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..."

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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!

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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 ;-).

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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.

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Editing the Mystery Novel.

I'm editing Dog Show Detective, a novel aimed at kids between 8-10yrs about 11yr old Kitty who takes her Miniature Schnauzer to dog shows and solves mysteries. This week I started the editing process. Okay, I skimmed the manuscript and made a coupla' notes. It's the festive season, time has been short.

Last week I told you Kitty's dog would go from being called Shakespeare to Spade because it had more significance to the story. This week I've found a few more necessary changes.

Sometimes ideas come to us after we've already written a scene, so I make notes in my notepad. For each manuscript I dedicate a MS Word document for chapters, another for notes and ideas, a Plot Builder file to see how the manuscript is shaping together and a handy-dandy notepad (tip I learned from Steve in Blue's Clues), to jot down ideas when out and about. I find ideas and corrections come when I don't plan them, so the notepad gets filled and the doc file stays empty.

I was halfway through the Dog Show Detective mystery before I realised I only had one suspect. Not much of a mystery then. Instead of going back, I ploughed on and wrote in more characters as if they had been there from the start. Now in edit time I need to find ways to believably introduce them and start to drop hints about motives.

Motives act as clues, they tell us who we can suspect and who to dismiss. A character's motive must be realistically weighted for the crime, for example, most people won't commit murder these days just because they've fallen out of love with their spouse. Divorce seems a much easier solution. BUT, if the person stood to loose a lot financially, they were dedicated to a religion that forbids divorce, they are scared their spouse will beat or kill them if they try to leave, or if they're having an affair with their under-aged student and their wife has discovered it, then you have a strong enough motive.

Writing-World has a great post about dropping clues into your mystery narrative and explains the different types of clues you can use. Another great site is Perpetual Prose on Crafting Twists and Dropping Clues.

You will need to have several characters with strong motives for the crime, which is where I originally went wrong with my manuscript. Once I placed in a few more characters with various motives, I discovered two chapters from the end that my original suspect would not be the perpetrator at all! I love it when our narratives surprise us.  :-)

For newbies to mystery I strongly recommend reading and dissecting Agatha Christie novels, she had several formulas that worked well. The Christie Mystery is a site that has some very helpful tips for mystery writing, including a post on 'The Least Likely Suspect', one of my favourite Christie novels had ALL the suspects commit the crime.

Point of view is important for a crime novel, the most popular being limited third person (that's what I have chosen) or first person. The reason for this is because in most mysteries you don't want the reader to know the answers before the detective. You can experiment with different styles if you are little bit clever ;-). Check out Sylvia Dickey Smith Books if you need the different point of view possibilities explained.

This may sound repetitive, but reading mysteries is a great way to work out how to craft a mystery. I've been reading a couple of kids' mysteries such as Trixie Beldon, Nancy Drew and The 39 Clues (1st book by Rick Riordan). This has shown me another flaw in my narrative. I've focused on setting the story up to mislead and eventually lead to the solution, I've tried to have fun and exciting chapters, but I haven't had enough DANGER. 

Kids want action, they want their mystery fast paced and exciting, they want to worry about the characters. Don't underestimate your young reader, they learn quickly how to spot patterns. I'm often informed by kids that they know the main character will survive, so they don't worry so much about them, but when secondary characters are in danger, that can be scary because you just don't know how necessary they might be. I'm going to write in a few more near misses for Kitty's friends, family and even Kitty's dog.

Kids also love stereotype characters, Scooby-Doo almost always included a scary, old grounds-keeper that would seem really mean, but not end up being the villain.

Okay, so lots of work to do for me this week - I have to actually get onto making changes to my manuscript and I'll be reading How to Write Killer Fiction by Carolyn Wheat and Youdunit Whodunit by Nicola Furlong.

Time to edit - let's turn that good idea into a great narrative.

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Editing - What comes after the 1st Draft?

During November I wrote a 60k first draft of a YA fantasy novel, The Costume Maker, a tale about a group of teens thrust into a magical world of fairies, gypsies, dragons and danger. My plans were to spend December editing, so first I needed to spend some time researching approaches for revising a novel. That's what I've been doing this week.

Here's what I've found so far and some nifty resources:

Universally across my research I came across a common theme for step one. Put your finished first draft aside and don't read it for a period of time. 

James Scott Bell calls this 'letting it cool' in Plot and Structure (I liked this book so much, I ordered Revision and Self-Editing in the same series and am keenly awaiting its arrival). The idea is to gain an objective approach when you read through your novel for editing.

If you're a visual person like me, you see your story unfold in your mind as you write it. This has its benefits and can create its own obstacles. Seeing your story may mean that you don't get stuck for plot ideas, but it could also mean you miss describing things that you see, leaving gaps in your plot.

By putting your manuscript aside for a few weeks or longer, you can read your words with fresh eyes, allowing you to be more critical of the narrative, structure, language, characters, etc.

Even though I'm not ready to revise The Costume Maker just yet, I printed out my manuscript anyway. There is a certain elation that comes with seeing your writing in print, the thickness of all those pages, your creation. This is your reward for finishing.

In Word by Word, Anne Lamott (I downloaded the audio-book from iTunes) says you should never think of printing your drafts as wasting paper. Value your words, they deserve it, you deserve it.

Before November, I was working on my novel Dog Show Detective, so in a 'here's one I prepared earlier' moment, I'll be working on revising my first draft of that novel this month.

The best advice I found was from Christopher Vogler in Using Myth to Power Your Story (also available from iTunes). Vogler suggests thinking about the story you've written and coming up with one word that it's about. This is harder than it first seems, surely we wrote our stories with a theme in mind? I'm pretty sure I started with a premise for Dog Show Detective, but lost it somewhere in the writing process. I can't decide if it should be 'Loyalty', 'Mystery' or 'Identity', I suspect it may be as lame as 'Dogs' at this stage.

You probably have more than one word that your novel is about, but you could prioritise those theme words. Next you have to decide the premise surrounding that word. If your word is 'Love', is your premise 'Love conquers all', or 'Love is blind'? Then using that premise as a guide you go through your story scene by scene and make sure each one relates to that theme.

Using this technique, I have already realised a major change that I want for Dog Show Detective, if I use the word Mystery as a theme word and 'Things are never what they first seem' as a premise, I've decided my sidekick's name must change. Shakespeare is Kitty's Miniature Schnauzer that she enters in dog shows and together they solve mysteries. Now Shakespeare's name will change. My favourites so far are Spade, Poe or Doyle.

Another way of approaching your edit is to look at your plot structure, do you have an introduction of the characters, climb of action, climax and resolution? Or break your plot lines down to the individual character's plot chart, visit How to Plan, Write, and Develop a Book to hear more about this.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing for Young Adults has a complete section on revising and suggests using a critique group or writer's group. This book suggests sample questions to ask when getting people to review your work as well as providing overall areas to review in your narrative.

If you can't join a local writer's group, you can find critique groups online. I sometimes use Critique Circle, you upload your chapters for review and critique other people's work in return.

When revising your manuscript, keep in mind who you are writing for. Dog Show Detective is aimed at young novel readers, about 8-10, so I write the story specifically for what my 8yr old daughter would enjoy. If you write for kids, then let kids critique your manuscript, then you'll know what works and what doesn't.

And as I said last week, read what you write. I'm reading young girl's detective novels, like Phillip Pullman's Ruby in The Smoke and  Julie Campbell's Trixie Beldon series.

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Pens Down

Today is the last day of NaNoWriMo - The month of novel writing, where authors and would-be writers frantically try to complete a minimum 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

I planned to keep writing till the last day, even when I passed my 50k mark a week early. But when I found my story finished just over 60k, I felt a little flat. I still had several days to go but did not have the urge to write as frantically as I had been.

Why?

I think you need to take time to celebrate that feeling of being 'finished'. Of course there's gaps in the story that need filling, extra scenes you thought up later and a whole lotta editing to do. But I just wanted to sit on that sensation of finishing this book. I hadn't finished a whole novel before, although I'd started plenty.

Finished your NaNo novel - what now?

If you still have time to write, then write. I took one day off. This was not easy. For some reason my mind finds tormenting me a great lark, it kept suggesting writing ideas and scenes for the book that wouldn't come when I needed them earlier.

The next day I wrote a short story, in a genre and style that is completely different from my novel. The old 'change as good as a holiday' routine. The fast pace of NaNoWriMo can leave you feeling a little burnt out from writing this one novel, so why not start a notebook, forget the NaNo novel for the day and just jot down weird and crazy ideas for other stories instead.

Then what?

My tact on approaching what comes after NaNo will be two steps.

1. Leave it alone for two weeks.

I'm going to print my manuscript, save it in a million different places for safe-keeping and let my mind lose the attachment to each and every word. This is the only way I'll be able to approach editing.

I won't stop writing though, whether it's ideas, dialogues, blogs, working on other WIPs (I'll be writing up the final chapter to Dog Show Detective and starting that book's edits), the idea is to keep the imagination cogs oiled and moving.

2. Read, a lot.

Prior to November, I took on the task of reading books in the genre I wanted to write. This gave me a feel for the common language used and understood by the readers and writing devices used for the narratives. Time now to return to that task before I edit the book. My NaNo novel is YA fantasy, so I'm reading similar novels to look for the type of character arcs, the places where the narratives reach a climax and what stands out from each novel. I'll keep notes on this too.

For example.

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak: Tells a story set in Nazi Germany, but manages to find a new angle, the story is narrated by Death (whom we learn is a very sensitive being).

The Alchemyst - Michael Scott: (I'm now on the second book, The Magician), There are immortals, mythical creatures and magic. What stood out for me with this novel was the magical creatures were all from historical legends and mythology, some will seem familiar and some, I hope, will have the young readers jumping on the internet to research the stories surrounding these myths.

Malice - Chris Wooding: I haven't read this one just yet, but what excites me is that the narrative is about children being taken to another world that exists inside a comic book. The novel is a combination of text narrative and intermittent comic graphics. When students struggle with reading, English/Lit teachers can sometimes encourage them with graphic novels. There is however a gap then in getting students keen to move to text narratives, and easier text usually means a less mature plot. I would love to see more novels like this one to help move students gradually from experiencing success with graphic novels and moving onto text novels. There's a niche out there author/illustrators!

Magyk - Angie Sage: During November, when I wasn't writing, my eyes were usually too tired to read. So, I downloaded this book from iTunes. You can listen to books while driving, doing the dishes, hanging out the washing or walking the dog. I also downloaded some writing style books this way. This narrative's best feature was the action. It started early and kept at a fast moving pace.

My hint on audio books - listen to the sample, a good reading voice makes a difference, one Podio (podcast) book I'm listening to now features a guy who sounds like he's trying to sell me a set of steak knives).

I have also discovered Amazon Kindle for PC. How did I not know about this sooner?!

It's great. I download books straight to my PC.

Being in Australia and having books cost so much over here, this is fantastic, not only are the books cheaper, but I have no freight costs. So far I'm finding I prefer to read non-fiction online and still like a hardcopy book for reading fiction. But the application is free so give it a go!

Next:

I'm looking at a few books and sites for editing your story.

I'll let you know what I find and we can start slashing and rebuilding our novels!

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