Process plan
I didn’t finish my first novel before I started revisions. I finished about a third of it, went back and edited heavily and then tried to complete the rest of it. In dong so I made two crucial mistakes. I revised too early, and, because I didn’t have that much to revise, I concentrated too hard on minutiae.
I didn’t want to fall into the same trap this time, so made some original promises to myself and then devised a process for revision that makes sense to me:
1. Finish the book. At all costs. I just kept writing and writing until it was done. And let me say the end I have now is drastically different than the end I started with, the end I thought I was writing towards. Funny thing, though. The end I have now? That’s the one that was truly drawing me forward. So I finished the book (and thanks again to the week-long retreat at WildAcres for giving me the kind of break I needed from the mundane details and responsibilities of life to discover the real end and to allow it to fall into place).
2. Let it sit. Others have mentioned Stephen King’s On Writing, and I can’t second their recommendations enough. It’s a great book on the craft and grind of writing and King’s voice rings honest and good throughout. There’s even an uplifting part at the end about the healing properties of writing (or any ritual, really), so you get that, if you’re into that sort of thing. I let this one sit six weeks as King recommends, and it was enough time for me to recognize the good writing, see the slack prose and envision the piece whole enough to understand what work remains.
3. Write necessary scenes. In writing the book, I allowed myself to write out of sequence. I understood there were some things that would happen between characters, and I understood a basic narrative arc. I wrote scenes as they came to me. It worked well, but some scenes I abandoned early, and some other scenes I never wrote because they seemed too difficult at the time, and I wanted nothing to hinder my momentum. I’m almost done with my first read-through, and there are about seventeen scenes I need to write before I begin the second phase of revision. Some will be longer than others, but I can see them now, and know how they fit in relation to all the other scenes.
I choose to do all revisions on a hard copy. I just feel better being able to hold the manuscript in my hands. It provides tangible evidence of the work I need to do. As I read through the novel, I put a number on the manuscript where a new scene needs to go. On a small piece of paper, I write the number and make some quick notes about what the scene needs to be or more importantly, what it needs to do to further story or character or both. I’ll also include any ideas I might have about bits of dialogue or actions between people. (see photo, above)
I used Scrivener when writing the novel. I know it has a similar notes feature built in, but I like doing it this way, in the concrete world.
4. Sequence. Because I wrote as scenes struck me, I wrote some things out of sequence. There are scenes that now sit in the back third of the novel that must be moved forward. A couple need to be moved way forward. As I rearrange these scenes, I’ll also need to be conscious of continuity errors. I imagine Scrivener will come in handy during this revision phase.
5. Continuity errors. Since I’ll be moving some scenes around, I’ll have to change little things like wardrobe, constellations mentioned in the sky, some people’s reference to events. What I’ll be doing here is nothing more than matching timeline to timeline, what’s on the page to what’s in my head. Also, since I wrote about 400 words each morning, I sometimes forgot things I mentioned 800 words before. There’s many a scene when someone stands from already standing or slumps against a door they slumped against two pages ago. These things happen, and are an easy fix.
6. Finally, I’ll take a look at the sentences and the words in them. I may end up recording the whole thing out loud as I think this is one of the best ways to catch errors in rhythm, repetition and word choice. It’s also a great way to make sure your sentences are varied and lilt, if that’s the style you’re going for.
During this process, I’ll also be writing a summary and trying to put together a proposal to send to agents and small publishing houses. That’s the scary part, actually. That business part. But it must and will be done. In fact, I’m giving myself a December 31 deadline. I hope that gives me enough time to get the synopsis or novel into the hands of editors and agents, polish to publishable over the summer and have the book ready for a spring or summer release. Yeah, I don’t like to think about the whole process taking that long, either.
