Category: Revision & Editing

Seven Good Tips for Writers Who Want to Write Well

r-avatarBelieve it or not, there are some common writerly recommendations that Rune Skelley agrees with.

  1. Read a lot, and read outside of your favorite genre.
  2. Write every day.
  3. Create a pleasant and functional workspace, a place you will want to go.
  4. Revise. Revise. Revise. Writing = rewriting.
  5. Document your process, whatever it is.
  6. Plan how you’ll answer “So what’s your book about?” (you know they’ll ask)
  7. Don’t go it alone.

That last one bears expansion.

There’s a romanticized notion of novel writing as a noble, solitary quest for beauty. Bullshit. Everybody needs a support system, and for a project as deep and wide as crafting a novel you bet you’ll need help. It doesn’t have to mean a coauthor, and even if you do collaborate with a partner you’ll (both) find needs for further resources.

Critique groups are a fantastic way to get feedback about your work, from fellow writers, your peers. In a properly structured critique session, no one is going to pull any punches. Their job is to help you find and fix the problems with your text, and unlike a spouse or a parent or a sibling or a coworker, they aren’t putting a relationship at risk by being blunt.

Beta readers serve a different function. Rather than advising on craft, they give you an impression of how your target audience will respond. After hearing from them in their own words about what worked and what didn’t, follow up with a more structured questionnaire to make sure the points you’re concerned about get addressed.

Internet research is seductive in its convenience, but there’s no substitute for sitting with an expert and digging really deep into her particular specialty. Build a network of people you can consult with on technical matters, be they scientific, medical, historical, psychological, culinary, etc. Take a look at the acknowledgements section of a Neal Stephenson book sometime!

One Is The Loneliest Number

r-avatarHow do solo writers do it?

Our evenings lately have been spent sprawled on the big leather sofa with the laptop and a small mountain of meaningfully marked-up copies of our manuscript. One of us (usually Jen) wades through all of the critiques while the other (usually Kent) mans the laptop, adding comments and making edits to our master copy. Jen interprets all the line-edits and deciphers everyone’s handwritten comments, directing Kent to the proper parts of the manuscript so that together we can discuss the proposed changes.

It’s slow going, and we generally only manage one or two chapters per night. Each of those chapters is gone over with a fine tooth comb (hey baby, that is one fine tooth-comb you’ve got there!) four or five times as we consider the feedback from all of our beta-readers. Working with a partner makes something like this bearable, oftentimes even enjoyable. It’s hard for us to imagine this part of the process as a solo author. Who do you talk to about whether a suggestion or complaint is valid? Who do you high-five when a passage works exactly as you planned? Whose shoulder do you cry on when a passage doesn’t work at all? And most important: who do you send for snacks and refills of fortifying beverages?

The writer’s life can be a very solitary one, but with a writing partner it doesn’t have to be.

Critically Distant

r-avatarNovels #4 and #5 are both in resting phases, which gives us a chance to circle back to the final volume of the trilogy. It’s been sitting patiently for quite a while, and this seems like a good opportunity to consolidate the feedback from our most recent critiquers. Of course, we want to know our own minds about the text before we try to make sense of what other people said about it, so we’re doing a read-through.

This wasn’t supposed to be a difficult thing. It wasn’t supposed to stir up disagreements.

A perennial challenge for authors is getting an “honest read” of their own stuff. Knowing what’s going to happen, and knowing what’s supposed to be symbolic, gets in the way of appreciating it the way a “real” reader would. That’s one reason it’s important to let work rest. What seems to have happened to Kent, in this instance, is that he failed to put aside his anticipation of certain later events in this book, but exceeded recommended dosages of forgetfulness about how the previous books led up to it. As a result, he raised awkward questions that baffled Jen, and the conversation wasn’t productive. But we pushed through, which is good because otherwise we might not have reached the point where Jen saw what was happening and steered Kent back on course.

Now everything seems to be going much better. There is a bit of a hangover though: Kent feels spooked. It’s a get-back-on-the-horse situation, and that’s what he’s doing, but his confidence isn’t yet fully restored.

Working solo, a writer might wreck a good manuscript trying to fix illusory problems. The chances that two of you will be having the same kind of off day are pretty slim (hopefully!) so you can be confident that anything you agree on is a valid concern.

In Fighting Trim

r-avatarIt’s been quite a while since Rune Skelley was in Writing Mode. For most of this year we’ve been editing various projects, and moving forward we’ll be doing more of the “not actually writing” parts of writing.

The music novel needed a lot of work, which did involve a fair amount of composing new material. It also involved a far greater amount of wrestling with the material we already had: rearranging, streamlining, repurposing, polishing.

The science novel was in much better shape. We’re practically done with the second draft already, and it required very little in the way of new material.

Once we get it wrapped up, we’ll knuckle down and start marketing it. That will require some writing, but not the usual sort. Not the sort we like. We’ll need to concoct the perfect query letter, as well other marketing materials like a synopsis and maybe an author bio.

Then, while the marketing machine chugs away in the background, we’ll move onto the next items on our To Do list, which involve a bit more editing, and then the brainstorming and outlining of the next novel. Again, not much actual writing.

We know that if we stay away from writing for very long at all, the fiction engines cool down and it takes an enormous effort to spool them back up again. That’s where our writing prompts come in.

All those brief and weird things we post on Mondays and Wednesdays are our way of keeping in practice. Sure, they’re often incoherent, but they’re fun and they don’t need to lead to anything bigger. Their only job is to keep the writing parts of our brains from atrophying. When we’re in the middle of writing a novel, they’re not really necessary, although we’ll sometimes use them as a warmup exercise. But in times like this, where there’s no composition of the horizon, they’re life savers.

How do writing prompts work best for you?

Ya Gotta Start Somewhere

r-avatarNovels #4 and #5 presented us with an unaccustomed obstacle: getting to know a new cast. Over the course of writing and revising the trilogy, we became intimately familiar with the minds and personalities of those characters. We were used to having the characters’ voices be second nature, so the need to readjust took us entirely by surprise.

This is a particular issue for Rune Skelley novels, because we use a very tight third-person viewpoint. Nothing is presented that the POV character doesn’t know, and that character’s worldview informs choices of adjectives and phrasing. The narration adopts the dialect of the viewpoint character.

Beginning the new books was like impersonating a total stranger, at first. It was a dilemma, because to write the scenes we needed to know the characters, and to get to know them we had to spend time with them, i.e., write the scenes. Which brings us to the title of this post. Ya gotta start somewhere.

With Novel #5, the science novel, we started at the beginning, and it wasn’t too long before the new characters became as real to us as the previous cast. Of course, the parts written earliest had the least character voice, but that’s what revision is for. The opening scenes got some retooling to let the POV character, the protagonist, shine through.

Mostly.

There are still a few pockets of “author voice” in the narration. (Kent’s supposed to deal with them tonight, so maybe by the time you read this they’ll be gone.) These mini info-dumps escaped our scrutiny until Jen hit the line edits. They have natural camouflage, because they sound comfortably familiar to us. They sound like Kent.

One of the hardest things for a writer to do is step back far enough to see the work honestly. Beta readers or critiquers are invaluable, but having someone else direct you to the troublesome paragraph is only useful if you can then see the problem, see through its camouflage. Working with a partner helps tremendously, because there’s an extra set of eyes.

Sweating the Small Stuff

r-avatarWes Anderson says details are what the world is made of, and his logic is difficult to dispute. They’re certainly the constituent particles of a story, and also of the manuscript that conveys it. Subtle changes of phrasing have a strong impact on the flavor and fluidity of prose. Little things matter.

Consider:

It was clear that no one else knew the secret.

As opposed to…

It was clear no one else knew the secret.

Or, more to Ernest’s liking:

No one else knew.

Which one is best? The only honest answer to that is the unhelpful “it depends,” but a reliable guideline is to use the fewest words that support the message. Arguably, that something’s clear can go unstated. So, the first two drafts might be burdened with superfluous observation. But the ultra-terse third variant might throw readers for a POV loop because it feels like direct thought. Cultivate a strong sense of the style and voice you’re working in, and pick your cuts accordingly.

When it’s time to stomp the weasels, you’re faced with such choices over and over. Every sentence could potentially be a different sentence. In fact, many alternate selves haunt each one. And these are important choices.

How you tell it is every bit as important as the tale. Stomping weasels with a partner will show you whether you’re in sync about the how of your storytelling. You’ll be lulled into thinking the process is purely mechanical, but certain blatantly extraneous words will be sacrosanct in your partner’s sight. And your partner will blithely suggest trimming your favorite verbiage.

Don’t be too eager to appease each other when these disputes arise. Talk them through, and read the passages aloud. These snags are clues to the nuances of how we each interpret language, and exploring them will help you converge on a voice that truly reflects you both.

Better Than Talking To Yourself

r-avatarFor once the timing worked out really well. Our critique group gave us their final feedback on Novel #5 (the Science Novel) just a few weeks ago, shortly before we finished nailing down the edits for the Music Novel. That means that we’re going back through their comments while everything is still fresh. It’s relatively easy to recall the conversations we had during our meetings as they lavished praise (and, admittedly, the occasional not-so-glowing remark) and we took notes. When we encountered a point we had a question about, the work was still clear enough in our group’s minds that they were able to clarify their original idea.

Before we looked at our critiquers’ comments, we read through the manuscript for ourselves, looking at it with fresh eyes. We were quite happy with what we saw. We talked along the way, and made some notes about plot points we want to strengthen and characterizations we want to clarify. Once our own thoughts were down on paper (or, in pixels), we spent a week reading through all of the notes we took during our critique group meetings, and reading all of the comments they wrote in the margins of their comment copies. We chose to disregard the diagram one member drew of the intersection where she had a showdown with a street sweeper, and likewise the lessons on how to write our characters’ names in Korean. Interesting as those were, they are irrelevant to the Science Novel.

The process of looking at a novel’s worth of critique all at once can be quite overwhelming, and it’s an excellent example of why having a writing partner can be a good thing. During group meetings, we all try very hard not to argue or answer back to the critiquer. Unless you’re planning the world’s most complicated and tedious book tour, the work needs to stand on its own. With a coauthor, you have someone to talk through each point with outside of that setting.

Some of it is fun, like when a reader asks a question that you know is answered in the next chapter, or when all of the readers get the “Hell yeah!” moment just like you intended. And some of it is not so fun, like when a reader stumbles over something you were sure you made quite clear. With a collaborator, you’re not stuck just talking to yourself. Your partner is there to help you make sense of the comments and decide which items are in legitimate need of extra work, and which ones can be chalked up to the readers only looking at one chapter a week.

 

Scalpels and Machetes

r-avatarBreak out the champagne! We finished our edits on the music novel! Through the enthusiastic use of Weasel-Stomping Boots™ and a take-no-prisoners approach to line editing, we removed almost 17,000 words from our draft.

We mentioned in the past that one reason the word count on this novel is so high is the inclusion of copious side matter. I think the best way to describe the outcome is to say that we have a 150,000 word novel with a 20,000 word novella smeared along the bottom margin.

Jen began the line edits with a scalpel, razoring away a word here, a word there, aiming to remove just ten words per page. As she moved into sections of the manuscript that needed more work, Kent joined her and they broke out their machetes. The carnage was glorious to behold, many darlings were slaughtered, and the end result is much crisper and livelier prose. A writing partner makes the process faster and more bearable.

The official second draft has begun its journey through our critique group, and so far they like it. That means all the hard work was worth it. By removing the problems we know about, we clear away the clutter and allow our critiquers to see any deeper issues we haven’t noticed.

Stomp!

r-avatarIt was tedious and time-consuming, but last night we finally finished stomping the weasels in the music novel. Weasel words are useless little things that take up space and bloat a manuscript while adding no nutritional value. Words like “that” and “had” and “then.” Removing them is sort of like combing out nits. Kent and Jen sit together at one desk, sharing a single monitor, and make monkey noises at the text. We look at every single instance of each trouble word and debate its merits.

Often no discussion is necessary. Kent and Jen agree that a particular “just” stays or goes. Other times there is dissension and a heated debate develops. So far we have not needed the intervention of an impartial arbitrator, but we have come close.

The de-weaseling process is one a solo author can go through, but a writing partner makes it much more efficient. Of course when you’re working on your own you won’t get into any arguments, which we will admit has its appeal. When you work with a coauthor, though, you cover for each other. There will be work sessions when one or the other of you isn’t feeling particularly ruthless. That’s when your collaborator takes the lead, leaving the weasels no safe harbor. Your manuscript will thank you.

Through the judicious use of weasel-stomping boots, we removed 652 instances of “that,” and 468 of “had.” All told, we cut over 5000 garbage words from our prose. It’s leaner and meaner now, and that much closer to publishable.

Music To My Ears

r-avatarWe’ve been deep in our music novel for the past few months, and just last week we reached the conclusion of Novel #5 in our critique group. This led to a lively discussion about endings in general, and the parallels between fiction and music composition.

There are many different approaches to endings, and different kinds of readers prefer different ending styles. What they all have in common is that readers seek a feeling of completion, that a “good” ending must be “satisfying” — whatever that means to each individual.

In music, this feeling of completeness is dependent on resolution. If the song changed key somewhere along the way, it will feel unresolved until it returns to its home key. The repeat structure, the lyrics, all kinds of elements of the music can contribute to this sense of resolution, of things coming together. This isn’t to imply that the only valid endings are those with complete resolution. Far from it. Some songs end on the up-beat and leave the listener ringing with unresolved energy. There are false endings, and slow fade-outs, and many other conventions.

Just like a good story ending, these various ways of handling resolution play with our instinctive, intuitive drive to have things tied up neatly. Sometimes the power of the ending comes from the elegance with which this denouement is achieved, while in other cases the conclusion’s ambiguity is what makes it stick with us, like the song that bounds up for its final beat, and never comes back down.

Tricky endings are definitely a place where it’s necessary to know the rules before you try to break them. Done poorly, they just feel flat. Like the author just stopped typing and called it “the end” without addressing questions raised along the journey. An ambiguous ending with no cathartic climax (aka, the European ending) isn’t right for every story, but then again not every tale calls for a big showdown. Just like not every song wants a gradual diminuendo, and not every song wants to end with a cymbal crash.

Look at the threads that make up your story, at the choices that haven’t yet borne fruit, and construct an ending based on satisfying your readers. Or, leave just the right questions ringing in their minds.