Tag Archives: Editing

Polishing Up: Dashes, Commas and Colons (oh my!)

19 May
photo of my laptop

photo of my laptop

I seem to be afflicted with RCS – Random Comma Syndrome.

I’ll be typing away, happily transcribing my story, when for no reason at all I’m seized with the overwhelming desire to throw in a comma!

And that’s fine, perhaps, when writing a first draft.  It’s even okay, I guess, to allow a few random blighters to remain in the second draft.  But now, on my fifth (and hopefully final) draft, I really must eliminate all the superfluous commas lurking in my manuscript.

But how?  They’ve survived this long, what makes me think I’ll spot them now?

Well, I’ve decided draft five is a ‘three read draft’.  Basically, this means I’m going to comb through the draft three times, each time hunting out a set of specific misdemeanours.

And that’s right, you’ve guessed it.  My first read through is all about Dashes, Commas and Colons.

Specifically, I’m working on:

  • Hunting down and removing all the random commas (and, of course, adding a comma or two in places that really need them)
  • Editing out the dashes wherever possible.  I have a strange love of those little horizontal lines, and as a result some paragraphs can look mighty strange!
  • Checking that when I’ve used a semi-colon I really do need one.  As with dashes, above.  I seem to have a strange fondness for the semi-colon!

I’ve been working on this read through a couple of weeks now, and have given myself the deadline of 24th May to have it finished.  Then, with draft 5.1 complete, it’ll be on to my next read through.

In draft 5.2 I’ll be focusing on  Dialogue and Thought, but more about that later …

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Structural Work: paragraphs in progress

21 Apr
Extensive scaffolding on a building in downtow...

Extensive scaffolding on a building in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m reading J.L. Carrell’s ‘The Shakespeare Secret’ at the moment and am totally in awe.  Every paragraph is like a mini work of art.  They flow perfectly.  Each one has a specific (and eloquent) purpose.

So with this observation in mind, I had a flick through my WIP.

Oh dear.  I could see some major reconstruction was needed for certain paragraphs.

The problem?

Well, the thing is, a paragraph isn’t just a load of random sentences clipped together so they look neat.  It should be like a miniature story in its own right.  Logically ordered.  Making a point.

So having spotted the problem, I had to fix it … I rolled my sleeves up and got on with the job.

Here’s an example:  I changed this:

Patrick hesitated in the doorway of the Biological Science office.  The usually vacant atrium was crammed full with people.  It looked so unnatural, thought Patrick. Watching the semi-drunk scientists swaying out of time to the dance music reminded him of the Sci-Fi Fan Convention disco he’d visited as a teenager.  Only worse.

To this:

God, it’s hot, Patrick thought.  There had to be over a hundred people in here, most of them drunk. It reminded him of the Sci-Fi Convention discos he’d attended in his youth: the smell of alcohol, a sticky carpet underfoot, and the sight of adults swaying out-of-time with the music.   He turned to Leo.  ‘Maybe we should just-’

I think the second version gives a better sense of how Patrick feels and what he’s seeing – first through his physical response, then through his observation linked to memory, then to his attempt to persuade his friend that they go.  Better I think.

Of course, then I had to check the other 332 pages …

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De-wooding my Dialogue

15 Apr
Aspen trees near Aspen, Colorado

Aspen trees near Aspen, Colorado (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So here’s the thing.

My plot’s sorted, the pacing seems about right, and the characters all seem fairly ‘real’.  But what about the dialogue?

Well, it’s okay … but.  I’ve recently shared a few scenes with some fellow writers and the combination of reading them out loud, and getting feedback from others, has made me realise I’ve been seeing my dialogue through rose-tinted glasses.

Because now, when I go back and re-read bits of it, I can see there is a woodish air to it. Like it’s standing up straight with its shoulders back, and trying just that little bit too much.

What it needs, I thought, is a quick shot of tequila, or to be told a dirty joke.  Anything to loosen it up a bit!

So in the fourth draft I’ve dusted off my wood-o-metre (used so easily when critiquing the work of others!) and applied it to my own.  And I think it’s working.  There are some of the changes I’ve made:

“It was totally impractical.”

Has become … “It’d never work out.”

“Maybe.  But, given your situation, there’s no time for caution.  If you’re going to go for it, it has to be now.” [I’m desperate to add ‘old chap’ on the end of that one!].

Has been shortened to … “Maybe, but you’re out of time.  Just go for it.”

And (my personal favorite) “It doesn’t feel right.”

Is now … “It’s shit.”

So, what have I learnt?

Well, firstly, real people don’t talk like they’re on a public service broadcast from the fifties (at least not in the setting of my novel).  And, secondly, always read your dialogue out loud, preferably in front of people.  It makes you more conscious of what works and what doesn’t – and is great practice for (hopefully, fingers crossed) those author reading you’ll do in the future.

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Editing: are we nearly there yet?

5 Apr

How many drafts make a novel?  One, three, six or more?

Siverstone at the start-finish line

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m on “that tricky fourth draft”.  That’s the one you start (feeling a tad unmotivated) after you thought you’d cracked it, then had another look and realised it wasn’t ready yet.

So what’s this edit about then?  Well mainly two things:

1. De-wooding the dialogue

2. Refining the paragraph structure

It’s important stuff, highly necessary, and not particularly fun.

So I chucked every mental roadblock I could at it.  Instead of using my writing time productively, I’d be checking Facebook, or thinking I was too tired, or frittering my time away on Twitter, or thinking about a new exciting story, and did I mention Facebook? [repeat to fade].

And then, just over a week ago, I realised I’d spent two months revising 100 pages.  Only 100 pages?  Rubbish!  I was only a third through when I should have done well over half.

So I gave myself a stern talking to, turned off the internet when I was editing, and got on with it!

And so far, so good.  I’m three-quarters through and aiming for a sprint finish over the Easter weekend.

So wish me luck … finish line here I come :-)

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Continuity Conundrum: Keeping Track of the Guns

20 Dec

Having fiLost 3rd Seasonnished edit 3.1 a couple of weeks ago, I’m now halfway through edit version 3.2.  This mini-edit focuses on continuity.

To be honest, I’d not thought all that much about continuity until recently.  It was when I was watching one of the (many) special features on the LOST box set that it struck me – who was looking after the continuity in my story?

On the special feature I was watching, members of the LOST crew spoke of the challenges they faced in managing the props on such a quick-moving, multi-shooting TV show.  One of their biggest challenges, they said, was keeping track of the guns.  That was because, as those stranded on the island in LOST had only a finite number of guns, if a character needed one there had to be a logical way for that character to get their hands on one.  And that meant they needed to know exactly where each gun was (and with who) at any given time.  Given the show’s non-linear timeline – jumping forward, back and sideways in time – this was an interesting problem.  Anyway, they got around this potential headache by keeping a whiteboard which listed each gun and tracked its position at any point in time across the series.

And this got me thinking.  Should I do that?  Not with guns, but with the key items that needed to survive the twenty-one year timeline of my story and end up in the possession of the right character.  After all, if an item starts off in Oxford in Chapter 1 and needs to be in Arizona by Chapter 16, there has to be a logical explanation of how it gets there.

Hence edit 3.2.  And although I’m relieved to say that so far most items have been in the right place at the right time.  I have spotted a minor character whose hair colour changed mid-scene!

So thank you creators and crew of LOST.

Because of you, I’ll always remember to ‘keep track of the guns’.

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Hitting the Century

14 Sep
Grape-Shot: 1915 English magazine illustration...

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve done it, I’ve hit the century!

That’s right, finally my current draft has made it past the 100 page mark (121 to be precise); meaning I’m a third of the way through my third draft revisions.  Kind of poetic, I think.

And that has to be a cause for celebration!

So, for tonight anyway, I shall delight in this milestone and celebrate with a cheeky glass of bubbly.

Of course tomorrow it’ll be back to the revisions.

Happy editing!

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Rabbit versus Snail: who edits quickest?

12 Sep
Snail race

Image by nojhan via Flickr

Oh, THAT’S Where I Left My Track!.

It’s so easy to be distracted.  And, even with the best of intentions, sometimes life just takes over.  Or ‘the day job’ does.

In their fabulous blogpost S.C.Green blogs about how easy it is to delay productivity and get pulled off track.  At the end he asks the question “Have you ever got derailed and struggled your way back?”  It got me to thinking about my writing process …

I’m one of those people who plans upfront, then once I’ve got the chapter outline sorted, writes the first draft at full pace.  My current WIP first draft took three months start to finish.

And then comes the editing.  The second draft seemed to go slow – editing out all the unnecessary waffle and clichés I’d put in as I sped through the first draft.  But, if the second draft was snail-like in speed compared to the rabbit-like first draft, the third draft is an elderly snail who gets out of breath after less than a minute!

So, there’s no doubt about it, for me editing is a long haul task.  And the thing about long haul is it’s super easy to get distracted – Twitter, Facebook, a new novel by one of my favourite authors, the garden, whatever! The payoff takes such a long time with editing it gets me yearning for something more immediate.

But, as S.C.Green says, no matter how many excuses I can come up with, the editing isn’t going to do itself.  Meaning – however slow an editing snail I am, I have to keep focusing on my track or I’ll never reach my destination.

I guess that’s the thing with writing – you’ll never be a novelist unless you actually finish the damn thing!

Happy writing :-)

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Specifically Speaking (aka don’t be clever, be accurate)

11 Sep

I’m well into my third draft now, and one of the major things I’m revising in this draft is my tendency to tell something rather than show it.  Okay, so a bit of ‘tell’ is fine to include now and then.  But, as my mentor pointed out, by telling what I could more effectively show, I’m giving the reader the vague idea, without any of the specifics of the scene.

 

Clever Toilet Paper

So what’s changed?

 

Well, for a start I’ve become much more particular about the words I use and the impression they create (but more on that in another post).  And I’ve found it’s actually a lot of fun to think about how a character acts when they feel a certain thing, or are put in an unusual situation.

For example …

One sentence that started out as this:

“Leo’s tone was black, his expression like stone as he tried to dam the flood of anger threatening to pour out of him.” (yes, yes, I know, vague and a bit smart-ass – especially in a contemporary romantic suspense).

Has now changed to:

“Leo glared at Madison. How could she betray him like this?  He clutched the napkin on his lap, twisting the fabric over and over to breaking point.” (more specific, showing actually what he’s doing/feeling rather than some abstract ideas).

And another example was using an everyday feeling to show more about the character’s personality.  I changed the original sentence:

“Leo felt stuffed.” (okay, so it’s specific, but rather dull).

To the much more personalised for the character:

“Leo eased out his belt by a notch and resolved to do an extra half hour in the gym the next morning to work off the calories.”

Although this edit is proving much more time-consuming than even my first draft, these type of revisions are strengthening my narrative and (hopefully) developing the characters more through showing their behaviours, actions and feelings in a variety of new (yet subtle) ways.

And so, enough distraction, on with the editing …

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Horse-sense for Writers: Take the Time it Takes (so it takes less time)

18 Aug


‘Take the time it takes (so it takes less time)’ says natural horse-man-ship pioneer Pat Parelli.

It sounds a simple mantra, but how many times in life have you tried to rush something in order to get it perfect quicker, only to make a mess of it and have to start all over again?  I can put my hand up to that a few times (and then some).

Of course, in hindsight it’s always easier to see that if you’d taken things a bit steadier in the first place, you might have gotten it right first time and, ironically, in quicker.

I’ve certainly found this true when playing with my horses.  And now, as I wade through the third edit of my WIP, I’m finding it just as relevant to my writing.

During the second draft stage I had a constant battle with myself.  Knowing that I’d need at least three or four drafts before I was satisfied with my novel, I wanted to finish the draft and get on to the next.  And the draft went okay, but I felt a constant state of frustration that my progress wasn’t quicker.

And that’s how it started with my third draft.  In this edit I’m adding character depth and detail and scrutinising every word to ensure it’s the perfect fit.  And that takes time.  I think my editing speed was about 1 page an hour.  And that made me very frustrated!

But then I remembered ”Take the time it takes (so it takes less time)”.  When I thought about my editing process in that way, I realised that if an hour was what it took to get a page into the best shape I could, it was an hour well spent.  After all, my overall goal is not to finish the draft, my goal is to have a published novel.

So last week I decided to let go of the frustration and focus on what matters: the quality of my prose and the development of the characters.

And guess what?  When I was looking at my log of pages edited today, I realised that my revisions are going quicker.  And not only that, I’m really enjoying it.

So I’ve taped the mantra “Take the Time it Takes (so it takes less time)” to the wall above my desk.

Thank you for the horse-sense.

 

 

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Story. Redefined: 2

3 Jul
A copy of Auguste Rodin's "The Thinker&qu...

Image via Wikipedia

So I’ve finished my second draft!

I’ve cut out 7,000 words, I’ve rewritten the bits that didn’t make sense, I’ve refined the bits that lacked pace and steadied the bits that rushed forward incoherently.  In short, I’ve got a solid second draft.

And that’s what it is – a second draft, not the finished article.  Because although I’m pretty pleased with what I’ve achieved so far, I just know there’s a way to go before it’s ready to be paraded around in the paddock for the viewing pleasure of agents and publishers.

So what have I learnt during this second draft phase?

Be subtle:

Don’t have actors gasping, whispering and twirling about all the time.  It’s like actors overacting – it hams up the scene where you don’t want it to, gets in the way of the story and the characters, and distracts the reader.

Be ruthless:

It’s a tough call, but scrapping those needless sentences and words that don’t really add anything is essential to refining the draft.  Cutting out the waffle has helped me step up the pace.

Get on with It:

Don’t avoid the editing, it won’t do itself!  I started off hating the editing process, and ended up, well, not loving it, but certainly appreciating its benefits.  The key for me was ‘little and often’ – doing a bit everyday, even if it was only a page.  Often I found I’d do much more than I intended.

Paper first:

It might not be the most ecologically friendly method (offset by using recycled paper and recycling my paper notes) but printing out a chapter at a time and editing it with a red pen really helped my process.  It all looks so pretty on the screen that I found it harder to be ruthless in my editing, also I found that handwriting amendments (and crossing them out until I found the right words) made the process flow more.

Set yourself a target and share it with your writing buddies:

I set myself a target date to finish the second draft.  It was the 5th June.  I did overrun by a couple of weeks, but that didn’t matter.  What mattered was that the target stayed in my mind (I’m very goal driven!) and was pinned up on my desk, in my diary and I’d committed to the goal by sharing it with my writing buddies.  There’s nothing like a bit of peer support to motivate you to keep going.

So, what next?  Well, a couple of days breather, a few new blog posts (it must feel awfully neglected!) and then on with the third draft.  In the meantime I’m getting feedback on my second draft to help shape my plan of action for the next round of revisions.

And you know what?  Editing is definitely growing on me – I’m actually looking forward to the third draft!

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