlings, there is one section that we both agree needs serious work. Kent wrote most of it, and he has very bravely handed it to Jen, even though she’s holding a butcher knife and has a mad glint in her eye.

Let’s hope she uses the knife more like a scalpel than a cleaver, and that when it’s her turn to hand her darlings over to the slaughterhouse she’s able to trust Kent to do the same.

 

Revisions, Revisited

r-avatarNow that we’re done with our latest first draft, and mostly recovered from the bacchanal honoring that milestone, we’re getting set to make revisions on our previous novel. It’s also at the first-draft stage.

We have a methodical approach to this, as we do for nearly everything. The first step is a read-through. We are making some notes and discussing the story along the way, but the primary goal right now is just to get to know the material again. It’s been “resting” for quite some time while we worked on other projects, which is a good thing. The time enables us to get some critical distance.

The next step will be to paw through all the comment copies. Critique group feedback is invaluable, and we have a sizable heap of it. We’ll look for patterns, things that are raised by multiple readers. We’ll also indulge in a frightful amount of second-guessing and interpretation. Using what we learn from all this feedback, combined with our own to-do list generated during the read-through, we’ll move into planning the actual edits.

In this case, we expect to need some substantial structure-level changes. Therefore, it’s even more important to be systematic in dealing with things. If our process has its steps in the wrong sequence, we’ll end up wasting effort on things that will only get cut later anyway, or worse yet, tangle ourselves up in inconsistencies.

It’ll probably be a while before we reach a point where we can split things up. There’s a time for divide-and-conquer, and there’s a time for double-teaming the work. This is an example of the latter. Much like the very early stages of story development, we’ll be doing a lot of analysis and making decisions together about what is needed. It’s one of the most intense and rewarding aspects of writing with a partner.

Sunshine and Roses

r-avatarMost of the time, our process works really well. We might have mentioned it, in fact I’m sure we sometimes come across a little boastfully about it. “Watch how we make everything look easy.” Well, usually it is pretty easy. We mesh, so we can devote our energies to coming up with nifty concepts and stellar prose. (Modesty isn’t one of our strengths.)

There are some bumps in the road now and then, we must confess. Right now we’re revising a first draft, which in our case means we’re working in different parts of it and then synching up. How we sync up is that we dictate our changes to each other. It’s a good system, even if not the most efficient in terms of time. The benefit is that all the new stuff gets read aloud, and we have the opportunity to critique it while it’s fresh. The problem that came up recently was that we got out of sync with the synching up.

Kent’s engines sometimes take longer to warm up than Jen’s, and his powers of concentration can be iffy at certain times of day. So it has happened, rarely, that Jen went on a tear with numerous small edits while Kent scowled at his screen for a while. Jen had good stuff to share, but the repeated sharing broke Kent’s fragile grip on the changes he was trying to make.

Those bumpy stretches are few and far between on our writing-collaboration journey. But they do happen. Working solo, you never have to worry about distracting your partner, because there is no partner to distract. But you do have to avoid other sources of distraction, and there’s no one to give you a gentle nudge in the third hour of reading web comics when you’re supposedly writing. The plusses of teamwork far, far outweigh the occasional minuses.

Taking Ownership

r-avatarAs we’ve mentioned before, Jen has felt a bit disconnected from the process of writing our current novel, due largely to the higher hard scifi content. Not that it’s actually hard scifi, it’s just harder than our usual soft serve.

Now that we’re into edits, though, Jen is feeling much more connected. We’ve determined that some of our characters need to be fleshed out, and this is where Jen excels. She’s wild-eyed with glee over creating backstory, and Kent is staying out of her way.

We have found that a good way to produce a consistent narrative voice when working with a partner is to have each member edit the other’s work. Each collaborator’s stronger personality quirks gets smoothed out and the whole thing blends together seamlessly. Jen’s current backstorypalooza is the same thing on a somewhat larger scale. If left unattended, Kent would make the whole story a wiring diagram in narrative form. Jen is adding the human element for balance. If you left Jen unattended, the story would become a family tree in narrative form, told backwards, with no end, so it’s a good thing she has Kent to reign her in.

This novel has been an excellent lesson in the upside of working with a writing partner. Neither of us could tell this story on our own. We each have strengths that come into play, even if it’s not in the composition of the first draft. We know each other’s proclivities and strong suits, and how we compliment each other. If one of us seems to be dominating a certain stage of the process, we know that it will all even out in the end.

As one of our characters sagely said, it’s not a competition, it’s a collaboration.

Retcon Done Right

r-avatarFor those of you unfamiliar with the term, “Retcon” means Retroactive Continuity. It is the alteration of previously established facts, usually in a long-running comic book series or TV show, but it can happen in book series also. Or worst of all, within a single novel.

Retcon can take the form of additions to the backstory, subtraction from it, or alteration of specific facts.

The most egregious example of alteration retcon that we can think of right now: Greedo shooting first. By changing the sequence of events in the Mos Eisley cantina, George Lucas hoped (presumably) to make Han Solo a more sympathetic or heroic character. Instead, he gutted Han’s entire character arc. Never forget: Han shot first!

Retconning early in the editing process is a necessary evil. If you do your job right, no one will ever be the wiser. Kent and Jen are at the point in their editing process where they’re reading through the first draft and making notes about things to change and improve. A first draft is, by its very nature, rough. There will be things that the author changed on purpose partway through, and there will be other inconsistencies that were inadvertent, especially when you have two authors working together. Whether or not you changed Bob’s eyes from blue to brown on purpose, now is the time to go through and make everything line up.

In our current case, it’s a little more involved than eye color. We have an elaborate setting that is based, in part, on a real location. In our brilliance, we visited this real-world location when we were thisclose to finished with the first draft, instead of at the beginning. Couple our more intimate knowledge of the location with the fact that we now know what areas our characters will visit, and what actions they will perform there, and we are faced with quite the editing task.

Jen fired up PhotoShop and updated the map and the floorplan to reflect the changes to the layout. We discussed at length which doors are always kept locked, and developed a backstory to account for why any particular door is or isn’t. We simplified certain things and complexified others, all with the goal of having a world that makes sense for the story we have chosen to tell. We went through the whole manuscript and marked all the passages that feature description of this location, and we are now faced with the unenviable task of retconning all of it into one big ball of consistency.

Hold us.

 

Make Critique Work With Your Process

r-avatarWe never bring our works-in-progress to critique group until the first draft is done, and it has at least one polishing edit applied. The experience with our second novel taught us not to. The plot got twisted into a writhing tangle of second-guesses as we tried to alleviate our readers’ confusion. Eventually we decoded the feedback and realized that the problem really had nothing to do with plot. The issue was characterization, things we were forgetting to put on the page because we knew the character so well.

Readers don’t know what you have up your sleeve, so their comments are sometimes out of proportion. We found that when our upcoming pages were still hypothetical, it was all too easy to lose our own sense of proportion.

It was just one way the critique process can go haywire when you bring in material that’s not ready. The wheels can come off in other ways, too. You should at least not treat your critiquers like proofreaders; make sure to read over your own draft looking for mechanical problems before you send it around.

There are times when you’re stuck, and you can’t finish the first draft for that very reason, and then you should bring it to your group in whatever shape it’s in. They can help you prod and twist your ideas and maybe provide the inspiration you need.

Writing with a partner gives you an extra set of eyes, which makes it much easier to spot little things like dropped words. It also gives you someone to discuss deeper story structure with while it’s being written, someone to help keep the ideas bouncing so you don’t get too stuck. A good collaborator will challenge you to make your scenes even more awesome, and when asked if something works will occasionally say, “Not really.” You might be able to do that much just by talking to yourself, but the magic of flesh-and-blood writing partners is that they often offer constructive suggestions along with their blunt honesty.

All of this means Rune Skelley’s first drafts aren’t really first drafts, not once they’re ready for the group. By serving up something that’s clean and debugged, we clear the way for our fellow writers to let us know how they’re connecting with the characters, and how the story makes them feel.