Revision Alchemy: Part 3
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Tricks and Tactics
Hard writing makes easy reading. Wallace Stegner
I'm in the final gasps of revising a manuscript and, once again, I'm grateful that a friend's fresh eyes gave me a proverbial kick in the manuscript. Whether I'm drowning in delight at my own cutesy-wootsy phrase, or persisting in beating the reader over the head with how important the d r a m a of the situation is, well for those times, I gotta have friends. Honest friends. Honest friends with eye for the ick.
Whether you're ruthlessly judging your own work or a friend's, you should look out for the problems we all tend towards:
1) Shrugging, grinning, and grimacing: Are your tics showing? All of us have writing tics—repetitive descriptors we repeat. Discover yours or have someone point them out (If I let them, all my characters will lean toward the other characters during times of stress) and remove them.
2) Let the reader rest after you jazz them up: Have you balanced scenes and sequels? Can you feel a good rhythm of active scenes vs. reflective sequels? (Scene: Maria snuck the diamonds from the dresser as Mama slept. Sequel: Maria researched the legality of taking her mother's jewelry, anxious to see if she'd do time.
3) Don't make the reader insane! It's really not artsy to make the reader guess where the characters are in time and place. Are your Transitions clear and smooth? Are you moving the reader through time? Sliding effortlessly into flashback? Showing that settings have changed? Showing changes in mood, tone, emotion, weather, and POV?
Have your transitional sentences do double duty: The following day, rain kept Elliot from getting in his daily run. The enforced laziness made him nastier than usual—making it a good time for Maria to hide out.
Thus, in two sentences we learned: Elliot has a temper, he runs, Maria is scared of him, and it's raining.
Practical strategies I use
1) The first read: After the first draft cools off (the longer, the better) read it from front to back like a book. Printed out. I put it (double-sided) into a three-hole punched binder—so I can sit back and turn the pages, trying to fool myself that I am actually reading a 'book.' One smart writer I know actually prints out one paperback copy through Lulu.
Read your work before you re-read collected critique from your writer's group, before doing computer tricks, before micro-changes. Don't revise as you read, just mark it as you go, writing down thoughts such as: Make Maria older. Maria's hair changes color in Chapter 4, 8 and 9! Chapter 3 is boring.
I write TK for 'to come' in large red letters next to the clumsy stuff that bothers me, as a way to say: rewrite this junk. I can't remember where I picked up "TK" (Editors mark?) but it lets me read through the junk without feeling that I have to stop and fix. I scribble MEGO (my eyes glaze over) every time my work doesn't even hold my interest. Trust me, if you're darlings bore you're your reader will fall asleep.
2) Post Draft Outlining helps you see what you have, which is probably different from what you planned. Taking the time to do this helps you envision the larger picture.
After finishing each draft, update your outline chapter-by-chapter outline. I use a spreadsheet to show POV, setting and main conflicts of each chapter. This serves not only to orient me, but helps me avoid repetition (like realizing I've set half my scenes in Maria's kitchen.)
I enter chapters and main events into an actual calendar for a visual at-a-glance method of orientation. (You can print ones from Word and other programs.)
3) Search and Replace and Highlighting: MS Word's Control F action (command F in Mac) helps me more than any other. I use it for universal changes (oops, I should have named the maid Zita instead of Jane.) I use it to find tics (wow, the word 'lean' comes up 2300 times!) I use it to locate weak writing (for instance by highlighting passive words.)
As example, the offending word "was" is insidious. I just looked at an early document vs. a more recent iteration and saw the number of "was" went from 1678 to 971. Highlighting all the 'was' in your manuscript will force you to re-work dull or weak sentences:
Original Sentence: I was making a mess as I was baking the blueberry pie
Revised Sentence: I made a mess when I baked the blueberry pie.
Better : After baking the pie, greasy flour and sugar covered the kitchen counter.
Removing Tics: Find and highlight your 'tic' words. I searched and highlighted 'sigh,' 'sighed' and 'sighing' in my last revision. (When I went from Revision 1 to my most recent, I only reduced 'sighs' from 29 to 15. Sigh.)
Overused words: Swearing in small doses, in fiction as in life, can be effective. Overuse waters down the impact and spoils the read. Find, highlight, and fix.
4) Reading aloud: I hate doing it—but I find it invaluable. Read the entire manuscript aloud. The bad parts, the clumsy parts, the rotten dialog, the typos, the unrealistic and over-blown, the underwritten, the lazy—it will jump out when read aloud. DO THIS!
I have moved from self-reading to using a text-to-voice reading program. I use two computers—while one reads out loud, I fix text on the other screen—pausing the program as needed (oh, and it is needed plenty.) For me, Natural Readers has been the best of the text-to voice programs. I found the version I paid for in Natural Readers superior to the free program.
5) Gut check. Sadly, often what we think is great isn't necessarily so. What we think is groan-worthy in our own writing, generally is. Therefore, if you think it's broke, fix it. In addition, if there is a line you love so much you're willing to keep entire shaky or unneeded scenes to support it—kill that line!
6) Orphanage: Uncertain about a cut? Sad? Afraid you may need it later, but don't want to search through entire manuscripts? Make a computer file labeled orphanage or excised scenes and put in your cuttings. I find it reassuring.
7) Websites I've used:
1. http://www.cliches.biz/clichecleaner/ the free download alone is worth the trip.
2. http://www.refdesk.com/ Dictionary, thesaurus, medical, government, statistics
3. Find the top 500 names for any year
4. http://www.infoplease.com/index.html Atlas, dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia, etc
5. http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html#l Common English errors
7. http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/index.html Guide to grammar and style
8. http://www.askoxford.com/?view=uk Grammar view from Great Britain
9. http://scholar.google.com/ Research friendly
10. http://answers.google.com/answers/ Ask and answer questions
11. http://thesaurus.reference.com/ Thesaurus/dic-medical and legal dictionary, translates
12. http://www.foodsubs.com/ Cooking terms
13. http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/
14. http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/vocabularies/ Art, architecture, geography
15. http://www.fao.org/aims/ag_intro.htm multilingual vocabulary/ terminology of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food, and related domains (e.g. environment).
16. http://www.howstuffworks.com/ What doesn't it tell you?
7) Recommended Reading for Revision
Between the Lines: master the subtle elements of fiction writingby Jessica Page Morrell
The Modern Library Writer's Workshop by Stephen Koch
Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway
On Writing by Stephen King
Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King
Roget's International Unabridged Thesaurus (The old fashioned harder to use kind—nothing matches it.)
"The discipline of the writer is to learn to be still and listen to what his subject has to tell him/her." Rachel Carson
