Tip of the last several weeks: Revising Your Manuscript
REVISE, REVISE, THEN GO BACK AND DO IT AGAIN! When you are done with that, rinse and repeat!
Please please please do not be one of those writers that thinks the first draft is also the final draft. There is no more sure-fire to NEVER get published. Even the greats get edited, even the greats do revisions. So as newcomers to the novelsphere, it goes without saying that there is room for improvement.
As noted in a recent post, I have completed the first draft of my first novel. Although it has some very good sections, there are a lot which aren't that great. Several members of this community have pointed out many weaknesses with the opening section.
I know there is a lot of work and revising to be done before I will even consider moving toward an attempt at getting it published.
Good, isnt good enough. Real good isnt good enough. Great is getting there. Superb is when you can start thinking about getting published.
Tips I found online mixed with some of my own:
By the time you've read and reread your work ten or twenty times, it can become too familiar to you, making it next to impossible to flush out mistakes and recognize areas that could be reworked. Each time through seems to accomplish less than the one before.
Here are several tips to help make your revisions more productive. Take a piece of paper and list the problems you hope to discover and correct. Your list could look something like this:
1. Look for the deadwood, the unnecessary bits that don't move your story forward.
2. Check the first paragraph of each chapter for "hooks." Does your paragraph pull the reader in?
3. Check the end of each chapter for "cliffhangers." (I call this the Dun dun dun ending. Will Jill survive the rampaging loony on the Battlements? Will Lisa really find her lost puppy Peppy? Tune into the next chapter to find out!) I love to end my chapters with a great "oh crap" moment, or by dropping some sort of bombshell. This kind of thing gets the reader flipping fast to the next chapter.
4. Examine each page for balance between dialogue, action, introspection and description.
5. Find places to build in more character traits.
6. Look for inconsistencies. One place the temperature is hot, where a section shortly thereafter says that it is cold. I actually caught that one in my book.
7. Look for repetition, words repeated too often, too close to each other, repetetive phrases, words that are repeated too often, and repetition.
8. Check your dialogue tags. Eliminate the expression ridden tags, and replace them with "said". ie "Your advice stinks," Dee spat. These types of tags draw attention to themselves, where the dialogue and body language should be expressing the emotion. Always always whack any adjectives after 'said'. They weaken your writing. For example: "I let my lame dialogue tag adjectives express how I am feeling rather than show it through my actions and the words I speak," Dave said lamely. "Oh, that is too bad," Jill said disgustedly. "I don't know... I like doing that," Lisa said swayingly. You get the idea.
9. Check for overuse of words that end with -ing or -ly. Walking happily down the undulating spring blossoming hill, I sing and sing like the thing in Dr. Seuss' lovely book. "How lovely," I said lovingly. <---- both in one word, and as one of the dialogue tags to whack. he he he
Once this is pointed out to you, read through your current work. The -ing words will stand up and pop you up side the head. Buh-BAP!
10. Revisit your dialogue tags. This time make sure that they follow the form "Speaker said" instead of "said Speaker". For example: "What great advice," Jill said. Instead of : "You are loony," said Lisa.
11. Eliminate emphasis on words. For example "I THOUGHT I told you to clean UP this room, and VACUUM this filthy carpet!" Assume that your reader (or victim) is intelligent and can apply their own voice inflections. These should also stand up and cuff you a good one. The same goes for italics. "I thought I told you to clean up..." Although a person may actually emphasize words like that, don't force your own inflection down the readers eyes.
11. Find typos and grammatical errors. Always use a spell checker. Check for common grammatical errors. For example. Dave and Erica looked down the street and seen a monkey shoot out a window.
*Each time you sit down to reread your manuscript, choose one point from the list to look for; ignore everything else. Every rereading needs to accomplish a specific task. Have a set goal in mind each time you start. Know what it is you plan to achieve, and your revision time will accomplish more.
Happy Writing!
Please please please do not be one of those writers that thinks the first draft is also the final draft. There is no more sure-fire to NEVER get published. Even the greats get edited, even the greats do revisions. So as newcomers to the novelsphere, it goes without saying that there is room for improvement.
As noted in a recent post, I have completed the first draft of my first novel. Although it has some very good sections, there are a lot which aren't that great. Several members of this community have pointed out many weaknesses with the opening section.
I know there is a lot of work and revising to be done before I will even consider moving toward an attempt at getting it published.
Good, isnt good enough. Real good isnt good enough. Great is getting there. Superb is when you can start thinking about getting published.
Tips I found online mixed with some of my own:
By the time you've read and reread your work ten or twenty times, it can become too familiar to you, making it next to impossible to flush out mistakes and recognize areas that could be reworked. Each time through seems to accomplish less than the one before.
Here are several tips to help make your revisions more productive. Take a piece of paper and list the problems you hope to discover and correct. Your list could look something like this:
1. Look for the deadwood, the unnecessary bits that don't move your story forward.
2. Check the first paragraph of each chapter for "hooks." Does your paragraph pull the reader in?
3. Check the end of each chapter for "cliffhangers." (I call this the Dun dun dun ending. Will Jill survive the rampaging loony on the Battlements? Will Lisa really find her lost puppy Peppy? Tune into the next chapter to find out!) I love to end my chapters with a great "oh crap" moment, or by dropping some sort of bombshell. This kind of thing gets the reader flipping fast to the next chapter.
4. Examine each page for balance between dialogue, action, introspection and description.
5. Find places to build in more character traits.
6. Look for inconsistencies. One place the temperature is hot, where a section shortly thereafter says that it is cold. I actually caught that one in my book.
7. Look for repetition, words repeated too often, too close to each other, repetetive phrases, words that are repeated too often, and repetition.
8. Check your dialogue tags. Eliminate the expression ridden tags, and replace them with "said". ie "Your advice stinks," Dee spat. These types of tags draw attention to themselves, where the dialogue and body language should be expressing the emotion. Always always whack any adjectives after 'said'. They weaken your writing. For example: "I let my lame dialogue tag adjectives express how I am feeling rather than show it through my actions and the words I speak," Dave said lamely. "Oh, that is too bad," Jill said disgustedly. "I don't know... I like doing that," Lisa said swayingly. You get the idea.
9. Check for overuse of words that end with -ing or -ly. Walking happily down the undulating spring blossoming hill, I sing and sing like the thing in Dr. Seuss' lovely book. "How lovely," I said lovingly. <---- both in one word, and as one of the dialogue tags to whack. he he he
Once this is pointed out to you, read through your current work. The -ing words will stand up and pop you up side the head. Buh-BAP!
10. Revisit your dialogue tags. This time make sure that they follow the form "Speaker said" instead of "said Speaker". For example: "What great advice," Jill said. Instead of : "You are loony," said Lisa.
11. Eliminate emphasis on words. For example "I THOUGHT I told you to clean UP this room, and VACUUM this filthy carpet!" Assume that your reader (or victim) is intelligent and can apply their own voice inflections. These should also stand up and cuff you a good one. The same goes for italics. "I thought I told you to clean up..." Although a person may actually emphasize words like that, don't force your own inflection down the readers eyes.
11. Find typos and grammatical errors. Always use a spell checker. Check for common grammatical errors. For example. Dave and Erica looked down the street and seen a monkey shoot out a window.
*Each time you sit down to reread your manuscript, choose one point from the list to look for; ignore everything else. Every rereading needs to accomplish a specific task. Have a set goal in mind each time you start. Know what it is you plan to achieve, and your revision time will accomplish more.
Happy Writing!
posted by Dave | 10:04 AM
4 Comments:
Dave, great tip for writers on revision. I am finally reading Stephen King's On Writing and he shows his own personal technique on revising. I just got done revising my current novel for about the third time and I think it is finally where it needs to be! Very well said.
Thanks Jeff. Good luck with your novel. What genre is it?
This reminds me that its time I re-read "Self Editing for Fiction Writers."
Hey Dave,
This was quite helpful.
Thanks,
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