A Trip to Chorley & Some Thoughts about Self-editing

Last week I was invited to speak to Chorley & District Writers Circle, a friendly group who meet on the last Tuesday of every month at the Hartwood Hotel in Chorley.

I was glad to discover that the hotel is conveniently located just off the M61, but be warned – if you're coming from the motorway you have to negotiate a roundabout with a tricky set of lights. I managed this and then found myself in the wrong lane about to sail past my destination. (Apologies to the driver I cut across and to the people outside the hotel trying to have a quiet chat on their mobiles as I whizzed into the car park at an alarming speed.)

After that the evening went swimmingly as far as I was concerned, though I'm not sure the writers had the experience they were hoping for. I'd been asked to speak about my experiences of being published…the group did manage to ask a few questions and we had some laughs, but of course I got carried away. As a result, there wasn't much time left to talk about editing novels which was the other subject the group wanted to discuss.

A commendable number of the members had novels underway or completed. In a busy life finding the time, energy and commitment to write anything can be difficult so I was impressed. I was delighted to be introduced to the concept of the 'sleeping' novel ie one that you've started but are not currently working on. A familiar experience for many of us, I imagine! But rather than feeling guilty about it, how nice to think of it resting and waiting to be woken up (like Sleeping Beauty).

To introduce the topic of revision I quoted Kurt Vonnegut's comforting words:

This is what I find encouraging about the writing trades: They allow mediocre people who are patient and industrious to revise their stupidity, to edit themselves into something like intelligence .

Of course I hastened to make it clear that I was including myself among the 'mediocre'; I'm certainly not one of those lucky people who can produce a stream of deathless prose at the first attempt.

I talked about macro-revision: looking at the structure of your novel with a chapter by chapter summary to highlight the narrative arc; checking the characters for consistency and depth. Here another quotation from Kurt Vonnegut seemed to strike a chord:

Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

I take this to mean not that you have to explore the motivation of all your characters even the minor ones, but that an awareness on the writer's part of what all the main characters want will help to enrich every scene. And even minor character can be individualized : the waiter desperate for his shift to end will serve the meal in a different way from the waiter eager to impress his boss.

We soon ran out of time, alas, and I had to leave the group with the handout I'd prepared showing the revisions a paragraph of went through. If you're interested, you can see it here.

It demonstrates what I believe is the main way to improve your work at the micro-level: cuts, as we know all too well, are often unwelcome, but when it comes to writing they are a Very Good Thing.