Edit Time - Who has it?

I keep saying I'm editing my manuscript Dog Show Detective, but in reality I've overloaded myself with so many books, podcasts and courses on editing, that I barely had time to even tackle the manuscript. So this week, I learned to stop reading techniques and start applying them. I now actually have scribbles and marking right through chapter 1! (small victory but I still celebrate)


My main source of information for this first edit was based on Holly Lisle's 'How To Revise Your Novel' course. I'm only halfway through week one, but it has already proved helpful. If you'd like to check that course out, you'll find it here:



What has it taught me so far?
That my first step should be to step back and review my initial intentions with the novel, how that has changed and what I want from it now. I can find questions like this a bit ambiguous, I need clear instructions, so fortunately for me there are worksheets in the course (I love worksheets!).


This was an eye opener for me, I hadn't even thought about what I want my novel to be! Now it's a bit clearer for me I can tackle the edits with that in mind. I'll have a FOCUS.


Next step was to read through my manuscript and look for problems with character, setting, story, boring bits and identify the successful moments. The last bit is the most important to me, I thrive on praise, even if it's from myself! That's something I try to remember to give freely and deservingly to my students in the classroom.


Holly provides codes and worksheets, so you can write the code into the manuscript and then record the issue, problem or reflection into a table. I'm guessing when it's all done I go through my sheets and then systematically fix all the character problems with the narrative, then maybe all the parts where the story is too slow etc.


Last week I told you I would dedicate a certain time of day to editing - I'm trialling 10am-12noon. How has this gone? Well, it took almost the week to get into the swing of stopping housework, ignoring people and getting down to work. I think I'm trying to recapture the NaNoWriMo motion where the manuscript takes priority (just for a couple of hours). 


Mostly I spent this time reading editing books like Revision & Self-Editing (Bell) and Manuscript Makeover (Lyon). I've been a bit scattered and sifting through lots of sources. I needed more FOCUS. So, I decided to stick with the How to Revise Your Novel course yesterday, and I found I was a lot more productive.


Dog Show Detective - the edit:
Ch1
Wait, I was so careful writing this, surely it's perfect? Um, no.
As this story is primarily about a girl and her dog, I realised that they should be the first characters introduced. Kitty is first (my 11yr old protagonist), but Spade (the dog) is the second dog introduced - will fix that! He is the star of the story after all.
Kitty's family consists of her mother, father and little brother - there was also an old dog. I'm scrapping the old dog, he just didn't propel the story at all. Spade will be the only dog in the family. 
I need to do some character work on the father and brother. At the moment they just seem to be 'there' without having enough of their own role in the narrative, they need more dimension. I'll spend some time trying to figure who they should be, maybe do a character profile on them.
My flashback was too long, too much description about their old house and blah blah (even explaining it bores me). That will become more succinct. 
Most importantly, I found some little gems that I love, little comments that are insights to Kitty's personality and her weaknesses. These bits are my rewards and motivation to push on to chapter two.


On a final note, the most important ingredient for editing is... a manuscript. You have to finish the story before you can fix it, promote it, etc. If you're still writing you might find some of my older posts helpful for when I was writing my NaNoWriMo novel, there's lots of links to helpful sites.


If you feel like you are drowning in the process, just remember Dory's wise words from Finding Nemo, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming..."

Editing Lessons - it's starting to sink in

I'm a little disorganised this week, which is not much different from the weeks leading up to this one :-), so instead of hashing out a single topic on editing, I'm going to skim over what I'm learning so far.

• Know your characters - It's easy to get lazy with some of your secondary characters, but if you don't know them as a whole person (or dog, in my case) then they will be flat in the scenes. Everyone has their own idiosyncrasies which can add flavour or humour to a scene. I just read Devil May Care - a 'James Bond' novel by Sebastian Faulks, in which James Bond was described as being a good judge of character, and in particular, knowing when he could trust someone. Really? Every film I see has James accepting a drink of some evil stranger and getting himself drugged, or hooking up with a sexy young woman who turns out to be working for the bad guys. The rest of the novel was an enjoyable escape, but that small part stuck in my mind and if you are not careful the same can happen with your characters. Your readers will know if something just doesn't sound consistent and your storytelling depends on them being able to imagine it happening.
• In mysteries the pace should keep increasing to the climax. Try to organise your hurdles in order so they become more and more exciting, leaving your reader breathless. I'm going to rearrange some of my situations that Kitty gets involved in, so they escalate towards a grande finale.
• The first step to editing your manuscript is to READ it right through. Seems obvious, but the temptation is to keep skimming through to the bits you want to fix. One read through, without making corrections, just get a feel for how the story flows. 
• My new approach is going to be to schedule time towards editing my stories. I found this didn't work so well for me when I was writing because my ideas would rebel and come 3hrs later or in the middle of the night, so I just went with the flow. Editing is like mending is to dressmaking, less fun but essential if you want a great finished product. I need to be a little more regimented with myself and I think I'll allocate 10am-12pm for editing every day, if I get more in, that'll be a plus.

Well that's it from me this week. I've read a couple of great books and articles on editing while on holidays, so I will try to organise my notes on those for next week's post - which I'm aiming to get back to Monday posts (down here in Aussie calendar time).

Happy writing!

Write and Drive

Still school holidays and I'm on a driving trip with the girls to visit my Dad in Brisbane. Right now I'm blogging from MacDonalds in the country town of Warrick (thanks to their free WiFi).
 In my suitcase I have, not only clothes, undies and pyjamas for me and the kids, but a whole stack of books to attack during this short trip. Amongst them are books on editing your novel, writing mystery novels and the one I'm excited to finally try: 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain'. There are also an endless number of e-books and PDF files I have on hand on writing and editing.
 You'd think this would be enough to keep me busy for 4-5 days in the sunshine state, but yesterday (while at another country MacDonalds), I managed to sign up for Holly Lisle's 'How To Revise Your Novel' course (check out my friend Inky's page for a link to the course - she offers a discount). I've been doing Holly's 'How to Think Sideways' course on novel writing and have found many parts extremely helpful to get me started writing. Thanks to that course, and NaNoWriMo, I now have two manuscripts to edit (and yes they are also in my suitcase).
 Although I don't expect to get through even half of what I've packed, the best part of the holiday is not having the day to day distractions, or guilt (I can't sit down and write in my messy house, but I'm pretty sure I can happily write in someone else's mess).
 Travelling also provides lots of anecdotal opportunities to record for inspiration or straight-out life plagiarism for future novels. Will I write about the pub food in Goondiwindi (isn't that the best sounding town name?), that it was so slow, pretty ordinary tasting, but at least it was expensive? Maybe not, but it's recorded in my notebook - just in case.  :-)  Or maybe I'll want to capture the feeling of being in a town where most people are wearing Akubras (our cowboy hats), or how it felt to notice for the first time ever that Akubras are pretty sexy, when I always thought I was attracted to suits and ties?
 Plus the drive is even time spent wisely now with the wonderful invention of iPods, I listen to podcasts and audiobooks on writing and writers and when I need a break from that, I've got the audiobook 'The Thief Lord' playing.
 Have notebook, pen, laptop, iPod and imagination - will travel! Now I think I should pick up one of those Akubra hats to take back for my husband ;-).

New Year Resolution - Finish Novels!

Happy 2010!

Blogging got forgotten during the holidays for me, I had a great time with my father visiting our little country home and even building an outdoor bar area for us, I think it'll be my favourite place to write!

Editing also got conveniently pushed aside over the last few weeks, but on the 2nd of January I sat back down at the computer, determined to finalise the last chapter of Dog Show Detective (the story of 11yr old Kitty who takes her Miniature Schnauzer to dog shows and solves mysteries). 

I've been stuck on this chapter for a bit, so, I had a crazy old guy pull out a gun and shoot a character, that got things moving! I then had my MC faint and wake up inside a caged and padlocked pen. How was I supposed to get her out of there?

The idea of the gun wielding lunatic is an old trick of adding  surprise to a narrative. In Revision & Self-Editing (James Scott Bell), surprising behaviour is a key way to liven a story that drags. Bell quotes Raymond Chandler as saying when things get boring, "Bring in a guy with a gun" (I sure did).

My puzzle now is how to get the Lead character out of the cage where she's trapped with her friend and a badly wounded boy. Bell has also helped me out with this predicament, he suggests the Lead character needs to show inner courage, experience conflict and act with honour. This great instructional book tells the self-editor to write a list of at least ten things that the Lead character could do, what would be unexpected?

So I wrote, keeping in mind all of the above suggestions, this is what I came up with:

When the old man returns with his gun, so does the wounded boy's dog. Just as the man raises his gun, the dog leaps and knocks him down, the bad guy hits his head and is unconscious. Kitty eventually gets the keys and opens their prison, they want to run, but Kitty won't be able to leave the boy bleeding with a bullet wound. Here is Kitty's conflict, she's only eleven, she wants to get to safety, but instead sends her friend for help and picks up the crazy man's gun, in case he wakes. Kitty chooses bravery and honour.

Bell also suggests if you come up with some outrageous solutions, it may be a good idea to use the 'Pull-Back Technique', basically you invent an over-the-top solution and then tone it down by about 25%. For example, I thought I would have the bad guy wake up and Kitty would have to shoot him. That's too extreme for a kids' book, so instead, I'll have Kitty think about what she has to do, get scared and decide that she can't kill a person. Kitty will lower the gun, and shoot his foot. That should be enough to keep them safe until help comes - extreme, minus 25%.

Revision & Self-Editing is proving to be a valuable tool for my first experience at editing a novel, I definitely recommend you check it out.