Tag: editing

One Pass Revision: Day 3, Part 2 (55/563)

Manuscript Slog Page Count
55/563

Nothing went at all to plan today, but I got a bit more done.

Chapters 3 and 4 have a number of POV characters. I didn’t head hop within scenes, but I did change characters at scene breaks. I don’t think it’s at all confusing. I had considered rewriting each chapter as a single POV, but I’m not sure I can unless I want to have some very short chapters, or I can come up with some very interesting new material. Chapter 2 was the same way, but I was able to easily reassign the scenes to other characters and make an even split between two of them.

I’m going to push on and hope for the best. I’ll keep trying for single POV per chapter and if it works out everywhere else I’ll have to come back to this stuff. I’ll just make a note in the notebook for now.

One Pass Revision: Day 3 (46/563)

Manuscript Slog Page Count
46/563

Had a really busy weekend, but I finally was able to get some time in tonight… err.. this morning. Fairly heavy rewrites. Changed the point of view on a number of scenes. I removed a few scenes and was able to replace them with only a sentence or two in a later scene. I like some of the stuff I cut, but it really didn’t fit anymore. I wrote a few new scenes as well. I’ll need to review them before moving on, but I’m too tired to do that right now.

One Pass Revision: Day 2 (38/563)

Manuscript Slog Page Count
38/563

I’m going to try and post progress any time I work on the revision. I’ll also put the current page count. I only had a bit of time, but I made some more progress on Chapter 2 today. I had to stop to get other stuff done, but I need to roll some potential changes around in my head.

There’s a great cliffhanger in the middle of Chapter 2. Chapter 2 is too long. It doesn’t have enough material to be split as is (especially since I’m cutting left and right), but I think I see an opportunity to flesh out another important character sooner rather than later.

I doubt I’ll get back to it until at least Sunday, but it’ll be bouncing around my head until then. I’m actually excited about the story again, which is great.

Started

Amazingly I managed to get started today even though many things conspired against me.

I completed the discovery section of the One Pass Revision with little issue. I had pretty much done all that stuff before starting the story, and some of it even still applied. I worry that it may have been too easy. Maybe I did something wrong? We’ll see.

So I started the slog. I managed to be brutal. I hacked the entire first chapter right out of the book. It was a tough choice, but I think it was the right one. I’m holding on to it, because it could easily be expanded into a short story on it’s own, but the book doesn’t need it. Do I think the book is better without it? I’m not sure, but it’s not the solid start I want, so it had to go.

Chapter 2 Scene 1 didn’t need too much work. Chapter 2 Scene 2 wasn’t bad, but I rewrote most of it. Chapter 2 is light on dialog. Chapter 1 wasn’t. Since it’s gone, I needed to get some more dialog into the book earlier. This removed a bit of infodumping, and allowed me to improve some weak characterization.

Not a bad hour and half’s worth of work. Special thanks to the kids for letting me get it done.

Ready to Begin

Ok. I think I’m ready to start on the revisions. Let me just check the supply list

  • A printed copy of the manuscript. Check.
    Supplies: Manuscript
  • A cheap spiral-bound notebook. Check.
    Supplies: Notebook
  • A couple of smooth-writing pens. Check.
    Supplies: Pens
  • A table with room for three piles and an open notebook. Check (covered earlier).
  • Good lighting. Check.
  • Nerves of SteelTM. We’ll find out!

Rebooting the Edit Process

It’s time to get back to editing my first novel. I’m going to start over. I read lots of articles on editing when I started, and one of them really stuck out: Holly Lisle’s One-Pass Manuscript Revision. I recently re-read the article, and it makes a lot more sense now. Right from the opening it grabbed me and said, “Just start over and try this.”

The first draft of your novel is finished. Now, according to the recommendations of any number of writing books, pundits, and writers who go through this themselves, you’re in for five or ten or more rounds of revision, in which you’ll polish your work until it is a gleaming, perfect pearl … and in which process you’ll dither for months or years.

You can do that if you want. But you don’t have to.

I believed that when I read it the first time, but I didn’t have the confidence to try it. Instead I tried something which can only be called “my way.” I can tell you with great confidence that “my way” sucks big time. Maybe I needed to fail on my own before trusting someone else on this. Who knows.

So I need to start with the Supplies section, and the thing that sticks out right now is:

A table where you have room to stack your manuscript into three piles and have the spiral-bound notebook open at the same time.

Yeah. I have that. It’s the rear section of my desk. Problem is it currently looks like this:

Supplies: The Desk

So that’ll be step one for me. Clean the desk!

Still Writing

I haven’t been posting much, and I haven’t mentioned writing in a while, so here’s a quick update. The novel edit is on hold right now. I need to rethink my approach. There are some problems, and I have a good feeling what they are, but I’m not sure how to fix them yet. Every time I’m sitting still for 10 seconds to think about it someone gives me something to do. So I’m working on other writing related tasks. I’m doing world-building work for another novel, and I’m writing some short stories set in that world to help flesh some things out.

Life, the Universe, and Chapter 12

Everything has been way too hectic of late. Family, work, writing, you name it. I’ve been overwhelmed, and not overly motivated these past few weeks, but I’m hoping to change that starting now.

I need to come up with a schedule for finishing this draft. Writing as time permits is pretty much a recipe for me to be lazy about it. It seems I need a deadline of some kind. I did some fairly major rewrites of Chapter 12, but I now need an entirely new chapter to stick between 12 and 13.